Open Source software received a boost, yesterday, wth the announcement that nine government departments are piloting Open Source platforms in a venture with IBM. The trials should last from three to six months and include large departments such as the Department of Work and Pension, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Office of the eEnvoy, as well as smaller bodies such as Newham Borough Council and Orkney Council.
The scale of the pilots will also vary. Spokesperson Martin Day, of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) told us it would include 'a wide spectrum of trials - from a Government department sitting down with IBM to come up with solution for a specific issue from scratch, to controlled environment comparisons between applications running on Open Source and proprietary systems.' An IBM spokesperson could not tell us precise details of the deployment, but said, 'I know Linux is being considered,' and that everything from servers to notebooks would be involved. The OGC has said that departments choosing Linux-based products will receive 'additional savings'.
News source: PCPro
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