open source

Buying from small businesses is crucial to government cost cutting, says Cabinet Office SME advisor

Mark Taylor, appointed by the Cabinet Office to lead its New Suppliers to Government working group, talks to Computer Weekly about the pitfalls of government procurement policy for SMEs and the obstacles small businesses face in winning public sector contracts.

It is time for new IT suppliers for government

The report on the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) inquiry into government IT pulls no punches. The theme of an oligopoly of giant system integrators ruling the roost runs through the report all the way, in fact you could summarise the 65 pages like this:

Replacing Microsoft's ISA server

By adopting open source software you can slash costs, vastly improve speed and reliability and, perhaps even more importantly, wrest control back from proprietary IT suppliers.

In this column we look at providing secure, fast and reliable Internet access for your business. We will be replacing a widely used, yet heavily criticised Microsoft product, Internet Security and Acceleration server (ISA).

What’s involved

28/09/2010: Westminster eForum - Open Source

Earlier this week I went up to the Westminster eForum to speak at the Keynote Seminar "Open source software: in business, in government". The Westminster eForum provides an environment for policy makers in Parliament, Whitehall and government agencies to engage with key stakeholders. The event was sponsored by Sirius IT, the company which advised us on our move to Linux and who now provide ongoing support for our Linux servers.

Calls for action on UK Government Open Source - The H Open

At last weeks Westminster eForum, participants called for more action from the UK Government on the adoption of open source by public authorities. Keynote speaker at at the event, FSFE President Karsten Gerloff, pointed out that, according to Gartner, open source has a "100% adoption rate" meaning there are no companies or authorities that don't use open source to some degree. Gerloff wanted to see more focus on the longer term benefits of open source, even though there was a current focus from governments on cost saving.

Birmingham Council looks to open source in £330m cost-cutting drive - ComputerWeekly

Birmingham City Council has begun assessing open source software as part of a £330m cost-cutting programme.

As Europe's largest city authority, Birmingham stood out with Bristol City Council for their trials of open source software in 2005. But its flirtation was cut short by a multimillion-pound deal with Capita.

Gerry McMullan, business policy manager at Birmingham City Council, said the authority had a "tangled history with open source software", and its experiments with open systems had delivered "mixed" results. But the time had come for a reassessment, he added.

Bristol councillor makes stand for open source - THINQ.co.uk

The political head of ICT at a city struggling to wrestle free of Microsoft has declared it will give up its open source ambitions “over my dead body”.

Mark Wright, the Bristol City councillor who handles the cabinet portfolio for ICT, made the stand at a political meeting in London yesterday.

Bristol's attempts to use open source software instead of Microsoft on its desktop computers have been hampered by the widespread use of proprietary Microsoft standards in Britain's public sector. But Wright said the council would not give up the fight.

Open Source Community Welcomes Government Support - eWEEK Europe

The UK’s open source community has responded enthusiastically to signs that the UK government may be decreasing its dependence on large contracts with proprietary software vendors.

The UK government has a formal policy to use open source software “wherever possible” but this, and the similar policy of the previous government, have been regarded as “toothless” and Britain’s use of open source in the public sector is one of the lowest in the world.

Neither open source or proprietary software should be default choice in government? - ComputerWeekly

There has been lots of talk recently about the UK government increasing its use of open source software to cut costs.

Service providers are being expected to slash costs so the choice of software is vital.

For a long time commercial software from companies such as Microsoft have dominated the public sector. But things are changing. For example a deal with Microsoft was recently scrapped.

Microsoft lock-in stalls Bristol council's open source strategy - ComputerWeekly.com

Bristol City Council has been forced to ditch a major tranche of its open systems strategy because it is locked in to using Microsoft software and standards.