Airline jettisons Microsoft for Linux

Air New Zealand has announced that it is dumping Microsoft in favour of Linux.

A spokesman for the airline said that Microsoft's products are simply too expensive. The controversial Software Assurance model means that the firm must pay more than NZ$600,000 (£180,000) a year in licence fees.

According to the New Zealand Herald, Air New Zealand is replacing 150 Compaq servers it uses for email and file and print serving with IBM Z800 mainframes running the Linux operating system, Websphere Application Server, DB2 Database and Tivoli software.

The airline also plans to replace 4,000 Microsoft Exchange email and file and print clients with Bynari, an open source email application.

The deal has been worked out with IBM, but Air New Zealand has declined to say how much it is worth or to discuss its terms.