Microsoft Germany nabs public sector experts

Microsoft Corp. has been moving quietly but diligently in recent months to bolster its sales efforts in Germany’s huge public sector market where open source software, particularly the Linux operating system, is becoming increasingly popular.

Karl Aigner, the SuSE Linux AG account manager who persuaded the Munich city government to dump Microsoft in favor of Linux last year, jumped ships at the beginning of this month, joining Microsoft GmbH in Unterschleissheim, Germany, according to Microsoft spokesman Hans-Jürgen Croissant.

Aigner is responsible for sales to public-sector data centers operated by mid-size cities with populations of between 20,000 and 100,000 people and is a member of a team in charge of developing sales strategies for the government sector, Croissant said.

The former Linux expert for public administration sales reports to Wolfgang Branoner, who last year was appointed director of a newly created public sector operating unit. The 40 person-strong unit was established at the beginning of Microsoft Germany’s new fiscal year in July.

Just two months earlier, the city government of Munich — Germany’s third-largest city — decided to migrate its entire computer network of 14,000 computers to the open source Linux operating system, dropping Microsoft’s Windows system in the process.

Federal, state and local governments in Germany as well as other public agencies in the country have been considering Linux ever since the Federal Ministry of the Interior agreed in June 2002 to a partnership with IBM Corp. to supply computers with Linux at favorable conditions.

Branoner knows his way around the corridors of power in Berlin, where he served as economics minister of the local state government. The former government official reports directly to Jürgen Gallmann, head of Microsoft Germany.

“Part of our leadership strategy over the past 18 months has been to look outside the company for talent,” Croissant said. “Around 10 key positions are now filled by people who did not work previously for Microsoft.”