Thursday, 4 January 2007

Indian IT Services Organisation Inclining Towards Linux

In line with many A one European cities moving towards open source technology like Amsterdam, the southern India city of Chennai is also moving towards Linux. The state of Tamil Nadu, is deploying 32,600 Linux desktop systems and training 30,000 government officials. Forty-three open source-based servers are also on the way to support key Government applications.

The Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT), a government-owned organisation that delivers IT services to the state of Tamil Nadu in South India, has decided that its projects will be deployed on open-source software, including Linux. ELCOT decided in favour of open-source software because of its lower cost than proprietary software from Microsoft and other vendors, C. Umashankar, managing director of ELCOT, said

The company will migrate from Microsoft at the server and desktop levels, according to Umashankar. "My job is to save cost, and open-source software delivers the same if not more efficiency at a marginal cost," he added.

Kerala, announced last year that it had decided to promote free and open-source software in education, but would not make it compulsory. The government would like to avoid a monopoly by Microsoft and would like to provide equal opportunity for Linux and Microsoft's Windows operating system in schools, said M.A. Baby, a minister in Kerala's Communist government, in August.