The Georgian government has started a new round of talks with Microsoft

Aug 20, 2014 17:59 GMT  ·  By

While all the eyes are now on Munich’s intentions to review Linux adoption in city departments, Microsoft continues efforts to bring its software on more government computers, with a new report claiming that such talks are now under way in Georgia.

AzerNews is reporting that Microsoft and the Georgian government administration held the first meeting on a cooperation that could bring licensed software on computers belonging to state departments.

According to this source, a committee participating in the talks must create a memorandum of understanding by late 2014, so, starting January 2015, Georgian state computers could all use licensed Microsoft software, including Windows and Office.

Of course, government contracts are a priority for Microsoft, as the company’s enterprise business is the number one cash cow, no matter if we’re talking about Windows or Office.

Microsoft obviously has similar partnerships with governments across the world, but one good example is China, where the company managed to convince authorities to purchase genuine copies of the operating system and thus fight piracy in the country.

It all ended up badly for Microsoft, as the Chinese government purchased legitimate Windows XP licenses only months before the company pulled the plug on this OS version. Local authorities thus decided to ban Windows 8 on government PCs and push Microsoft to an anti-trust investigation that could bring the company fines worth millions of dollars.