Ford looks to open source - Microsoft gets worried

Motor giant Ford's European arm is planning to ditch Microsoft as its desktop operating systems provider and move to an open source model, according to its European head of IT.

In an exclusive interview with silicon.com conducted at the IT Director's Forum, Richard Thwaite, director of IT and ebusiness infrastructure for Ford Europe, said an open source desktop was his goal.

He told silicon.com: "We're always looking for potential vendors other than Microsoft for the desktop. We're open-minded and seek to find the best value possible for our business."

Asked if he would consider a Linux desktop, he said: "I think ultimately we will look for an open source desktop. I think that's eventually where the industry will go."

The news will come as a blow to Microsoft, which has enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the desktop OS for nearly a decade, with enterprises left with little real choice.

Richard Thwaite controls 33,000 desktops across Europe, while Ford as a whole uses 100,000 desktop PCs worldwide. This is just the kind of customer Microsoft needs to have on track if its latest OS and applications suite - XP - is to be a success.

However, Linux evangelists say an open source desktop is very close to providing a credible rival to Microsoft, with the KDE League, the GNOME Foundation and Sun Microsystems all offering Linux desktops.

In the past Microsoft has maintained that large businesses aren't interested in it, because of worries about functionality and poor support. Ford's interest in open source shows the software giant cannot rely on this being the case.

Dan Kuznetsky, VP of systems software research for analyst house IDC, said the news highlighted the problems Microsoft is having trying to sell into a saturated market. He said: "Microsoft has chosen to make the war against open source a religious one. In doing so it has just managed to highlight it further, meaning IT Directors who wouldn't have ever considered it are now thinking of moving over."

Microsoft was unable to comment on the news.

To watch interviews with Richard Thwaite and other high level users at the IT Directors Forum, look out for our forthcoming News In View programme.