05/28/2003 May 28th 2003
The city council of Munich today made a key decision to deploy the open
source operating system Linux instead of alternative operating systems.
This initiative will see Germany's third largest city migrate 14,000
desktop and notebook computers to Linux. Their objective is to deploy
information technology that stimulates more commercial and technological
flexibility at a lower cost to the public sector. Although the council has
not made a decision on its choice of vendor, Linux distributor SUSE Linux AG and
IBM Germany will be participating in the resulting contract bid.
Richard Seibt, CEO SUSE Linux: "Today, the city of Munich announced a
courageous, momentous decision to choose the right technology at the right
time. Courageous because it is not always easy to decide against the status
quo -- especially in the face of the tremendous pressures we know can be
brought to bear. Momentous because we believe this truly marks a watershed
moment for Linux. The city clearly sees Linux not just as cost savings over
costly, proprietary software, but also as the best tool for the job --
bringing security, stability, flexibility and privacy, not available to them
before."
Walter Raizner, Country General Manager IBM Germany: "In the public sector
in Germany we have seen a variety of new implementations of open
standards-based software such as Linux. And worldwide, more than 75 IBM
government customers - including agencies in France, Spain, UK, Australia,
Mexico, the United States and Japan - have now embraced open computing and
Linux to save costs, consolidate workloads, increase efficiency and enact
e-government transformation. With Munich's decision, one thing is clear -
it's open season for open computing. Linux represents freedom and
flexibility. This is essential in e-government - they need more
flexibility to serve their constituencies better and faster, and freedom of
choice to do it at less cost to the public. Munich is leading the way."
Press Contact:
Jasmin Ul-Haque
Novell, Inc
Phone: +44 (0)1344 326-900
E-mail: juh@novell.com
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