French Police Put Out A Sting On Windows
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Imagine being able to reduce your IT budget by 70%! Can’t be done, not here in the US where Microsoft reigns supreme and the FUD flows freely, but apparently other countries are able to make it work for them without too much trouble.
The French National Police Force is the latest to save with the switch to Ubuntu and yes, it was this government entity that found the savings of 70% in their IT budget. Not surprisingly, they found the move to be a lot smoother than expect, the biggest shift for them being where the icons are placed. Well that and the difference in games as well.
France has been working at moving away from Windows for sometime in their government, but to the surprise of many of you out there, they are hardly alone. Not even counting the smaller countries throughout the world, France is in good company with the UK and Canada for making the switch away from Windows over to something that is free from the licensing headaches and costs.
4 Comments
Ron Knights
April 17th, 2009
at 7:42pm
Ubuntu or Linux will never be a good alternative for me.
Ubuntu is still too clunky. It should be at least as easy to use as Windows.
Ubuntu or Linux will not be an alternative to me until there is a Ubuntu (Linux) version of all the software I want to use.
Substitutes are not good enough. I want the Real Thing.
NobodyMan
April 27th, 2009
at 8:40pm
Well, this is good to here…Im surprised to see they dont have any platform dependent apps that require windows iin their police department….
Though, thats good. Ubuntu is a pretty solid distribution that is pretty easy to use and Im sure the French Police wont have too many problems after the inital hurdles.
Vinothan Shankar
May 1st, 2009
at 11:15am
@ron: Could you define “easy to use”, please? While I understand about your applications, especially if they don’t run well enough in, say, wine, I think you’re probably using “easy to use” to mean “what I’m used to”. Do you remember when you first used a computer? Whatever it was, I doubt it was “easy to use” back then, either.
As for “Ubuntu or Linux”, some of the available distros are so different from each other that if they didn’t use the linux kernel there’s be no doubt about their being different OSs. You’ve probably heard it before, but it’s worth repeating: LINUX IS NOT AN OS. It’s a kernel, or in other contexts, a group of OSs, but not one in itself.
One more thing. If there really is no equivalent to the software you want to use, then I think you’re perfectly justified in using windows, or anything else for that matter. However, there are now very few programs that most people would use which do not have a Linux equivalent.
Ron Knights
June 23rd, 2009
at 1:02pm
To me “Easy to use” means just that.
I should be able to install Ubuntu Linux, and operate it as easily as Windows.
That means no going to “Command Lines,” whatever.
I’ve tried Linux several times over the past year or so.
I keep getting frustrated. Maybe I’ll build a junk computer and try again.