The newest version of the federal government's E-Government Strategy, released today, paves the way for continued leveraging of both open-source and proprietary software within the whole-of-government service delivery architecture.
The strategy report named Centrelink, the Bureau of Meteorology and the Department of Veterans Affairs as among the agencies implementing open source solutions.
However, the government noted that "open source software....raises other issues, such as who will provide ongoing support".
"The main issue is to determine the cost, benefit and risks of using either open source or proprietary software in a given situation.
"The government will encourage trials of open source software within the framework of fit-for-purpose and value-for-money".
The Minister for Information Technology and Communications, Senator Richard Alston, said the E-Government strategy document was designed to outline broad strategies and priorities for the future of e-government. The strategy is, Alston claims, the "next phase" of the shift to e-government, following agencies' achievement of most of the electronic service delivery goals laid down in the Government Online strategy.
Senator Alston said in a newly-released study of e-government benefits revealed that 36 per cent of users gained significant benefits from using e-government services, while a further 50 per cent reported moderate benefits.
"Some 45 per cent were able to quantify actual cost savings associated with interacting with government online," Senator Alston said in a statement. "Nineteen percent estimated a saving per interaction of less than AU$10; twelve per cent estimated a saving of between AU$10 and AU$24; and 14 percent estimated savings of over AU$25 per interaction".
"Over 80 percent of all users indicated a moderate to significant improvement in the ease of finding information".
If you want a brilliant open source Office suite, then go to www.openoffice.org.
If you want an open source Office suite that has support, then buy the corporate equivalent of the same thing as "Star Office" v6 from Sun.