Amsterdam splashes cash on desktop Linux trial

The city of Amsterdam has become the latest high-profile public sector organisation to evaluate the potential of open source software.

The organisation is keen to reduce its dependence on monopoly suppliers, and two departments within the city authority will spend a total of €300,000 this year evaluating Linux on the desktop.

The authority said in a statement: "A business case has been established this year which shows that an open software strategy leads to more supplier independence. The use of open software can ensure better exchange of data and storage of information without unacceptable financial or logistical risks."

Amsterdam said it did not intend to stop using Microsoft software entirely but expected to spend less on proprietary software. It said in its statement: "It is not the intention to entirely phase out closed-source software. However, it is expected that the new contract with Microsoft will be smaller."

Amsterdam's current contract with Microsoft expires at the end of 2008, while its open source tests are due to be completed within the first half of this year. The two departments involved in the trial will be the housing department and a borough office. Other departments will follow suit if the trial is successful, the council said.

Nine other cities in the Netherlands are also evaluating open source software and have - together with Amsterdam - signed a manifesto on how they will proceed. They include Eindhoven, Groningen and The Hague. The Dutch government is funding the research through a three-year-old programme focused on supplier independence and interoperability.

Outside the Netherlands, several of Europe's largest cities are trialling Linux.

Austria's capital city, Vienna, has embarked on an ambitious Red Hat desktop rollout. And Munich has transferred 100 users to the Debian configuration. It plans to migrate 80 per cent of its PCs to Linux by the middle of 2009.

But other public sector projects have not been so successful.

In the UK, Birmingham City Council spent more than half a million pounds on evaluating Linux before abandoning the project earlier this year. The city said it was cheaper to upgrade its systems to Windows XP.

Richard Thurston writes for ZDNet UK