A trailblazing deal between the Society of Information Technology
Management (Socitm) and Sun Microsystems will lead to greater
interoperability for the public sector, according to Socitm's
national secretary Bob Griffith.
Griffith said the Memorandum of Understanding for Staroffice 6.0,
agreed by the software supplier and the public sector IT managers'
association, will provide users with a "substantial discount" on
the software's list price as well as support and maintenance. The
deal covers the whole of the UK public sector, including local
authorities.
"This is putting the various parts of the jigsaw in place to
achieve what users want," said Griffith.
"Whereas Staroffice was not supported before because it was free on
the Internet, now we have support."
The Memorandum of Understanding builds on a deal involving Socitm
and Sun that that was announced earlier this year.
Socitm will be running a one-day seminar in London on 3 July to
explore the long-term implications of implementing an open source
desktop and the issue of interoperability.