French Gendarmerie saves 50 million euro's with Ubuntu !

[newbie2]

The French Gendarmerie's gradual migration to a complete open source desktop and web applications has saved millions of euro, says Lieutenant-Colonel Xavier Guimard. "This year the IT budget will be reduced by 70 percent. This will not affect our IT systems."

Guimard this Thursday in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands gave a presentation on the move from a Microsoft-based to an Ubuntu GNU/Linux-based desktop. The Lieutenant-Colonel was one of the keynote speakers at an annual conference organised by NOiV, the Dutch national resource centre on open source and open standards.

Most of these savings are on proprietary software licences. Up until 2004 the Gendarmerie acquired 12.000 to 15.000 licences annually. In 2005 it bought just 27. "Since July 2007 we have bought two hundred Microsoft licences. If one of us wants a new PC, it comes with Ubuntu. This encourages our users to migrate." Guimard estimates Gendarmerie since 2004 has saved 50 million euro on licences for standard office applications, hardware and maintenance.

The Gendarmerie's decided on a strict open standards IT policy in 2002. The 105.000 heads strong police force at that time used an out-dated IT system which was expensive to maintain and not able to interoperate with other police forces or custom agencies. Strictly maintaining of this policy for instance lead SAP to adapt its human resource application so it could be used with a web browser. "This means we can move to a competitor's human resource application at any time.

The decision in 2004 to move to open source, was raised by one of the Gendarmerie's accountants. "Microsoft was forcing us to buy new software licences. This annoyed our accountant, who tried OpenOffice." According to Guimard the proprietary software maker then started lobbying the Gendarmerie, which is how the general manager found out about the experiments. "When he saw OpenOffice worked just as well and was available for free, it was he that decided it should be installed on all 90.000 desktops."



No training

Guimard says the Gendarmerie since 2002 found out that open source applications usually are better at handling open standards than proprietary software. Moving to centralised Imap servers for email, lead the organisation to deploy Mozilla Thunderbird on the desktops. Making all the web applications work equally well,resulted in the roll-out of Firefox across the organisation. "Users need no training to use a web browser."

In 2007 the Gendarmerie decided to replace even the desktop operating system. Guimard: "Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority."

According to Guimard the move to open source has also helped to reduce maintenance costs. Keeping GNU/Linux desktops up to date is much easier, he says. "Previously, one of us would be travelling all year just to install a new version of some anti virus application on the desktops in the Gendarmerie's outposts on the islands in French Polynesia. A similar operation now is finished within two weeks and does not require travelling."
http://www.osor.eu/news/fr-gendarmerie-saves-millions-with-open-desktop-and-web-applications
:popcorn:

[sydbat]

Very nice. This should be something every government agency does in every country. It would save taxpayers millions in each country and allow for real international standardization.

[mips]

"Previously, one of us would be travelling all year just to install a new version of some anti virus application on the desktops in the Gendarmerie's outposts on the islands in French Polynesia. A similar operation now is finished within two weeks and does not require travelling."

Thats the only part I don't buy. If a PC is connected via LAN&WAN then remote installs really are not an issue in Windows. Seeing they used web based apps one can only assume these computers are networked.

[MaxIBoy]

In 2007 the Gendarmerie decided to replace even the desktop operating system. Guimard: "Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority."
That's a dangerous thing to think. Linux is not windows!

Now a bunch of people are going to switch to Ubuntu, discover the differences, and troll the forums with flamage.

[Zlatan]

http://www.osor.eu/news/fr-gendarmerie-saves-millions-with-open-desktop-and-web-applications
:popcorn:

+1!

[odda]

That's a dangerous thing to think. Linux is not windows!

Now a bunch of people are going to switch to Ubuntu, discover the differences, and troll the forums with flamage.


Dangerous how? it is obvious that a difference in appearance such as icons is perfectly normal?

[BGFG]

in a troubled global economy, the free product will always beat anything paid for. Especially if the free one is superior anyway.

many users in these foums are always talking about wanting linux to grab a bigger market share. Well that time is coming soon, so don't start to b**ch and moan when the forums see a great upsurge in members.

[Skripka]

French police: we saved millions of euros by adopting Ubuntu
A recent report has revealed that France's national police force has saved an estimated 50 million euros since 2004 by migrating a portion of the organization's workstations to Ubuntu Linux. They plan to roll out the Linux distro to all 90,000 of their workstations by 2015.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/03/french-police-saves-millions-of-euros-by-adopting-ubuntu.ars

[JackieChan]

I'm hoping Canada, the UK, the US, and Japan do the same thing! :D

[MikeTheC]

Somehow, I doubt it. I'll give Obama credit for trying to push an "open source" initiative, but somehow I doubt the U.S. will go open-source. We're a bit too unsavvy and too "drank-the-Redmond-koolaid".

[iaculallad]

A good news to the Ubuntu community. Hopefully, other nations (especially third world countries) would learn from that.

[iaculallad]

Somehow, I doubt it. I'll give Obama credit for trying to push an "open source" initiative, but somehow I doubt the U.S. will go open-source. We're a bit too unsavvy and too "drank-the-Redmond-koolaid".

Yes, especially that Redmond resides under the US territory. Some would disagree (politics) shifting to open source since MS shares one of the largest tax-cut on American economy.

*Try not to quote me on this, I'm not American. Just making an assumption*

[mikewhatever]

If you actually read the article, not just the title, it becomes clear Ubuntu had little to do with saving 50 million euros.

At the current stage of the migration, it has adopted Ubuntu on 5,000 workstations. Based on the success of this pilot migration, it plans to move forward and switch a total of 15,000 workstations to Ubuntu by the end of the year. It aims to have the entire organization, and all 90,000 of its workstations, running the Linux distribution by 2015.

If anything, probably switching all of the workstations to Open Office in 2005 contributed a lot.

[Sef]

From ars technica (http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/03/french-police-saves-millions-of-euros-by-adopting-ubuntu.ars):


A report (http://www.osor.eu/news/fr-gendarmerie-saves-millions-with-open-desktop-and-web-applications) published by the European Commission's Open Source Observatory provides some details from a recent presentation given by Gendarmerie Lieutenant-Colonel Xavier Guimard, who says that the Gendarmerie has been able to reduced its annual IT budget by 70 percent without having to reduce its capabilities.


"Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users," said Lt. Col. Guimard. "Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority."

The amount saved is eye-popping, and games are not important for almost all businesses either.

[monkeyKata]

Hey thanks, this is cool to see.

[Chame_Wizard]

France alwatys love revolution :lolflag:

[MaxIBoy]

Number of times this has been posted is at three and counting...

[binbash]

Yah posted a lot : )

[t0p]

games are not important for almost all businesses either.

What are you blathering about? Games is what most workers in most offices use most of the time. If there's no Solitaire or Sudoko, what will they do all day???

[bryncoles]

what i like the the potential for 90,000 french government workers who are now using ubuntu at work to think 'well flip it, i use ubuntu at work. for continuities sake, ill use it at home now two."

thats some good exposure...

[t0p]

what i like the the potential for 90,000 french government workers who are now using ubuntu at work to think 'well flip it, i use ubuntu at work. for continuities sake, ill use it at home now two."


What I like is the way you transformed 90,000 vicious gendarmes into innocuous "government workers".

Civil servants with machine guns. Clerical staff with coshes. Nice!

[gnomeuser]

That's a dangerous thing to think. Linux is not windows!

Now a bunch of people are going to switch to Ubuntu, discover the differences, and troll the forums with flamage.

Remember for their specific use cases it might be true. If they use specially developed software for some tasks and then the other cases where the native OS stack comes into place are Firefox, OpenOffice.org and the break entertainment.. then it might be a fairly true statement for their deployment.

[Dragonbite]

Successful large scale migration will be a boon to Linux everywhere.

Agree, I don't see it happening in the USA anytime soon. Getting schools moved over is difficult enough and these are adults that will resist change even more.

[Sealbhach]

Yes, especially that Redmond resides under the US territory. Some would disagree (politics) shifting to open source since MS shares one of the largest tax-cut on American economy.

Actually, Microsoft declares a lot of its global income in low-tax countries such as Ireland. Ever heard of Round Island One?

http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10003995.shtml


The Wall Street Journal said in its report two weeks ago : "Ireland's citizens may not have heard of Round Island One, but they benefit greatly from its presence. Last year the unit handed the government of this small country of four million citizens more than $300 million in taxes.

The citizens of other nations where Microsoft sells its products are less fortunate. Round Island One provides a structure for Microsoft to radically reduce its corporate taxes in much of Europe, and similarly shields billions of dollars from U.S. taxation.



.

[speedwell68]

I'm hoping Canada, the UK, the US, and Japan do the same thing! :D

I work for local government in the UK. We are being restructured at the moment and I know that we are currently using MS Office 2000 on our workstations and that the plan is to change to OpenOffice on XP. There is a working party looking at the the feasibility of running an OpenSource OS as they are currently downgrading all new PCs to XP from Vista, which is proving costly. So I live in hope.

[Sealbhach]

...they are currently downgrading all new PCs to XP from Vista, which is proving costly.

Wow, that must have been some experience!:D


.

[speedwell68]

Wow, that must have been some experience!:D


.

It is not me that is doing it. I have nothing to do with corporate IT at work. I just handle the day to day stuff in our office.

[gnomeuser]

Actually, Microsoft declares a lot of its global income in low-tax countries such as Ireland. Ever heard of Round Island One?

http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10003995.shtml


The Wall Street Journal said in its report two weeks ago : "Ireland's citizens may not have heard of Round Island One, but they benefit greatly from its presence. Last year the unit handed the government of this small country of four million citizens more than $300 million in taxes.

The citizens of other nations where Microsoft sells its products are less fortunate. Round Island One provides a structure for Microsoft to radically reduce its corporate taxes in much of Europe, and similarly shields billions of dollars from U.S. taxation.

.

Ah, unethical, immoral and damaging to society all at once.. aren't tax shelters great children?

[MaxIBoy]

Dangerous how? it is obvious that a difference in appearance such as icons is perfectly normal?
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

[bryncoles]

What I like is the way you transformed 90,000 vicious gendarmes into innocuous "government workers".

Civil servants with machine guns. Clerical staff with coshes. Nice!

i impressed myself too! still, its published on the internets now. it must be true!

[hungryOrb]

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/03/french-police-saves-millions-of-euros-by-adopting-ubuntu.ars

Cool! More open source publicity! lovely stuff.

By the way, I have a question:
Why doesn't the ubuntu logo word look more 'web 2.0'? I don't think it's slick enough :(
Can't help feeling that the actually logo picture is web 2.0 but not the word? I guess there is a reason.. Just wanted to know why :D

[hungryOrb]

BTW, like most people here likely, I can create a web 2.0 logo, so I'm not just complaining for the sake of it :P I can offer a solution.. Just don't think I'd be asked :D

[iaculallad]

Hi hungryOrb,

Here's a followup thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1092364) with the topic (open source) you had posted.

Best regard;

Ian

[Lupi]

Two things: 1) Kudos to the account and 2) Sorry for the guy who doesn't have to travel to the French Polynesia anymore.


:D

[Lupi]

If you actually read the article, not just the title, it becomes clear Ubuntu had little to do with saving 50 million euros.


If anything, probably switching all of the workstations to Open Office in 2005 contributed a lot.

http://www.findmysoft.com/news/Ubuntu-Saves-the-Gendarmerie-Nationale-Millions/


The Gendarmerie Nationale (this is the official title of the national police force from France), upon adopting Ubuntu on its workstations has plenty to be happy about: users are happy with the operating system, networks have never worked better, and costs are down by more than €7 million (that’s almost $9 million).

[mikewhatever]

Yes Lupi, I've read that too, but think it over for a minute, use common sense. Is there any way that 5000 work stations can account for saving 7 million euros, let along 50 million? Unless someone, anyone, can offer a reasonable explanation, I'll keep claiming it impossible.

[ugm6hr]

This is surprising.

The bulk of cost-saving is clearly Office-related so far:


Most of these savings are on proprietary software licences. Up until 2004 the Gendarmerie acquired 12.000 to 15.000 licences annually. In 2005 it bought just 27. "Since July 2007 we have bought two hundred Microsoft licences. If one of us wants a new PC, it comes with Ubuntu. This encourages our users to migrate." Guimard estimates Gendarmerie since 2004 has saved 50 million euro on licences for standard office applications, hardware and maintenance. [1]

However, their saving in future Vista licenses will be similarly significant (i.e. in the same order of scale) if they move all 90,000 desktops to Ubuntu at time of upgrade.

What I don't understand is why they needed 10,000+ new licenses per year; unless the total number of desktops is increasing by that rate, they could have just re-used pre-existing licenses at the time of upgrade (unless they have OEM licenses).

[1] http://www.osor.eu/news/fr-gendarmerie-saves-millions-with-open-desktop-and-web-applications

[Lupi]

Yes Lupi, I've read that too, but think it over for a minute, use common sense. Is there any way that 5000 work stations can account for saving 7 million euros, let along 50 million? Unless someone, anyone, can offer a reasonable explanation, I'll keep claiming it impossible.

They started the migration in 2005, that's 3 years give or take. So:

9,000,000 USD / 3 / 5000 = 600 $ per workstation.

This is completely doable. I work for a governmental agency and even though I don't deal with licenses, from what I've been told, they are extremely costly since you have to buy the licenses of plenty or programs from the OS ones to the Office suites to the e-mail programs, anti-virus programs, etc. etc. Actually, 600 $ is at the very low of the spectrum.

Long live Open Source!

[MikeTheC]

It continues to be an interesting situation for the used-car salesman in Redmond er, I mean CEO Steve Ballmer. I just hope he keeps going out there and making an idiot of himself and simultaneously keeps tightening his grip.

We're starting to have an impact, folks. Don't give up the fight now!

[mikewhatever]

What I don't understand is why they needed 10,000+ new licenses per year; unless the total number of desktops is increasing by that rate, they could have just re-used pre-existing licenses at the time of upgrade (unless they have OEM licenses).


I think the licenses include Windows, Office, Outlook and whatever other programs, but that's still a lot.



They started the migration in 2005, that's 3 years give or take. So:

Did they really? According to the following link they only started migrating to Ubuntu is 2008.
http://www.betanews.com/article/French-police-bid-adieu-to-Microsoft-software/1201727249


9,000,000 USD / 3 / 5000 = 600 $ per workstation.

This is completely doable. I work for a governmental agency and even though I don't deal with licenses, from what I've been told, they are extremely costly since you have to buy the licenses of plenty or programs from the OS ones to the Office suites to the e-mail programs, anti-virus programs, etc. etc. Actually, 600 $ is at the very low of the spectrum.

Long live Open Source!

Can someone confirm this. I'll look into it later today, but mean while, I remain extremely skeptical.

[cosine352]

http://www.gearcrave.com/2009-03-12/french-police-adopt-ubuntu/

[Mehall]

Erm... we already had threads about this...

[Giant Speck]

Erm... we already had threads about this...

Over a month ago, too.

[chucky chuckaluck]

"ah dee not lahk zeu brun."

[Namtabmai]

"ah-dee-not-lahk-zeu-brun."

Fixed that for you.

[chucky chuckaluck]

Fixed that for you.

you're a peach!:P

[bapoumba]

Yeah, we had other threads.
Technically though, the "Gendarmerie" is part of the army, not the police. I'm not sure why they got that pic..

[Namtabmai]

Technically though, the "Gendarmerie" is part of the army, not the police. I'm not sure why they got that pic..

News reporters are supposed to check there facts now? ;)

[bapoumba]

News reporters are supposed to check there facts now? ;)
Eheh :)

[Mehall]

Technically speaking, it's a national police force, even though it's based in the miliatary. It's an internal Militiary Police that handles plenty Civilian issues, IIRC, though I may be wrong. (and probably are)

[bapoumba]

Gendarmerie handles security outside of big towns when the police jurisdiction is inside towns. I think the size limit for a police jurisdiction is around 10,000 or 20,000 people.

There was a project to transfer the command (not the positions or salaries) from Defense (the army) to Interior (the police), and I admit I have not followed that.

[samjh]

Now Microsoft will accuse the French of being "surrender monkeys". :D

Good on the French Gendarmes for choosing Ubuntu. :)

[dragos240]

Finally, we're getting somewhere in FOSS. If more people switch to linux less violence will occur (ones that are caused by frequent crashes and BSOD) ;)

[wolfyking2]

What are you blathering about? Games is what most workers in most offices use most of the time. If there's no Solitaire or Sudoko, what will they do all day??? I think their talking about games like...unreal tournament, WoW, Fifa 09, etc etc. You can install a free solitaire like game in the repos, right?

[Mehall]

I think their talking about games like...unreal tournament, WoW, Fifa 09, etc etc. You can install a free solitaire like game in the repos, right?

isn't the gnome-games package installed by default anyway?

There's more games in a default Ubuntu install than there is in a default Windows one!!! (unless the OEM shoves some trialware on there)

[Kareeser]

Actually, I thought XP contained some nice "internet" games... like internet chess.

I'd totally host an internet chess server for Canadian Ubuntu users if I knew how... :)

[wolfyking2]

actually, i thought xp contained some nice "internet" games... Like internet chess.

I'd totally host an internet chess server for canadian ubuntu users if i knew how... :)
yeessss :d

[Dragonbite]

isn't the gnome-games package installed by default anyway?

There's more games in a default Ubuntu install than there is in a default Windows one!!! (unless the OEM shoves some trialware on there)

It's called AisleRiot, and my wife gets pretty upset if I'm messing around with a distro and she hops on for a moment and Spider Solitaire is not there! ;) So I make sure it's installed, otherwise I have to shut that down and switch back to the "production" hard drive with her account.