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eGovernment Forschung seit 2001 | eGovernment Research since 2001
A year-long pilot programme by the Office of Government Commerce has resulted in some encouraging news for open source suppliers

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC)'s report on year-long open-source software trials in the public sector says the software is maturing rapidly and should be considered alongside rival proprietary tools. Government procurement arm the OGC also announced support for open-source desktops, often seen as one of the least mature aspects of the technology.

The report met with predictable enthusiasm from the free software community and disapproval from Microsoft.

"We are on version one but by versions three and four, open source will be as good as proprietary software, but at a fraction of the cost," said Giles Palmer of Runtime Collective, whose open-source content management system is used in local government.

The prospect of regular updates from the open-source community may appeal to firms frustrated by slow upgrades or poor reliability from proprietary vendors, he added.

Mark Woods, head of collaborative opportunities at the OGC, said the report shows there is an alternative to software lock-ins and the upgrade cycles of commercially-developed systems. Woods said the study, based on trials with government departments, agencies and councils, had proved that for 80 percent of organisations and tasks, open-source software is suitable, while for servers, such software is "already there".

IBM director of public-sector business Martin Goodman said, "As the UK advances the e-government agenda, wider deployment of open-standards-based infrastructures will become increasingly important."

Steve Brown of Linux vendor Novell said, "The report also trumpets green issues, saying an effective open-source operating system could mean fewer hardware upgrades."

Unsurprisingly, the findings met a less upbeat response from Microsoft.

"Having read the report in detail, the findings do not align fully with feedback we regularly receive from our customers who have evaluated Microsoft software against open source," the firm said in a statement.

Eric Woods of analyst firm Ovum said, "Coming from the influential OGC, this is a boost for open-source software in the UK, where until recently interest has lagged. The logic of the report is that cheaper open-source software offerings will suit the majority and only power-users will require the full capabilities offered by Microsoft. This will be the most worrying message as far as Microsoft is concerned."

An OGC spokesman said the next step may be to build a group of suppliers to which government departments could refer.

Autor: David Neal

Quelle: vnunet, 01.11.2004

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