A big story of the week has been the Swiss governments’

decision to opt for Novell’s Suse Linux as

it’s standard server operating system. It

had been reported that over 300 public sector servers will be rolled over,

replacing both Microsoft Windows and Unix platforms. This move highlights that governments and

local authorities have become much more willing than the private sector to

adopt open-source platforms—The total cost of ownership over time outweighing concerns

of potential patent issues. Novell also recently

closed a deal with the UK’s

National Health Service worth over $39m.