The administration of the Spanish autonomous region of Valencia has completed its switch to LibreOffice, a free and open source suite of office productivity applications. Last week Friday the region's ICT department announced that the office suite is installed on all of the 120,000 desktop PCs of the administration, including schools and courts. The migration will save the government some 1.5 million euro per year on proprietary software licences.

"Apart from economic benefits, the commitment to free and open source software brings other advantages, including having the solutions available in the Valencian language as well as in Spanish, and IT vendor independence, which encourages competition", the ICT department's Director General, Sofia Bellés, said in a statement. "We also have the freedom to modify and adapt the software to our every need."

Director Bellés says that the Valencia region's migration began in the second half of 2012. It has already helped to save 1.3 million euro that would otherwise have been spent on licences for a proprietary office suite. The switch is part of measures taken by the region's council to reduce the cost of ICT, in particular by saving on proprietary software licences.

Emblematic

In its statement, the ICT department points to other exemplary free software initiatives by the region, such as the implementation of the Linux distribution Lliurex on 110,000 PCs in all schools in the region. "This has generated saving of more than 30 million euro since its inception in 2005."

"Installation of free office suite is part of the regional government's strategic commitment to its use of free software. It will not only help save costs for licences, but also boosts the development of the local ICT sector, promotes the use of Valencian in the digital world and improves interoperability and security of the administration's IT systems."

More information:

Announcement by the ICT department of the Valencia Region (in Spanish)

Gaceta Tecnologica news item (in Spanish)

Finanzas news item (in Spanish)