Tag Archives: Munich

Open Source vs. Commercial Applications

In 2004 the Munich, Germany city council voted to migrate city PCs away from Microsoft applications and operating systems and move to a version of open source Linux. It was a nine-year project that resulted in nearly 20,000 PCs being converted to an open source platform. They still have approximately 4,000 PCs running Windows for critical Windows based applications. The project was hailed as a success just last year, but there appears now to be question as to whether they are getting the cost savings and efficiencies they expected. Some are questioning whether ongoing application compatibility issues are worth continuing this push.

The city of Munich is beginning an Exchange migration away from open sourced Kolab, which was used for calendaring and email. It appears that an Outlook migration is in the works, opening the door to the beginning of a return to Microsoft products. A study is underway to determine the cost of moving city PCs to a Windows 10 platform. Informed by the study results, the city council will vote in November on whether to migrate back to Windows. Why the reversal? Is it impossible to run an open source environment that is compatible with other commercial applications? Does it take a special IT skillset to be successful? These are the questions going through my mind.

Politics

This is becoming a political issue as well as one of cost and productivity. The ruling party is pushing to move to Windows, citing employee dissatisfaction. The opposition party is moving to stay the course with Linux based systems in order to take advantage of the investment costs already incurred. To muddy the waters, there is also a question of IT efficiency and effectiveness. When the open source migration began after 2004, there was a parallel push to centralize IT from local organizations. They ended up centralizing into three IT functions and some employees claim that it is this centralization that is causing dissatisfaction with IT and not the open source software. The issues appear to run deeper than commercial vs. open source software.

Compatibility

I am a fan of open source software and would love to see a wide-scale installation succeed. The Munich migration, touted as “LiMux, The IT Evolution,” was one of the largest installations of open source software. With all of the finger pointing going on,  it is unclear whether the problems lie with the Linux operating system, with open sourced applications such as OpenOffice, or with the IT organization. Because Linux and open source applications are not the predominant design in the world of IT, they will continue to play a minority role and will continue to have issues with compatibility. These are issues that we discuss at length in our innovations course. Open source is not the “safe play” by an IT department but can be cost effective and worth the time invested.

Thoughts

Are you using open source applications or operating systems in your organization? What are the tradeoffs, if any, between cost, ease of use, reliability and compatibility? Would you recommend open source applications and operating systems to others? Let me know your thoughts.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional and assistant professor of practice for the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

Data Nationalization: Drawing Borders in the Cloud

Photo of clouds forming map of the world.Moscow, Russia city government last week announced that they will move 6,000 government computers off of Microsoft Outlook to a Russian-produced application called MyOffice Mail. If successful, they will move 600,000 more systems next year. Cost savings is cited as one reason for the migration but nationalism is also a big factor. In an interview, Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov told reporters “We want the money of taxpayers and state-run firms to be primarily spent on local software.” The Russian prime minister has called for a migration away from foreign software out of security concerns over tensions with the west. Russia is not the only nation and Moscow is not the only city to move in this direction.

The internet was meant to be global but from recent announcements and actions it appears we are drawing borders in the cloud. This post is an update to a 2014 post highlighting the beginning of this movement. From recent developments it appears the trend is accelerating.

LiMux—The IT Revolution

Munich also moved to a proprietary platform in October 2013 when they finished the rollout of LiMux, a version of Ubuntu Linux. The almost decade long migration off of older Microsoft systems and applications was marked by the rallying cry “The IT Revolution.” That migration was about cost containment and control. They felt that they could not regulate the pace of required operating system and application updates. The jury is still out on whether this move delivered the intended benefits for the city or whether it has created a bigger headache for the technology department as they deal with compatibility issues. This is an example of reigning in control of technology and storage as traditional vendors move to cloud based systems such as Office 365.

 Legal Boundaries

Russia’s data nationalization law requires all personal data about citizens be stored and processed on servers inside Russia. The routing of such data is a point not completely worked out yet. That may be much harder to keep within the borders. Australia has a similar law specifically covering electronic health records of citizens and their storage and transport.

In a 2015 paper published in the Emory Law Journal, the authors highlight a number of countries that implemented regulations to restrict the storage and movement of data inside and outside of borders. Some of these were a reaction to the 2013 NSA surveillance revelations concerning data collection on countries and heads of state. Countries are moving to protect their citizens by regulating at least their portion of the cloud. This will most likely escalate and present difficulties for internet companies large and small.

Thoughts

My objective in this post is to speculate on the future of the cloud. We already have a private cloud and public cloud and now a hybrid cloud. Will these be followed by a Russian cloud, and a Chinese cloud and a U.S. cloud? Will that hamper the open nature of the internet or will it simply serve to provide information security for each nation, state, or municipality just as physical borders provide personal safety? Let me know your thoughts.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional and assistant professor of practice for the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.