A supplier-independent centre promoting the use of open
source software opens in the West Midlands this week. It will offer
small firms and public sector organisations advice about finding
alternatives to products from the main IT suppliers.
The West Midlands Open Source Software Centre, set up with £4.5m of
funding from regional development agency Advantage West Midlands,
aims to give small businesses more flexibility in their software
decisions.
The innovative approach is likely to be followed by others around
the country, said Peter Abrahams, integration infrastructure
practice leader at Bloor Research.
"The idea of offering local businesses access to this sort of
information is very important. There is a lot of interest in open
source out there but concerns remain about its use," he said.
Many small businesses and public sector organisations are unaware
of the benefits of open source software, according to Stuart Webb,
IT cluster manager at Advantage West Midlands.
"The centre intends to overcome this by creating a wider
understanding of the software and by matching the needs of business
with software capabilities," he said.
"Without the centre, regional businesses will miss the opportunity
to cut the costs of business and service delivery and many other
benefits created by a more diverse software development
environment."
www.openadvantage.org