Microsoft beats Linux

LONDON: Microsoft has announced it has won three government contracts after

competing head-to-head for the business with various Linux vendors. It has not

disclosed financial terms of the deals. Microsoft said it would deploy its

signature Windows server and desktop software on thousands of computers for the

city governments in Frankfurt, the Latvian capital of Riga and Turku in Finland.






For the past year, an intense battle has been raging across Europe as more
corporations and government agencies turn to the open-source Linux software to

run their desktop and network computer systems.






The biggest blow to Microsoft came in May when Germany's SuSE landed a lucrative
contract to switch more than 14,000 Windows desktop PCs to Linux for the city

government of Munich.






OUTFLANKED IN PR WAR





Despite having a commanding lead in the European corporate desktop market,
Microsoft had begun to lose momentum in the PR war to the open-source

technology.






"Now we see the importance in this new world with the OSS Linux phenomenon
that we have to readdress the value of our offering," Wilfried Grommen,

general manager for Microsoft business strategies for Microsoft European, Middle

East and Africa, told Reuters on Tuesday.






"The world is not only OSS Linux. Maybe we have to put that message
straight," he added. In its announcement on Tuesday, Microsoft highlighted

that it won the business against Linux.






"It's very important for Microsoft to very publicly respond to these
challenges," said Gary Barnett, an analyst with London-based technology

consultancy Ovum. "This is clearly a counter-balance to all the pro-Linux

noise."






Microsoft has invested heavily to fight off Linux, which threatens to eat into
its most profitable business.






Barnett said Microsoft Windows runs over ninety percent of all corporate and
government desktop computers in Europe, but said the server market was much more

competitive with Linux coming out of nowhere in the past year to challenge

Windows NT and the more established software system, Unix.






Longtime Unix vendors such as International Business Machines have jumped into
the Linux market in recent years to address this emerging market.






Linux, which is on an estimated 15 percent of all computers sold in Western
Europe, is considered Microsoft's only true rival.






Microsoft has gone on the offensive, pushing the notion that Windows is as
reliable as any product on the market and that security is the new cornerstone

of its business.






In doing so, it has sought to silence the open-source community that has made
big inroads with firms by saying Linux is reliable, more secure and cheaper to

maintain.