Had the plan been successful, Sun Microsystems would have effectively been locked out of the lucrative NSW government desktop software market, with the state spending up to AU$99 million on a 120,000 user software licence for Office XP.
However, according to a well-placed source, the Microsoft proposal has failed to win the approval of enough NSW government IT departments to proceed.
Garry Woods, the spokesperson for NSW Department of Public Works and Services (DPWS) procurement arm, Supply, told ZDNet Australia last year that each department was considering Microsoft's offer separately. IT managers' reactions to the deal, were mixed said Wood at the time, some eager to accept the offer immediately while others weren't interested in the package for the immediate future.
The sources said the DPWS was able to collectively bargain for a number of Office XP licenses but that the failure of the whole-of-government deal had left a window of opportunity for Sun Microsystems to carve out a space on the state government desktop for StarOffice 6.0.
Sun Microsystems and IT management consultants, System Integration Services International (Si2) are expected to meet with to up to 37 NSW government departments later this month to present a business case for StarOffice 6.0.
Si2 and Sun claim that NSW would save AU$1 million in software licensing and maintenance fees over three years for every 1,500 Microsoft Office XP licences it forgoes in favour of StarOffice 6.
Sun Microsystems believes that breaking Microsoft's domination of the office productivity software market is critical to giving open source a foothold in the desktop market and opening up the PC platform.
In October last year Sun Microsystems offered educational and non-profit institutions limitless rights to use StarOffice 6.0 for a nominal fee, in order to "sow the seeds" for a large enterprise user-base.
StarOffice 6.0 single-user its retail license costs AU$209. The offer gave non-profit and educational institutions the right copy to distribute the software to their members for vocational and personal use for AU$183.
Microsoft's Office XP, which is also discounted for the education market, retails for between AU$300 and AU$1100.
