Assess the advantages and disadvantages of using open-source office software in a large organization, based on this article, Table 2.5 and discussion with fellow students and your lecturer With a 95 per cent share of the desktop software market, Microsoft seems unassailable, but an alternative is emerging in the shape of desktop applications based on the Linux open source operating system.

Two forces are coming together: while the leading Linux desktop applications – StarOffice from Sun Microsystems and the free software OpenOffice – are maturing, a growing band of disgruntled customers have become offended by Microsoft’s stranglehold on the desktop software environment, for reasons of cost, security, or simply because they want a choice.

As a result momentum is building, particularly in the public sector, where there have been declarations by national and local governments in favour of opensource software and Linux. Just last week the UK government said it would carry out trials of opensource systems in nine government departments.

While most attention is focused currently on Linux at the server level, a key breakthrough came earlier this year when the City of Munich announced it was moving 14,000 desktop PCs from Microsoft’s Windows operating system to Linux.

The city will implement OpenOffice/StarOffice applications supplied by Nuremberg-based SuSE Linux. ‘In the past 18 months there have been significant improvements in the quality and presentation of Linux software,’ says David Burger, vice-president of enterprise solutions at SuSE.