German city Munich got itself into the American newspapers a few years ago when the city council decided to start the project LiMux, aimed at gradually banishing Microsoft programs from the town hall computers & introduce Open Source software like Linux & Open Office onto all town hall workstations. This project was so succesful, other local authorities in Germany have now followed suit.

Many German cities, the German Foreign Office & the Office for Information Security (BSI), are putting their trust in alternatives to Windows, Word & Excel (Microsoft Office).

Here's some explanation regarding the LiMux Project:

What is LiMux?

• The main target of the LiMux project is to complete the City Council's order to run open source software on the administration's desktops in the future - "LiMux Basisclient"
• First worldwide certificated linuxbased work station - Made for feel good
• Free software for the operating system and office software
  LiMux Basisclient based on Linux and free software:
  Debian GNU/Linux „sarge“ (Distribution), K Desktop Environment - KDE (Graphical user interface), OpenOffice.org (Offices), Firefox (Browser), Thunderbird (E-Mail), Gimp (Image editing)
• Applications will be developed platform independent, preference webbased

Status quo of the LiMux project:

• 1.200 workstations migrated to LiMux
• 12.000 workstations using OpenOffice.org
• 100% workstations using Firefox and Thunderbird

Here you can read more about the Munich LiMux project.

Here is a case study on the website of the Open Source Observatory and Repository.