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    Government Projects Boost Support for Open Source

    By
    Peter Galli
    -
    October 8, 2003
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      The U.K. government on Wednesday ratcheted up its commitment to using Linux across its departments, announcing nine proof of concept pilot open-source software projects across central government departments and the wider public sector.

      The nine pilots are being coordinated by the Office of Government Commerce and the Office of the eEnvoy, and build on the strategy announced last July that allowed government departments to consider Linux and open-source software when making buying decisions.

      The initial trials are being conducted by IBM and will measure the effectiveness and cost-benefits of IT systems based on open source products when compared against proprietary software solutions. They may lead to further pilot-studies with a limited range of selected suppliers to validate the emerging findings.

      Peter Gershon, the chief executive of the Office of Gov-ernment Commerce, said the move built on the governments commitment to create a level playing field between open-source software from a range of suppliers and proprietary software within government procurement.

      “The trials will operate in a controlled environment and will enable us to identify when and how-best to use the technology to the benefit of departments and the taxpayer alike,” he said in a statement.

      Adam Jollans, the Linux Strategy manager for IBMs software group, told eWeek on Wednesday that this move underlined the continued momentum of the adoption of Linux in the public sector. The goal is to test a variety of services and solutions across the participating departments to determine where the benefits and cost savings lay.

      But he stressed that IBM was not positioning this as pitting open-source and Linux software versus Windows, but should rather be viewed as the U.K. governments intention to give its departments another choice to proprietary Windows and Unix.

      “There are a lot of benefits to using open-source software, including increased reliability on Intel systems, the security advantages that come from avoiding a mono-Microsoft culture and the better price performance offered by using Linux on Intel commodity hardware,” he said.

      The latest moves abroad follow the announcement by the City Council of Munich in May that it had decided to deploy the Linux open-source operating system and would migrate its 14,000 desktop and notebook computers away from Windows products to Linux.

      And last week here in the U.S., Massachusetts, the lone holdout state still suing Microsoft Corp. for antitrust violations, announced it would become the first state to adopt broad-based strategy of moving its computer systems toward open standards, including Linux, the rival operating system to Microsofts Windows.

      Also on Wednesday, IBM and the Russian Ministry of Communications and Computerization announced that they would be opening a Linux Competency Center to promote the adoption of Linux in Russia.

      The new center aims to help any and all customers take advantage of Linux. The Moscow Technical University of Communications has also committed to contributing open-source skills and technical solutions to the center.

      Andrey Korotkov, the Deputy Minister of the Russian Ministry of Communications and Computerization, said IT solutions based on Linux and open standards would open up opportunities for Russian businesses. “In particular, this center will help create a Linux ecosystem enabling Russian hi-tech companies to expand into global markets faster,” he said in a statement.

      Discuss this in the eWEEK forum.

      Peter Galli
      Peter Galli has been a financial/technology reporter for 12 years at leading publications in South Africa, the UK and the US. He has been Investment Editor of South Africa's Business Day Newspaper, the sister publication of the Financial Times of London.He was also Group Financial Communications Manager for First National Bank, the second largest banking group in South Africa before moving on to become Executive News Editor of Business Report, the largest daily financial newspaper in South Africa, owned by the global Independent Newspapers group.He was responsible for a national reporting team of 20 based in four bureaus. He also edited and contributed to its weekly technology page, and launched a financial and technology radio service supplying daily news bulletins to the national broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which were then distributed to some 50 radio stations across the country.He was then transferred to San Francisco as Business Report's U.S. Correspondent to cover Silicon Valley, trade and finance between the US, Europe and emerging markets like South Africa. After serving that role for more than two years, he joined eWeek as a Senior Editor, covering software platforms in August 2000.He has comprehensively covered Microsoft and its Windows and .Net platforms, as well as the many legal challenges it has faced. He has also focused on Sun Microsystems and its Solaris operating environment, Java and Unix offerings. He covers developments in the open source community, particularly around the Linux kernel and the effects it will have on the enterprise.He has written extensively about new products for the Linux and Unix platforms, the development of open standards and critically looked at the potential Linux has to offer an alternative operating system and platform to Windows, .Net and Unix-based solutions like Solaris.His interviews with senior industry executives include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Linus Torvalds, the original developer of the Linux operating system, Sun CEO Scot McNealy, and Bill Zeitler, a senior vice president at IBM.For numerous examples of his writing you can search under his name at the eWEEK Website at www.eweek.com.

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