CERN switches to open source software due to higher prices for Microsoft products

CERN is the world's largest nuclear energy laboratory, located on the border of France and Switzerland.

Scientists from the association discovered W andZ-bosons, new elementary particles, the Higgs boson, tetraquark and pentaquark, and the first antimatter atoms were created. The project involves 23 countries, which pay an annual membership fee of about $900 million.

Until March 2019, the organization usedMicrosoft products and software at a reduced rate of "Academic institution". However, after the technology company canceled the academic status of CERN, the cost of the tariff has more than doubled, the union said.

In response, CERN announced the launch of a project todeveloping its own open source software called Microsoft Alternatives, or MAlt. The goal of the project is to break the association's dependence on commercial suppliers, CERN said in a statement.

The first product MALt will be an email clienttesting which will be held in the summer of 2019. If the service works without errors, in the fall all CERN employees will switch to the new mail client. The organization also plans to transfer employees from Skype for Business to a smartphone with its own operating system.

Earlier it was reported that in 2021, CERN will conduct the first full-fledged experiment to search for dark matter particles - dark photons.