The French are fun people. They make lovely wine and food, they climb mountains and frolic at the sea. But don’t get on their bad side, because they’re also a proud people and nationalistic, as well.
For a variety of reasons, Microsoft, is on their bad side.
Ashlee Vance of The New York Times writes:
If the French National Assembly gets its way, the open-source Linux operating system will take over the governments of Europe, seizing on a weak economy to displace Windows.
About 18 months ago, the Assembly shifted from running Windows on the 1,100 computers of its members and their assistants to running a version of Linux called Ubuntu. (I profiled the rise of Ubuntu in a recent article.) According to Rudy Salles, vice president of the assembly, the decision to abandon Microsoft’s Windows software was both an economic and political gesture.
Politically, the European Union has proved tougher than the United States in its legal objections to Microsoft’s dominance over the operating system market. In addition, there’s a rising notion that backing Linux could lead to more local jobs, since local companies can try and disrupt the market by undercutting Microsoft on price and offering services to install and manage Linux for businesses.
