The government has to gain confidence in open source if
it is to avoid a Microsoft monopoly in the public sector, argues
Simon Moores.
In case you didn’t know, the true
reason behind Bill Gates visit to London wasn’t the meeting with
chancellor Gordon Brown or even a Microsoft developers conference,
but an allegedly important briefing on personal development from
Golden Globe-winning comedian Ricky Gervais - otherwise known as
David Brent - star of the popular sitcom, The Office and its
forthcoming sequel, The Office 2004.
In search of further comic relief, Mr Gates,
soon to be Microsoft's "First Knight", was scheduled to attend the
chancellor’s Entrepreneurs Summit and meet with the Office of
Government's Sir Peter Gershon and the NHS’s Richard
Grainger.
At this point, the smiles may fade a little because both the OGC
and the NHS are pursuing a vigorous form of collective bargaining
that might defeat even David Brent.
Many in government perceive Microsoft’s
products as over sexed, over priced and over here, and at the end
of last year, I received a call from one well-connected individual
who claimed that the savings alone to the public sector in moving
away from Windows have been calculated in the tens of
millions.
The argument in government circles is that environmentally friendly
Penguin power might release enough budget to drive the improvements
that Whitehall is looking for, and perhaps, balance the cost of the
61,000 mostly administrative staff taken on by the NHS in the year
to June 2002.
The OGC also stands accused of lacking the
appropriate level of political correctness in the ratio of open
source to Windows solutions in government and MPs believe it needs
to do more to achieve a level playing field, which has led to a
series of dismally unimpressive trials of open source in local
government, which led to Newham Council throwing in the towel
before Christmas.
For Gates and Microsoft the message is quite clear, and other
governments are now starting to tighten the policy screw on
Microsoft’s pricing, two years after the Greeks described this as
"unsustainable" at the EU Hydra Conference in Nafpolion.
Sun Microsystems is now lobbying hard for a public sector
breakthrough, and it is no coincidence that Richard Barrington, who
was director of Industry at the Office of the e-Envoy, is now
leading the charge now he is back at Sun.
Government is, however, caught between a devil of its own making
and the deep blue sea.
It is reasonable to assume that Microsoft is
prepared to compromise to a level which offers government a
dramatic reduction in its total cost of ownership, but this is
unlikely to be as low as Sun or IBM and others can go in offering a
Linux/Java desktop across the entire public sector.
What may be preventing government from making any clear open-source
decision is fear of the unknown - and not price.
Government is conservative by nature and risk
averse. It likes standards, it likes accountability and, in
general, given the outrageous costs of IT failures over the past
five years, it is wary of the promises of the IT industry.
A damning comment was made at LinuxWorld this
month. Jeremy White, a leading developer of Linux applications told
an audience of network administrators, "It works 98% of the time.
But it's the 2% of the time it doesn't that kills you."
Even some of the Penguin’s biggest supporters
admit that Linux has a long way to go before it can offer a
credible alternative to Microsoft Windows.
As long as Bill Gates can bend with the wind and make concessions,
I believe it is unlikely that we will see any dramatic public
sector shift towards open-source computing for at least three
years.
In that time, we will see a steady growth in
the introduction of open-source solutions, but Windows will remain
dominant.
However, at some time in the not too distant
future, government will have become more confident in what open
source can offer and then not even the introduction of David
Brent’s sales skills will sustain the near-monopoly Microsoft
enjoys in public sector computing today.
What do you think?
Will the government benefit from a move to open source?
Tell us in an e-mail >>
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Setting the world to rights with the collected thoughts and
opinions of leading industry analyst Dr Simon Moores of
Zentelligence.
Acting globally, Zentelligence (Research) advises
governments, suppliers, business and the media on the evolution,
application and delivery of leading-edge technologies and
specialises in the areas of eGovernment and information
security.
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