%META:TOPICINFO{author="RickArchibald" date="1072988136" format="1.0" version="1.1"}% %META:TOPICPARENT{name="IsraelSuspendsMicrosoftOfficePurchases"}%

Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

Israel suspends Microsoft purchases

The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 31, 2003

JERUSALEM The Israeli government has suspended acquisitions of computer software from Microsoft, citing price issues and the company's refusal to sell individual programs from its standard software package, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for the ministry, which oversees government purchases, said the government would use the company's existing products for the time being. She said she did not know when purchases of new software would resume.

The government said it would also encourage the development of lower-priced alternative software to help expand computer use among the public. The Finance Ministry has worked with Sun Microsystems and IBM in designing a Hebrew-language version of OpenOffice software, one such alternative.

"The move with Microsoft was a purely economic decision," the Finance Ministry spokeswoman said. "The Israeli government will not be purchasing new products from Microsoft, but will implement its contract to secure existing systems."

The spokeswoman said the decision stemmed from unhappiness with the price package that Microsoft has offered and its refusal to sell individual programs from its standard Office package. Not all departments require the entire suite of programs, she said.

Microsoft representatives in Israel did not immediately return phone calls.

The Israeli decision came against the background of growing public-sector interest in "open standards, open source" technology. The open-source movement is a broad, philosophical endorsement of computer technology with publicly available software code that can be customized, such as the Linux operating system. Microsoft's Windows uses closed, or proprietary, code that the company closely guards.

The spokeswoman said that encouraging the development of open-source technology had also played a role in its decision. "On a policy level, the government is committed to expanding computer use. We want open-source technology to spread, so more people will be able to afford computers."

A number of other foreign governments have also embraced open-source technology. Federal agencies in France, China and Germany have already opted for Linux systems. Britain, Brazil and Russia are exploring the possibility.

Governments are a huge software market, accounting for about 10 percent of global information technology spending, according to the research firm IDC, a research firm.

Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune