Summary: The City of Munich, famous for dropping Windows
for a Linux OS, has chosen open-source software to handle mail and
calendar for its staff.
The authority running the German city of Munich, famous for ditching Windows in favour of a home-grown Linux OS, has chosen an open-source software suite to handle email and calendar for its staff.
The City of Munich has chosen to use the Kolab Enterprise groupware software to manage mail, calendar, task, and contact lists.
The decision comes soon after the council completed a nine year
project to migrate more than 14,800 of its PCs from Windows to Limux, a
custom build of Ubuntu — a choice the project lead described as not
being about saving money, but about freedom from lock-in.
Limux project lead Peter Hofmann signalled at the time that the city
of Munich would do its best not to let itself become too dependent on a
single technology vendor again.
"We saw from the start that if you're only relying on one contributor
to supply your operating system, your office system and your
infrastructure, you're stuck with it," he said.
The switch to Kolab is part of the council's MigMak project and is planned to be complete by the end of 2014, according to tender documents. The migration will be managed by Kolab partner ESG.
The council's Limux and remaining Windows PCs — which it has kept for
compatibility reasons — will run Kolab Enterprise 13's desktop and web
client.
Kolab Enterprise 13 was released in December for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, with support for other platforms to be added later.
The groupware suite from Kolab Systems AG in Switzerland, was
originally developed for the German Federal Office for Information
Security.
Even though Munich's decision to leave Windows wasn't financially
motivated, Munich said the move to open source software saved it more
than €10m.
HP produced a report on behalf of Microsoft that claimed the shift to
Limux and OpenOffice would cost Munich three times more than official
figures – although Munich pointed out the report was based on a number
of flawed assumptions, such as significantly overestimating the number
of staff working on the project.
However, Limux project lead Hofmann admitted shifting away from
Windows had been a difficult process, as the council wrestled with
reconfiguring an infrastructure littered with proprietary formats and
protocols to play nicely with LiMux and free software.
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