UK Goverment IT Chief Backs Open Source Suppliers

Blacklaw writes "The UK government's deputy Chief Information Officer has outlined plans to hand public sector IT contracts over to small businesses and suppliers of open-source and cloud-based solutions in an attempt to balance the books. Speaking at the 360IT conference in London on Wednesday, Bill McCluggage also promised greater transparency over IT procurement, with tenders and contracts published online. Outlining a commitment to 'simplify, standardize and automate', McCluggage said the government would make it easier for open-source suppliers to compete for contracts, making the public sector less reliant on individual suppliers, or locked into proprietary systems."

Comments

Wonder how long he'll last

[SplashMyBandit]

Usually courageous people like that get removed from office pretty quick. Also, his proprietary software opponents (vendors) will probably be very quick to pounce on any delays or missteps while systems transition to Open Source (while delays in proprietary software projects are quietly swept under the carpet due to 'commercial sensitivity'). I hope this guys pulls it off and levels the playing field - which should also save a lot of taxpayer pounds/dollars

Re:Wonder how long he'll last

[Linker3000]

"Ah, but Minister, it works like this... Open source products cost zero to procure. Admittedly there are the associated installation and support costs, but that holds true for commercial products, so let's take the installation and support costs out of the equation. This leaves the cost of acquisition, which, as I said, for Open Source products is zero. Now, consider a commercial software alternative that would cost, say £15 million to acquire, yet we negotiate the price down to £10 million, so we can rightly say that we have saved the taxpayer £5 million - an not inconsiderable sum - but look at the Open Source alternative; it costs zero to acquire so there is zero that can be saved by negotiation - nothing - so what is better for the taxpayer: something on which we can save zero, or something for which we can negotiate a £5m discount? Basic maths and economics, Minister. "

Re:Lets hope this brings an end ...

[TheRaven64]

Campaign funds in the UK are capped, and none of the candidates from the major parties has any trouble reaching this cap - they don't need contributions from HP, and all other gifts must be declared on the Register of Members' Interests. We don't have the same system of institutionalised bribery as the USA. The closest thing that we get is Ministers being offered directorships once they leave government in exchange for services rendered while there, but this only really works for bribing the people at the top. The other 400 or so MPs don't tend to get offered this kind of thing.

The UK has a lot of small IT businesses, while HP has just reduced its UK workforce by around 2,000 and generally uses non-UK workers for these contracts. Employing British people to work on government projects makes financial sense for the government (they will be paying taxes and buying things in the UK), and is likely to be a vote winner.