The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) is negotiating a
renewal of a three-year agreement with Microsoft.
OGC spokesman Martin Day said that while the existing memorandum
of understanding primarily covers software licensing fees, the new
three-year contract will focus on services and support.
"We wanted to put something in place to have a seamless
transition between the two contracts," Day said.
The new deal is not expected to be signed until the end of
September.
The original deal in March 2002 coincided with software
agreements with Sun and IBM. Day said the government is on target
to save the £100m expected from the deals.
While the OGC is renewing its deal with Microsoft, a number of
governments around the world have recently taken a more serious
look at open source.
Last year the city of Munich dropped Windows for Linux and is
currently looking to deploy open source operating systems across
all of its departments, and local governments in India, Australia,
Italy and France have all recently decided to move to open
source.
Meanwhile Microsoft has created a new public sector organisation
within the company, charged with influencing governments' buying
decisions. It has also rolled out an entry-level, lower priced
version of its Windows XP operating system, called Windows XP
Starter Edition, and has negotiated with governments to deploy the
software to novice users.
And its efforts seem to be paying off. Earlier this week
it sealed a deal with the London Borough of Newham, which is seen
as one of the country's most progressive government users of
IT.
Scarlet Pruitt writes for IDG News Service
