Munich has become an important proof-point for Linux and particularly the capabilities of Linux on the desktop since the German city opted to trial Linux for the 14,000 PCs across its council offices in early 2003.
The trial was particularly significant as it was a choice made despite the personal intervention of Microsoft Corp CEO Steve Ballmer and one made not for cost reasons, but to ensure licensing flexibility and vendor independence.
The original cost of upgrading the city’s 14,000 PCs to the latest versions of Windows and Office, $36.6m, was enough to encourage Munich to look at cheaper alternatives, including a $35.7m bid from SuSE Linux AG and IBM Corp.
The thought of losing such a lucrative deal encouraged Microsoft to bring out the big guns, with CEO Steve Ballmer flying in to try to persuade Munich to accept a contract price that was reportedly lowered first to $31.9m and then to $23.7m. Indicating that the value of Linux lies beyond initial licensing savings, Munich chose to trial the SuSE/IBM offering, however, concerned by Microsoft’s licensing schemes that urge users to upgrade their software every five years.
The wisdom, or otherwise, of that choice has been put to the test since then with over a year of review, and is scheduled to be voted on by the city’s 82-member council at a meeting today, according to Bloomberg. However, while IBM and Novell Inc, which acquired SuSE Linux earlier this year, were involved in the trial process, they are not guaranteed the contract for the project even if it does get the green light.
Meanwhile, Novell has announced that along with IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co it is involved with the City of Bergen’s decision to migrate its server infrastructure from a mixture of Unix and Windows to Linux.
The City of Bergen is planning a two-phase move to SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 on systems that cover 50,000 users of the city’s administrative and educational systems. The migration will initially see Bergen’s 20 Oracle database servers currently running on HP’s HP-UX Unix being replaced with 64-bit Itanium HP Integrity servers running SLES 8. Those systems power the city’s core health and welfare services applications, among others.
The second phase will see the city’s educational system applications, which serve 32,000 students and 4,000 teachers, move to IBM eServer BladeCenters running SLES 8. The move will also see a consolidation in the city’s number of application servers, down from 100 Microsoft Windows servers to 20 BladeCenters. The migration is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2004.
It is not the first time that Linux and open source software has found success with Norwegian governmental organizations. In July 2002, Norway’s Minister of Labor and Government Administration, Victor Norman, announced that it would not be renewing a license with Microsoft to supply Norwegian public-sector institutions.
