[ossig] Survey: open source shows progress in public sector

[Ditesh Kumar]

>From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/02/oss_public_sector/

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Survey: open source shows progress in public sector
Firm foothold established
By Kablenet → More by this author
Published Wednesday 2nd May 2007 09:58 GMT
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Open source technology now has a firm foothold in the public sector,
according to a new survey.

A snapshot survey organised by Kable and sponsored by Red Hat shows just
over a third of respondents are actually using open source, and close to
another third are giving it consideration in their plans for the future.

The results indicate a growing confidence in the technology, in which
the source code of the programme is freely available for use or
modification. Its champions have argued that it provides a more
economical approach in the long term than using proprietary operating
systems and software.

In a poll that drew 182 responses from all areas of the public sector,
35 per cent said open source was already in partial or widespread use in
their organisations. Meanwhile, 14 per cent said they were considering
its use, nine per cent were testing the options and three per cent
evaluating the options.

It still has to make an impact on many organisations, however, with 34
per cent saying it was not in use.

Web-based applications are regarded as providing the greatest potential,
with 25 per cent of respondents identifying these as the type which
would be best suited for open source solutions. This was followed by PC
applications with 17 per cent, server and off-the-shelf applications
with 14 per cent each, bespoke systems with 13 per cent, and public
sector focused applications (such as revenue collection) with 9 per
cent.

Respondents identified a number of significant benefits, the largest of
which were cost savings (26 per cent), reduced reliance on a single
supplier (21 per cent), and flexibility (19 per cent). Speed of
development, security and interoperability also scored significantly
with nine per cent each.

There are, however, a number of barriers to the implementation of open
source. Concerns over support and maintenance, with fewer technicians
having an understanding of open source as opposed to proprietary
systems, was regarded as the most serious problem by 22 per cent. This
is related to the perceptions of risk around the implementation, which
was identified by 17 per cent as the main barrier.

Others were lack of technical understanding with 12 per cent,
interoperability issues with 11 per cent, existing lock-in to a specific
supplier with 10 per cent, an unproven business case with eight per
cent, and reliability with six per cent.

This article was originally published at Kablenet.



-- 
  May your signals all trap                     Ditesh Kumar
May your references be bounded                ditesh at gathani.org
      All memory aligned                http://ditesh.gathani.org/blog
    Floats to ints rounded              http://www.openmalaysiablog.com