Richard Steel has taken early retirement from his post as CIO of
Newham Borough Council.
Steel, who had the post of Socitm president 2008-2009, said he
was taking a couple of months out for "rest, reflection and
thoughts about what to do next."
Steel came to prominance after pitted open source against
Windows in 2004, but ultimately awarded Microsoft and HP a 10-year
contract to supply Newham with desktop PCs, servers and
software.
While an unpopular decision in the Linux community, Steel has
stood his ground on this decision, which helped Microsoft establish
a local government specialisation and elevated Newham Borough
Council to a flagship Microsoft site.
Steel caused further
outrage in the open source community recently when he described
open source as "years behind" commercial products,
Steel began his IT career in merchant banking, and became an
assistant director of Morgan Grenfell (now Deutsche Bank). He moved
to Newham Council in 1989.
The council is now in the process of renegotiating its contract
with Micrsoft.