Telstra To Put Linux On Desktop

StArSkY writes "The Australian has an article today outlining how Telstra, Australia's largest Telco, is switching to Linux and open source on the desktop. Their pilot has been quite successful, and improved stability has been noticed. On trial are Star Office, Gnome, Mozilla and Wyse. Spending AUD$1.5 Billion a year on IT, means Telstra using Open Source is a massive boost to Open Source developers and support professionals. Not mentioned in the Article is that Telstra also just Dumped IBM Global Services, and will be running IT in-house again! Telstra will be hiring Linux-savvy people I think..."

Comments

Cost Cutting

[ChibiTaryn]

Hmm... I heard a whisper about this earlier, and there were suspicions earlier when I read the Financial Review and was told that they need to halve their IT spending.

I don't know if Telstra are doing this because of the benefits that Open Source could provide, or cause they've been told to save money.

I just hope that they get it right for once. They seem to have enough trouble with their Microsoft products.... (the school's system in South Australia -- run by Telstra -- was down for three hours due to the Blaster worm on Monday, as was a number of Telstra dialup and e-mail....)

He's right

[Hecatonchires]

SMH article about indian company that looks to get deal

Re:So how much will be spent on OSS?

[kgbspy]

lots of universities use OSS heavily

In my line of work I've had a lot of contact with universities, and I must say I've barely seen a whisper of open source usage. Perhaps there are small departments here and there who are getting into it, but if so I'm yet to see it. Good on them if they are, however.

a number of banks (with the proud exception of PestWhack) here in Australia are linux-friendly

I'll put my hand up to being a Westpac customer, and I must say that I've never had any problems using their online banking, either on Linux or Windows (using both Opera and Mozilla Firebird on both operating systems). I have heard of people having lots of problems trying to do online banking on Linux, but I can't say I've ever heard Westpac's name mentioned in conjunction with that. FWIW, I think that Westpac's online banking is quite good compared to that of its competitors.

the biggest sticks in the corporate mud for insisting on Microsoft are the Federal and State governments

This is a landscape that is changing quite rapidly in Australia. The South Australian government is actively trying to pass a bill mandating that all government departments use open source software in preference to Microsoft, et al, where practical. A number of other state governments, including Queensland and (I think) Victoria are watching the case with interest, and if it is a successful program, will more than likely move down the same path. I'm sure it won't be long before this sort of publicity reaches critical mass and other government and corporate entities start to take notice and make the shift.

Having said that, it wouldn't come as a surprise to me if I learned that MS, or other software companies with vested interests in government/big business, started offering financial incentives for these organisations not to switch over to open source...