• I believe the question is missing somehow the main points… even if the switch cost the double or triple there are several strategic advantages that should take into account:

    • use Linux allow to growth the number of high specialized professional workers, investing on local resources;
    • invest in a local network of specialized companies, instead of financing the silicon valley with ours public money;
    • be less dependent by abroad technologies, get a major control of the system used;

    These are few that come to my mind…

    What would be really interesting to know is the percentage of the investment that stay in the region/country following a linux-based/opensource IT infrastructure for public bodies vs the current closed M$|OSX paradigm.

    • I agree. A lot of profits wouldn’t be cash saved, for one taxes that you aren’t losing to multinational corporations headquartered in Ireland or Cyprus.

      Cybersecurity costs would also likely go down due to most malware being exploited isn’t targeting desktop Linux.

      • Cybersecurity costs would also likely go down due to most malware being exploited isn’t targeting desktop Linux.

        Which is going to change once any sort of widespread adoption happens.

        But at least in my circles, malware really isn’t that big of a deal in security. Phishing is where the danger is these days, where the costs occur.