City of Mesa interested in Linux

[Craig White]

On Fri, 2007-09-21 at 14:15 -0700, Siri Amrit Kaur wrote:
> Hi, Folks.
> 
> It's been awhile since I've been able to participate, but something's come up 
> that I thought might interest PLUG.
> 
> I was talking with the City Manager for the City of Mesa. The City is in a 
> budget crunch, and I asked her why they're paying for Windows, Microsoft 
> Office, antivirus software, etc, when they could get a less expensive, more 
> secure system with Linux and OpenOffice. She was very interested to learn 
> more.
> 
> Her office just called to set up a discussion meeting on Wednesday, Sept 26 
> from 10-11 AM. Personally, I don't know how to answer technical questions 
> about the logistics of conversion. Would someone in PLUG, who is more 
> knowlegeable and articulate than I, like to take part in the meeting? I 
> think this could be a great opportunity!
----
I used to see a guy that was deeply involved with the City of Mesa
computer systems and I got the impression that they were heavily
invested in Sun stuff and Tivoli and Windows on the desktop.

It would be naive to think that they don't have some very knowledgeable
and technologically savvy personnel on staff so I am thinking that at
our level, this would be somewhat folly but just for reference...

Largo, Florida
http://www.linux.com/articles/26827

Bloomington, Indiana
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci960437,00.html

Chicago, Il
http://www.linux.com/feature/57601

and note that the City of Chicago migration was specifically a migration
from Sun to Red Hat Linux.

but to think that the members of this list could realistically make
suggestions to the city manager for Mesa almost suggests to me that the
city manager is entirely uninformed at what they are doing in
technology. It's obvious that a typical desktop in the city of Mesa
costs them say $250 - $400 per year and the savings of a Linux based
system would payoff in the second or third year...a risk that only a
very secure city manager could take.

-- 
Craig White <craig at tobyhouse.com>