Reuters: France Challenges Microsoft in Software Re-Fit

"France's cash-strapped government is giving alternative software firms the chance to win state business from Microsoft in a pioneering drive to challenge the U.S. software giant in the public sector.

"Civil service minister Renaud Dutreil told Reuters France wanted to use 'open-source' software providers to resupply part of the almost one million state computers under a government cost-cutting drive designed to trim a bulging public deficit..."

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