[teget]

> They will heavily regret this decision.

Unlikely. Yes, this is a political decision as most actual users of the systems were ok with the linux client. However, the article is a bit misleading. They are bringing the systems used by a subdepartment of the states department of finance in line with the stack used within the remainder of the department (about 1/3 were linux clients, the state already owns over 50.000 other windows clients (lower estimate, most likely more if you include organization which manage their own infrastructure (like universities)), they know what to expect from microsoft). While the systems worked it always required special attention when interoperating with other states (for example: certain informationrequests by other states are standardized between all states (based on a shared windows solution). Lower saxonian employees could not interact with it directly and had to rely on their inhouse solution instead of reusing the existing and proven solution used by all other states). There are notable costs associated to beeing a special flower while maintining conformance to financial regulations.

Yes, I believe that biting the bullet and migrating more departments to open systems would be the better longterm solution (which would also force vendors to port their solutions). But there will be several elections before that pays off and would require a significant investment before the benefits show (and possible coordination between the states) and in the midterm moving to Windows might be the better option. Moving to linux doesn't win an election, but failing to move to linux might loose you one.

However, even after the move about 1/4 to 1/3 of the computers/servers owned by the state will run linux/bsd (iirc).