In an apparent showdown over price, Israel's government has suspended purchases of Microsoft productivity software and is encouraging the development of an open source alternative.
A spokeswoman for the Finance Ministry, which oversees government purchases, said Tuesday that government agencies would use existing Microsoft Office products for the time being rather than upgrade to newer versions.
The Israeli government also will encourage the development of lower-priced alternatives to Microsoft software in an effort to help expand computer use by the public.
To that end, the Finance Ministry has cooperated with Sun Microsystems and IBM in designing the Hebrew language version of OpenOffice software, a freely distributed open-source alternative to Microsoft Office.
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