SuSE Conquers Munich

[This article was contributed by Ladislav Bodnar]

According to this story in Heise Online (in German), the city of Munich is likely to vote this week in favor of migrating its 14,000 PC systems and notebooks and over 16,000 personnel from Windows NT to Linux. Assuming that the transition goes ahead and completes successfully, we will be seeing one of the most significant moments in the history of the Linux operating system. [Ed. update: the vote is in and Linux is in. See this note from SuSE for additional details.]

It is not hard to elaborate on reasons for Munich's intention to move to Linux. The cost of Microsoft licenses, compared to Linux is often cited as a decisive factor, especially from the long term point of view, but the Munich city officials are adamant that cost is only one of the many factors. Flexibility of the open source software as well as the availability of local expertise are equally important.

The article does not specifically mention any Linux distribution by name, but informed sources and common sense all point to the local Linux experts known as SuSE Linux, AG. SuSE's headquarters are in Nürnberg, only about one hour's drive north of Munich. The company offers a range of products from workstations to advanced servers, as well as specialist applications, such as mail servers. They also have a major sponsor and partner in IBM, which will no doubt throw its weight behind the deal.

SuSE's Linux products have frequently received favorable coverage in the computing media, but the recently released version 8.2 has probably seen the largest number of compliments ever given to a Linux product. In its review entitled SuSE 8.2 approaches computing Nirvana, The Register writes: "It appears the company is serious about tempting a mixed-species shop of Linux servers and Windows desktops to harmonize in favor of Linux and thus save considerably on administration costs. Microsoft should worry about the strides SuSE is making in this area."

This NewsForge review agrees: "I have been using SuSE Linux 8.2 Professional for two weeks now, and it is as close to Linux desktop perfection as I have found so far." Many users on various public forums have echoed the sentiment.

One other product, which might come handy during the transition is SuSE Linux Office Desktop. Released in January this year and based on SuSE Linux 8.1, the Office Desktop was specifically designed to ease migration of Windows-based offices to Linux with a selection of useful applications. These include Acronis OS Selector for NTFS partition resizing, StarOffice 6.0, and most importantly, CrossOver Office and its ability to run Microsoft Office 97/2000 applications. This will be especially important to those environments that make extensive use of VBA macros in their office documents. SuSE's Office Desktop has been reviewed by Extreme Tech and MadPenguin.

On the server side of things, the Oracle9i compatible SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 (available for i386, AMD64 and Itanium2 processors) and SuSE Linux Openexchange Server 4 are two main enterprise class products from the company. They complement the usual array of support, consultation and certification services, as well as routine security advisory and product update services.

Will the transition be successful? The road will be full of bumps and pot holes, and some users will no doubt resist the change. But SuSE and IBM will make sure that the process is as painless as possible. This will be a valuable experience that will pave a much smoother way for further transitions in other German government and academic institutions. Before we know it, a tidal wave of defections to Linux will be on the way in many parts of the world.

Our warm congratulations to Germany's third largest city for being brave enough to resist Microsoft's earlier cajoling and go where no one has ventured before. Munich is once again making history...

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