How Munich switched 15,000 PCs from Windows to Linux

cant touchthis · 09-05-2014 10:22PM #1

linuxvoice.com/the-big-switch/

Munich city council has migrated 15,000 workers from Windows to Linux. It’s a great success story for Free Software, and it upset Microsoft enormously. We visited the city and talked to Peter Hofmann, the man behind the migration – so read on for all the juicy details about what went right, what went wrong, and what made Steve Ballmer sweat…

Kinet1c · 10-05-2014 07:35AM

Spotted this article over on HN yesterday, not surprising what Microsoft/HP did to try and prevent it from becoming a success. Hopefully a lot more follow in their footsteps.

azzeretti · 10-05-2014 08:12AM

Kinet1c wrote: »

Spotted this article over on HN yesterday, not surprising what Microsoft/HP did to try and prevent it from becoming a success. Hopefully a lot more follow in their footsteps.

Haven't read that article yet but I subscribe to their podcast, which is decent.

Rumor has it Steve Ballmer himself flew to Munich when he heard they were considering the change. Apparently his arrogance spurred them into the move. More like this I say!!

kippy · 10-05-2014 08:22AM

cant touchthis wrote: »

linuxvoice.com/the-big-switch/

Munich city council has migrated 15,000 workers from Windows to Linux. It’s a great success story for Free Software, and it upset Microsoft enormously. We visited the city and talked to Peter Hofmann, the man behind the migration – so read on for all the juicy details about what went right, what went wrong, and what made Steve Ballmer sweat…

This is pretty old news. Think it happened between 2005 and 2010 and ongoing since.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/29/munich_linux_savings/
TBH I dont buy into the figures.

Kinet1c · 10-05-2014 09:04AM

kippy wrote: »

This is pretty old news. Think it happened between 2005 and 2010 and ongoing since.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/29/munich_linux_savings/
TBH I dont buy into the figures.

Well if you take 1 upgrade of Microsoft Office in the 10 year period since they started, 15k * ~€200 you're going to save €3m. Likely in that period you would've had 2 Office upgrades so you can double that figure and you're 60% of the way to your €10m saving.

Having used Kubuntu, it's quite lightweight so you can also extend the usage of your hardware, saving more money.

I'd say that they had a big fight on their hands from users and not one I'd have liked to be involved in.

kippy · 10-05-2014 09:43AM

Kinet1c wrote: »

Well if you take 1 upgrade of Microsoft Office in the 10 year period since they started, 15k * ~€200 you're going to save €3m. Likely in that period you would've had 2 Office upgrades so you can double that figure and you're 60% of the way to your €10m saving.

Having used Kubuntu, it's quite lightweight so you can also extend the usage of your hardware, saving more money.

I'd say that they had a big fight on their hands from users and not one I'd have liked to be involved in.

Enterprise customers dont pay the same as private individuals for desktop Microsoft OS and productivity software. It's considerably less per seat. The bigger costs are usually in the backend.
In fairness the extended use of the hardware is a bit moot as well. Generally office users dont need powerhouses of PC's anyway. Theres plenty 7 or 8 year old hardware in industry running XP or even 7 at this point.

Im gonna have a right look at the most recent figures when I get a chance but somehow I dont believe the actual savings are as high as the headline figures suggest.
For a start the project took 10 years.
Id add I amnt against this model however I dont believe cost is the only driver that should determine decisions such as this mainly because it is such a difficult figure to work out.

cant touchthis · 11-05-2014 04:41PM

Using Microsoft Is Cheaper Than Free Software Says Government Chief Information Officer

It is hard competing with the world’s largest software company, but it can seem virtually impossible when even giving away your products is deemed too expensive. That is the point made by UK government Chief Information Officer for Hampshire Jos Creese and it throws a spotlight on the huge challenge faced by any company trying to compete with a giant like Microsoft MSFT -0.22% or Apple AAPL -0.42%.

“We use Microsoft [and] each time we’ve looked at open source for desktop and costed it out, Microsoft has proved cheaper,” said Creese in an interview with Computing. “Microsoft has been flexible and helpful in the way we apply their products to improve the operation of our frontline services, and this helps to de-risk ongoing cost. The point is that the true cost is in the total cost of ownership and exploitation, not just the licence cost.”

Hoping to change attitudes is UK cabinet office minister Francis Maude (pictured below), who is championing the adoption of open source software in government. Maude claims the UK could save “tens of millions” of pounds per year by ditching proprietary software and said roughly £200m ($340m) has been spent on Microsoft Office alone since 2010............

Carries on...

excollier · 12-05-2014 07:27AM

Microsoft are not going to let go easily, and will obviously spend some of their vast resources to keep large organisations on board. The average user only knows Windows and maybe Apple.
Anyway, look at it this way, as long as Linux stays small it will stay out of the crosshairs of the vermin that make and distribute malwares. Keep the guns trained on Microsoft and let me have peace with my computer.
Incidentally, I am off to a Microsoft day in Donegal tomorrow, will be interesting to hear what they are saying......or predictable.

kippy · 12-05-2014 10:25AM

excollier wrote: »

Microsoft are not going to let go easily, and will obviously spend some of their vast resources to keep large organisations on board. The average user only knows Windows and maybe Apple.
Anyway, look at it this way, as long as Linux stays small it will stay out of the crosshairs of the vermin that make and distribute malwares. Keep the guns trained on Microsoft and let me have peace with my computer.
Incidentally, I am off to a Microsoft day in Donegal tomorrow, will be interesting to hear what they are saying......or predictable.

These very little chance that any major organisations who are already heavily invested in windows will move to open source, in large numbers anyway.
The headaches, timescales involved, retraining and staff costs just dont justify it, especially if the threat of same helps reduce the licensing bill from Microsoft.

croo · 12-05-2014 09:07PM

These very little chance that any major organisations who are already heavily invested in windows will move to open source

a very quick google finds... http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2234593/barclays-slashes-software-spend-by-90-percent-with-open-source-drive
I'm sure there are many more examples.

On the other hand theStreet thinks you should sell your MS shares
http://www.thestreet.com/story/12700488/1/nobody-can-save-microsoft-its-about-to-die.html

With everyone and everything moving to the web (including MS with its office 365) I think MS have lost their trump card - control of the desktop! I mean if the app is in a browser who cares if it's windows, linux, iOS or android?
But we won't have to worry because here Ireland we're 20 years behind everyone else - well it feels like that sometimes as I work away on my 90s speed internet :rolleyes:

kippy · 12-05-2014 10:28PM

croo wrote: »

a very quick google finds... http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2234593/barclays-slashes-software-spend-by-90-percent-with-open-source-drive
I'm sure there are many more examples.

On the other hand theStreet thinks you should sell your MS shares
http://www.thestreet.com/story/12700488/1/nobody-can-save-microsoft-its-about-to-die.html

With everyone and everything moving to the web (including MS with its office 365) I think MS have lost their trump card - control of the desktop! I mean if the app is in a browser who cares if it's windows, linux, iOS or android?
But we won't have to worry because here Ireland we're 20 years behind everyone else - well it feels like that sometimes as I work away on my 90s speed internet :rolleyes:

You should reread that article and read what it actually says.......
Barclays aren't exactly planning on ditching their desktop OS and office productivity software for open source.

You'd also want to have a close look here and look at the market shares which aren't exactly falling.......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

My point stands, the amount of organisations that will dump their desktop OS's and Office productivity products is tiny in the grand scheme of things and something MS aren't that worried about.

If you are starting with a greenfield site/business then things are different but mass migrations of thousands of devices to open source OS and Productivity software is a massive piece of work filled with issues.

In a corporate environment the selection of apps are far more restricted to a point and at times reliance on a public cloud for hosting apps isnt great from numerous standpoints.
Then you've got to ask what technology is behind that cloud......... (I am well awara its a very mixed environment and that Linux based options are wildly used.......)
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/02/26/microsoft-neck-and-neck-with-amazon-in-windows-hosting.html

I think people grossly underestimate Microsofts adaptability. If theres a space in a market place and there is value there they have the resources to try get into that space.....even if they might be a few years behind competitors getting there:
EG: HYPERV - came to the party a good bit behind VMWARE - caught up fast!
http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2013/09/24/vmware-or-microsoft-comparing-vsphere-5-5-and-windows-server-2012-r2-at-a-glance.aspx
EG: Windows 8.1 Phones
Yep, they have been in this area before but this time they've bought Nokia to try provide the full package.
http://www.nokia.com/global/products/nokia-lumia/
EG:
System Centre Config and Operations manager
MS realised a number of third parties were in this area, most notably Altiris at the time (since bought by Symantec) so MS bought a few companies in this area. Now the product is widely used in large environments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Center_Operations_Manager
EG: (on a smaller scale)
Bitlocker, Microsoft Security Essentials, Integrated partition manager, integrated system image backup tool etc etc are all incremental software additions MS has made to windows (among others) that essentially replace a third party tool that would have been used in the past.

Whether these implementations copy another or not are pretty much irrelevant.
Microsoft aren't going away, far from it I would argue. Cloud or not.

croo · 13-05-2014 01:14PM

You should reread that article and read what it actually says.......
Barclays aren't exactly planning on ditching their desktop OS and office productivity software for open source.

Yeah I did, but I had read you comment at face value and not related it to your earlier posts.

I think people grossly underestimate Microsofts adaptability

I'm not sure they have. They have their fingers in many pies to be sure but they usually come late to the party - they've become followers instead of leaders. In the past they have used their control of the desktop to hobble their competitors but if the shift to the applications based around a web interface were to continue (as I expect it will do) then they lose the ability to do this.

Bitlocker, Microsoft Security Essentials, Integrated partition manager, integrated system image backup tool etc etc are all incremental software additions MS has made to windows (among others) that essentially replace a third party tool that would have been used in the past.

yeah, but again they've been doing this since the days of MS-Dos. It really just cannibalises their development partners business.

If MS had created BING before Google, Explorer before netscape, their winphone (or whatever it's called) before apple/android ... then I think you might have a point.

Microsoft aren't going away

Well I think I would stand somewhere between you and the theStreet article. Once upon a time IBM ruled the world of computers and you never got fired for buying IBM... then it all changed. IBM is still here but it is not the business it once was. I see MS going the same route.

25-05-2014 11:30PM

London Council To Save £400,000 By Switching from Windows to Chromebooks

Gone West · 25-05-2014 11:38PM

Kinet1c wrote: »

Well if you take 1 upgrade of Microsoft Office in the 10 year period since they started, 15k * ~€200 you're going to save €3m. Likely in that period you would've had 2 Office upgrades so you can double that figure and you're 60% of the way to your €10m saving.

Look, I'm a unix geek... I've contributed code to free software projects. I get it. I get where you are coming from. I live, eat and sleep this stuff, and I have ever since I was a little kid.

But don't bring out silly figures in the millions without including a proper analysis.
This is complex stuff.
There are huge costs involved on both sides.
What are the costs of flying in nix consultants to Munich vs microsoft consultants?
Whats the cost of retraining all the workers?
Whats the cost of making a stand and being different?
Whats the real cost of making a long term good decision (move to open software), versus a short term bad decision (move to open software)?

I could add in a hundred other factors.
I'm just saying. It is not so simple, and I could easily see this being a huge problem, and somebody else reversing it at massive cost in a year or two.

croo · 28-05-2014 11:49AM

I don't think anyone believes or is saying it is a simple problem... just going by this article it took Munich a decade or more and cost it a whole lot of money - just not as much (according to them) as the MS licenses and now that the migration costs are paid the ongoing costs should be greatly reduced.

But as you alluded to (I think!?) it would be the politics here that might result in us paying a lot of money for nothing. In fact, here in the land where millions was spent to store voting machines that would never be used, I would think it is nearly guaranteed that it would end up costing us millions for nothing. That electronic voting fiasco was a real travesty, the hardware was sold for €9.30 a pop when the real problem was the software and we could have developed a(n open & ) secure voting system for the hardware.

Rucking_Fetard · 21-08-2014 01:06AM

Looking like Munich is gonna switch back.

http://www.geek.com/microsoft/10-yea...ndows-1602234/

croo · 21-08-2014 05:50AM

I read on a German tech site that MS are considering moving their German HQ to Munich! in that link you provided I noted someone says, in the comments,the same only now they're is a date... 2016

How Munich switched 15,000 PCs from Windows to Linux

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