Friday, August 12, 2005

The Central Scotland Police is removing Sun Microsystems' StarOffice productivity software from about 400 PCs and switching to Microsoft's Office System, citing lower maintenance costs and the need to interoperate more smoothly with other departments running Windows.

It is the latest anecdote in a wider tussle for business between Microsoft and open-source software in Europe. Several organizations, particularly public bodies, have been adopting or experimenting with Linux and other open-source products, but the move by the Scottish police shows the migrations are not all one-way.

"It's not really based on any ideological argument about open-source software, it's based on pure business needs," David Stirling, head of IT for Central Scotland Police, said of the decision to switch.

The agency ... adopted StarOffice in 2000 when it was short of cash after paying out for a new crime reporting application, Stirling said. It retained Windows on its desktop PCs but ran the StarOffice applications from a central Sun Unix system and 30 Linux servers installed at branch offices.

Central Scotland Police has now signed a three-year enterprise license agreement that includes the Microsoft Office System, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 for 500 end users.