Go to Open Source and save 50 million euros. Experience the French gendarmerie.
The time of the financial crisis makes us think about the issues of economy already in the scale of the national economy and state structures. Just at this moment of discussion of the attractiveness of Open Source from eq. points of view are of the greatest interest and seem not to be such a “toy” in the eyes of top managers and top officials of the country.
Consider the history of the transition to the Open Source French gendarmerie.
What is the good example of the French gendarmerie? The fact that this structure began the transition to open source software several years ago (more precisely, in 2001). So to say, without waiting for, while Open Source will become fashionable and almost obligatory factor in saving its existence. Also, in this case, we have on hand already reliable results and facts, and are not obliged to build only forecasts.
The beginning of the long journey of the gendarmerie to open source software is dated 2001. It was then that an expert group was assembled, which was supposed to deal with the transition from Windows to Ubuntu GNU / Linux.
Experts very quickly agreed that the future IT infrastructure should be modular in order to quickly configure the system for any needs. In this case, open source software was the most justified solution, since with its use the goal could be achieved by applying the least amount of effort and resources (which is important on a national scale).
The second argument in favor of the transition was the ability to support open protocols and standards.
Thus, as a result, in 2005, OpenOffice.org was implemented throughout the gendarmerie. This was followed by the transition from Outlook to Thunderbird, and, accordingly, from IE to Firefox.
The last malystone was delivered with the announcements of the release of Windows Vista - the plans to switch to open OS started to be implemented immediately.
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At the beginning of 2008, the gendarmerie openly announced the introduction of Linux-based operating systems on all workstations, which caused a stir to Microsoft itself (starting from July 2007, only 200 Windows licenses were bought, before this amount ranged from 12,000 to 15,000 annually ). As a result, by the end of this year, it is planned to transfer 15,000 stations to Ubuntu, which will bring about 50 million euros of savings (counting from 2004); New PCs come preinstalled with Ubuntu.
In short, the results of the implementation of the French gendarmerie impressively positive. From year to year, the organization intends to save about 70% of funds for the maintenance of its IT infrastructure. At the same time, the work of thousands of gendarmes in all corners of France was not significantly disrupted.
The French gendarmerie is one of the largest institutions in Europe, which can put its results as an example to all European government (and not only) institutions - this explains Microsoft's anxiety, since the results of imitating such an example can be catastrophic for him.
In this case, even active promotion of Microsoft problems that may appear during the transition to Open Source will not help. In published reports there are no descriptions of any problems associated with the introduction or use of such software, as there are no points about the need for staff training. These arguments were the main propaganda from Microsoft.
The experience of gendarmerie is really useful in many aspects: we have been shown how to organize the transition to Open Source correctly and efficiently on a fairly large scale, and, most importantly, how much it can reduce the cost of “air” in the IT sphere - to buy licenses.
UPD: Translation of quotes from the case - habrahabr.ru/blogs/open_source/54219 . (Part 2)
Consider the history of the transition to the Open Source French gendarmerie.
What is the good example of the French gendarmerie? The fact that this structure began the transition to open source software several years ago (more precisely, in 2001). So to say, without waiting for, while Open Source will become fashionable and almost obligatory factor in saving its existence. Also, in this case, we have on hand already reliable results and facts, and are not obliged to build only forecasts.
Story
The beginning of the long journey of the gendarmerie to open source software is dated 2001. It was then that an expert group was assembled, which was supposed to deal with the transition from Windows to Ubuntu GNU / Linux.
Experts very quickly agreed that the future IT infrastructure should be modular in order to quickly configure the system for any needs. In this case, open source software was the most justified solution, since with its use the goal could be achieved by applying the least amount of effort and resources (which is important on a national scale).
The second argument in favor of the transition was the ability to support open protocols and standards.
Thus, as a result, in 2005, OpenOffice.org was implemented throughout the gendarmerie. This was followed by the transition from Outlook to Thunderbird, and, accordingly, from IE to Firefox.
The last malystone was delivered with the announcements of the release of Windows Vista - the plans to switch to open OS started to be implemented immediately.
')
Results
At the beginning of 2008, the gendarmerie openly announced the introduction of Linux-based operating systems on all workstations, which caused a stir to Microsoft itself (starting from July 2007, only 200 Windows licenses were bought, before this amount ranged from 12,000 to 15,000 annually ). As a result, by the end of this year, it is planned to transfer 15,000 stations to Ubuntu, which will bring about 50 million euros of savings (counting from 2004); New PCs come preinstalled with Ubuntu.
In short, the results of the implementation of the French gendarmerie impressively positive. From year to year, the organization intends to save about 70% of funds for the maintenance of its IT infrastructure. At the same time, the work of thousands of gendarmes in all corners of France was not significantly disrupted.
Expectations and plans
The French gendarmerie is one of the largest institutions in Europe, which can put its results as an example to all European government (and not only) institutions - this explains Microsoft's anxiety, since the results of imitating such an example can be catastrophic for him.
In this case, even active promotion of Microsoft problems that may appear during the transition to Open Source will not help. In published reports there are no descriptions of any problems associated with the introduction or use of such software, as there are no points about the need for staff training. These arguments were the main propaganda from Microsoft.
The experience of gendarmerie is really useful in many aspects: we have been shown how to organize the transition to Open Source correctly and efficiently on a fairly large scale, and, most importantly, how much it can reduce the cost of “air” in the IT sphere - to buy licenses.
UPD: Translation of quotes from the case - habrahabr.ru/blogs/open_source/54219 . (Part 2)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/54179/
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