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Thursday » January 1 » 2004

Israel suspends Microsoft purchases

Peter Enav
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 31, 2003

In an apparent showdown over price, Israel's government has suspended purchases of Microsoft productivity software and is encouraging the development of an open-source alternative.

A spokeswoman for the Finance Ministry, which oversees government purchases, said Tuesday that government agencies will use existing Microsoft Office products for the time being rather than upgrade to newer versions.

The Israeli government will also encourage the development of lower-priced alternatives to Microsoft software to help expand computer use by the public.

To that end, the Finance Ministry has co-operated with Sun Microsystems and IBM in designing the Hebrew-language version of OpenOffice software, a freely distributed open-source alternative to Microsoft Office.

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

"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," she said.

The spokeswoman said the government was unhappy with Microsoft's refusal to sell individual programs from its standard Office package, which includes an e-mail client, spreadsheet and word-processing applications. Not all departments require the entire suite of programs, she said.

Microsoft representatives in Israel did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

Entire national governments, including those in Britain, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, China and Russia, are exploring open-source alternatives to Microsoft.

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

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COMMENT: In addition to the mention of governments now considering MS alternatives, there's the ones that have already done so. I'm under the impression that Germany is pushing in the direction of SUSE, and has been doing so (installing new systems) for around 6 months... PeteJamison - 04 Jan 2004