Doubtlessly, this successful migration to desktop Linux must have been very difficult, costly, and disruptive. The <i>upfront</i> costs of migration surely exceed what it would have cost the city to stay on Windows for one or two more waves of upgrades. The important question is: were these upfront costs & multi-year effort worth it?<p>The data presented in the article provides compelling evidence that the answer is yes -- i.e., the migration's <i>recurring</i> savings exceed its <i>upfront</i> costs:<p>* The city no longer has to pay for license upgrades, thereby eliminating a major recurring cost <i>forever</i> -- savings of nearly 3 million pounds every three to four years, according to the article. That's <i>huge</i>.<p>* The city no longer has to upgrade desktop software or hardware as frequently, reducing another recurring cost <i>forever</i> -- also <i>huge</i>.<p>* Most surprisingly, the city claims its IT department is fielding considerably fewer user complaints with Linux than with Windows, reducing another major cost <i>forever</i>. Labor-intensive IT support is always the costliest component of operating a corporate desktop, so that's also <i>huge</i>.<p>If the recurring cost savings claimed by the city of Munich are accurate, every budget-strapped city in the planet should be seriously considering this kind of migration to desktop Linux. It makes a lot of sense purely from a financial standpoint.<p>[UPDATE: I toned down the language and corrected key figures, which were off by an order of magnitude due to an incorrect reading of the article. I also materially changed the bullet point regarding support costs, as the article itself was slightly misleading on the matter. THANK YOU Xylakant and luser001 for pointing out my errors!]