From: Ad 

http://mandriva.blogspot.com/2007/01/tamil-nadu-india-may-shut-door-on.html

"The Tamil Nadu government, which is on a fast-track pushing the state
to the top in the Indian IT sector, has almost shut its door on the
software giant, Microsoft, preferring the Open Source Systems (OSS) for
reasons of costs and easy migrating capabilities.

“Initially, 99 per cent of government systems have been running on
Microsoft systems but then 2007 will be a watershed year for the state IT
sector. We are fast migrating to Linux operating systems which are so much
cheaper and can be operated at low cost, besides offering continuous
updates and freedom from viruses,” says Mr C. Umashankar, managing director
of state-owned ELCOT, vested with the responsibility of overseeing such
ambitious government projects as e-governance, enumerating the
beneficiaries of the free TV scheme, family ration cards and the free
sari-dhoti distribution.

“We have already dispatched 6,500 Linux systems to village panchayats and
another 6,100 Acer desktop systems with Suse Linux operating systems are on
their way. We are procuring 20,000 desktop systems for schools, which will
run only on Suse Linux. Remaining 30 desktop systems will also migrate as
and when the new machines arrive,” Mr Umashankar told this newspaper.
He said all the ELCOT servers were on Redhat Linus and the government IT
company’s 28-seater software development wing was fully on Suse Linux.

“We will train over 30,000 government officials in Linux Operating Systems
and Open Office. A contract has been already finalised with the government
departments and we have set up a Linux support centre with two
Linux-certified professionals to assist the state officers. This number
will go up to ten or more in 2007, which will be a path-breaking year for
government on migration to Linux Operating System,” Mr Umashankar said.
“India can live without Microsoft packages and even progress but Microsoft
will find it tough without a huge country like India buying their software
packages,” he said."

Fair enough but the funny part is.....

"He said he had also pointed out to the Microsoft official that MS
Office did not allow saving of documents in open document format. While it
was possible to open all MS Office files using Openoffice.org, the vice
versa cannot be done. “I asked her why ELCOT should buy such an inferior
product when Openoffice.org is available free of cost for Windows as well
as Linux."

ROFLMAO.....

Adam

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