December 3, 2004: Readers of Germany's prestigious daily newspaper "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" [FAZ] were surprised this week to see a full page ad promoting the new internet web browser "Firefox", a recent entry into the browser market. The ad praises the "revolutionary browser", developed by hundreds of progammers worldwide, who "worked as volunteers and are donating the browser to the world." Just as impressive as the throwing of the gauntlet in such fashion to Microsoft was the fact that the ad was paid for by 2403 individual users of "Firefox", which has only been available in its first official release version since November 9. The sponsors contributed 48,000 € to promote "Firefox." Since the ad in the FAZ costs about 34,000 €, the donors will send a contribution from the balance of the fund to the Mozilla organization responsible for the joint effort to develop "Firefox."

Concern in Germany over Microsoft's dominance of the IBM PC operating system market has been growing for some time. At one point even the viability of Germany's national security was questioned because the German Ministry of Defense and Germany's armed forces rely on the Windows operating system and related software. The Defense Ministry denied an article published in the news magazine DER SPIEGEL titled "German fear of American espionage", which claimed that the ministry would stop using Microsoft products. The SPIEGEL article was prompted by warnings from German security experts that America's "National Security Agency" (which operated sophisticated eavesdropping posts in Germany during the Cold War era) could exploit Microsoft's programming code to hack military computers in Germany.

On the commercial side, last year the city of Munich considered whether any option was available instead of upgrading the Windows operating system on its approximately 14,000 PCs. With annual revenue exceeding € 32 billion, the loss of the Munich contract worth about € 30 million might seem trivial to Microsoft. However, in March 2003 Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer interrupted his ski vacation to fly to Munich in an attempt to persuade the Munich city council that it would not be in the city's best interest to abandon the Windows platform for the open-source Linux operating system.

Ballmer's efforts did not bear fruit. The Munich city council decided to replace Windows with Linux. After a delay last summer over copyright concerns, the project is progressing on a strict timetable set up by project manager Wilhelm Hoegner, grandson of Bavaria's first postwar governor who was personally appointed by World War II Supreme Allied commander Dwight D. Eisenhower. Other cities in Europe, including Frankfurt, Paris and Vienna, are watching to see if the Munich experiment works, making Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's concern over the loss of the Munich contract all the more understandable.