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 US software giant in the public sector.
Civil service minister Mr Renaud Dutreil said 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.
"We are not starting a war against Microsoft, or against American companies in the software sector," Mr Dutreil said in an interview. But he added that Microsoft "must return to being one supplier to the state among others".
"The competition is open," he said. "My estimate is that we can cut the state software bill at least in half."
At stake, in the case of office suite software alone, is around €300 million euros worth of software to be introduced to state computers over three years. Savings on operating systems could be of a similar order, officials said.
France's conservative government is trying to cut costs as it seeks to rein in a public sector deficit which is set to bust the European Union limit of three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2004 for the third year running.