For day-to-day documents, French members of parliament and their staff will use OpenOffice.org, currently in version 2.0.4 and designed to compete directly with Microsoft's Office System.

With versions available in languages from Arabic to Welsh, OpenOffice.org includes several modules to compete with Microsoft Office: Writer, a word processor; Calc, a spreadsheet program; Impress, a presentation package; and Draw, a software package for designing graphics. OpenOffice.org also includes Base, a database tool that competes with Microsoft's Access.

Why the change? The French parliament, composed of an upper chamber (le Senat, or Senate) and a lower chamber (l'Assemblee Nationale, or National Assembly), believes it can save money using open-source software, despite the near-term costs of switching from Microsoft systems and retraining all employees.

But that is a matter of some debate.

Open Debate

"The evidence on the cost savings attributable to a switch to Linux has been mixed," according to Chris Swenson, director of software industry analysis at research group NPD. "There has been some evidence that companies have to spend a good deal on training and support after you deploy the operating system ."

Currently, a number of French ministries and government bureaus run Linux, but only on servers. The Senate and National Assembly will be the first to use Linux on workstations, although neither one has announced which flavor of Linux it plans to use. According to Swenson, that could make all the difference.

"If you buy your software from a Linux vendor like Red Hat, you obviously have to pay for licenses, support, and maintenance," he said, adding that finding and recruiting Linux experts to run enterprise I.T. systems can sometimes be harder than finding Microsoft specialists.

"The net net," said Swenson, is that "the average company or organization can probably save some money by switching to Linux, but deploying software from an established Linux vendor certainly isn't free."

Microsoft Worry?

Microsoft software runs the vast majority of U.S. computers, including laptops, desktops, and servers, at all levels of government, but in the U.S. House, members can use the software they like. "Microsoft is probably the most common," said Salley Collins, press secretary for the Committee on House Administration. "But that having been said, it's up to every individual office and committee to choose their own software." (continued...)

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