Nine Swedish municipalities have asked ten software application firms to start supporting OpenOffice.

"Together, we ask you to support the document formats ODF and PDF for office documents", the nine begin their short letter dated 6 February.

"Our municipalities are currently actively implementing OpenOffice. During the test period, we have noted that your applications are tightly linked to Microsoft Office. We request you to open up your applications and systems to make it possible for us to complete the transition",

The letter was signed by the IT-managers of the municipalities of Alingsås, Vårgåda, Ale, Falköpings, Mölndals, Grästorps, Stenungsunds, Vara and Svenljunga.

It was sent to the IT firms Aditro, Tieto, Pulsen, Bluegarden, EDP-konsult, Sirius IT, EBI-systems, Logica, IST and Kordab.

According to report in Swedish newspapers, the initiative for the letter was taken by the municipality of Alingsås. In this city of about 22,000 inhabitants OpenOffice is installed on about half of all desktop PCs in use by the administration.

Alingsås' move to the open source suite of office applications began last autumn, with the installation on PCs in primary and secondary schools.

In an interview with the local newspaper in March, Alingsås Tidning, Göran Westerlund, IT Manager for the municipality, said he expects the move to OpenOffice to be completed in May. "Some parts of our business will need to use Microsoft in the future. Our goal is that 90 percent will switch to OpenOffice."

To avoid complications with applications that depend on the proprietary office suite, the municipality is moving step-by-step, he added. According to the Alingsås Tidning, the municipality saves about two million SEK (about 188,000 euro) by moving to the open source office suite.

One of the ten IT firms, Bluegarden, told the news agency IDG in early March it would support of OpenOffice starting at the end of this year.

More information:

Alingsa Tidning news item (in Swedish)

IDG news item (in Swedish)