What happened to Microsoft in Massachusetts, whose officials haven't been convinced by the Redmond giant to wait quietly for Office 12, a product promised to be more "friendly" with the Office suite with the Open XML standard, will be a puny earthquake compared to the tsunami prepared by Japan!

AP informs that the Japanese officials have started to ponder upon the introduction of Linux on governmental PCs, in order to break free from Microsoft and its Windows operating system.

One of the Internal Affairs and Communications ministry officials, cited by AP, said that the Open Source software should be regarded as an "important option" for the governmental acquisition policy.

The Japanese official outlined that this recommendation should be regarded as a confirmation of the fact that the non-commercial software is stable enough to represent an alternative to what Microsoft offers.

For Microsoft, the problem is not new at all, the governments of several countries reproaching the software giant the high costs and monopolist trends. In the attempt to reduce costs and IT investments, an increasing number of officials have chosen to introduce or to recommend Linux as an operating system for the governmental computers.

Given the circumstances, with Windows Vista to require more demanding hardware resources than the current XP, Microsoft might find it difficult to convince governments and state institutions to migrate towards the new operating system.

Furthermore, Japan is currently involved, together with China and South Korea, in the development of a new Linux based OS, which will serve as an alternative to Windows.