In making these criticisms, Schmid is echoing issues raised by Mayor Dieter Reiter of the SPD party. Reiter complained of having to wait weeks for an external mail server to be set up just so that he could get mail on his smartphone, and he has criticized the open source software for
lagging behind Microsoft's equivalents.
These views aren't held universally, with the
City Council defending the "LiMux" project and suggesting that the coalition administration is using the Linux migration as a scapegoat. The Council says the use of open source software has yielded
savings of more than €10 million (more than $13 million).
Karl-Heinz Schneider, head of municipal IT services, seems to endorse this view. He says it's no surprise that a new platform should temporarily generate more support requests, and
he wasn't aware of any particular complaints.
Microsoft announced last year that it was moving its German headquarters to Munich. This move is planned to take place in 2016. While
Reiter was involved in the deal that precipitated the move and describes himself as a "Microsoft fan," he says the criticism of LiMux is unrelated.