The French Gendarmerie is going for 72000 Linux dektops

[viking60]

The French national police has been working with Open soure for a long time. This gave the people time to get used to the programs on a Windows platform. The next step is to replace Windows with Linux and keep the programs. So far they have replaced Windows with Linux on 37000 PC's and by summer next year they plan to have 72000 Linux desktops.

They are using an Ubuntu based custom Linux version called GendBuntu.

The process has been pushed by the Windows XP EOL and maybe Prism.

The Gendarmerie is saving 40 % in comparison to replacing Windows XP with another Windows version.

The French Gendarmerie buy 10000 computers every year - without an OS - and then their specialized central unit installs Linux and deploys them.
That makes the market for hardware without MS-secure UEFI boot - quite interesting

It is well organized and must represent yeat another blow to Microsoft. Especially the savings part since Microsoft and HP had a PR stunt in Munich where they claimed that Munich was wrong about the savings.

Now the French have reached the same conclusion...

This is one of the largest known government deployments of Linux on the desktop

I wonder if they ever considered Mandriva - back when they started Mandriva was a good French choise

More here

[dedanna1029]

How long do you give them before Microshit gives them an offer they can't refuse?

[viking60]

This is the police; they know how to deal with the Mafia methods
I think the independence and not being tied down to MS is as important as the savings. Once they all get used to this; it is going to get cheaper and cheaper...

And the transfer to Linux cannot be any worse than a transfer to Windows 8 (or 7) both systems are totally new to XP users.