14 DAY TRIAL // With support for Windows 7 coming to an end in January 2020, more and more organizations and governments across the world are expected to begin the transition to Windows 10 in the coming months.
But as far as the South Korean government is concerned, sticking with Windows is no longer an option, so the country is now gearing up for a massive move to Linux.
The reason is as simple as it could be, according to information published by The Korea Herald: the government aims for reduced costs, as paying for licenses would no longer be necessary.
While specifics on what Linux distro they want to embrace are not available, it looks like the first step towards this migration to the open-source world is a security audit that should help the government determine if their data is protected or not.
Windows 7 EOL set of January 14, 2020
South Korean authorities are ready to spend some $655 million on the entire program, which includes not only the switch itself to Linux, but also new computers.
However, the process will take place one step at a time, and it first includes a testing stage to find out “if the system could be run on private networked devices without security risks.” The South Korean government also wants to determine if their internal solutions can run on Linux, as this is obviously a challenge since they were originally developed with Windows in mind.
Whether or not the South Korean government will switch to Linux is something that remains to be seen, but without a doubt, this can’t be good news for Microsoft. In fact, this decision to embrace Linux is living proof that with the Windows 7 end-of-support approaching, not everyone would be switching to Windows 10, but stepping closer to a non-Windows world too.