NSW ponders open source, SaaS

The NSW Government is evaluating the benefits of software as a service (Saas) and open source software in a bid to rationalise and reduce the costs of its software procurement, according to a Request for Information (RFI) document released today.

The government is calling for submissions from the IT industry to evaluate "options for alternative delivery and acquisition models for the provision of software solutions". As part of a whole-of-government review of IT procurement, NSW "is keen to investigate all potential alternatives to acquiring and using common enterprise software applications and solutions," the document said.

One of the main aims of the Treasurer's Better Services and Value Taskforce, announced in June 2009, is to rationalise government spending on information and communication technology.

The NSW Government estimates it spends $100 million per year on software licences, out of a total IT and telecommunications budget of $700 million. It maintains a fleet of 320,000 desktop computers with an annual total ownership cost of around $2500 each. In the last financial year it acquired more than 70,000 desktop PCs and 28,000 notebooks.

The RFI document notes a range of trends in the technology industry which it believes will help it reduce the costs of software procurement, including: the move towards software rentals under the software-as-a-service model; the adoption of service-oriented architecture and enterprise services bus technology; commercial adoption of virtualisation and grid computing technologies; and the mainstream acceptance of open source software and the availability of commercial support for open source packages.

Considering these changes, the NSW Government is looking to move away from the traditional software licensing models it has used until now, towards software as a service, open source technology and more flexible software licensing models.

The RFI calls for suggestions that may help the NSW Government reduce software spending across a broad range of software acquisitions including desktop operating systems, core desktop applications, specialist applications for developers and project managers, portal services, collaboration applications and databases.

In May 2008, Senator Kate Lundy said governments needed to create policies encouraging agencies to consider using open source software when making purchasing decisions. However, government CIOs said a lack of commercial support options hampered their use of open source software.

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Pure idiocy! Peter T. -- 26/11/09

This is pure idiocy - not the decision to go to OSS, but the decision to purchase laptop for schoolkids with Windows and then to shortly afterwards begin to consider OSS. The laptop should have been issued with Linux!

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Get over it Anonymous -- 26/11/09 (in reply to #320392770)

Peter T
This article has nothing to do with the DET laptops, I love my Windows 7 laptop. As a teacher I know I'm preparing students with the technology used in the overwelmingly significant majority of workplaces.

Perhaps time to get over that a decison was made without your personal consultation and go back to playing with your kernal.

P.s. I use Linux too, doesn't make it the best choice for every student and teacher in NSW

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Fanboi's Anonymous -- 27/11/09 (in reply to #320392790)

Peter you can't argue with fanatics ....

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Windows 7 Soap -- 27/11/09 (in reply to #320392790)

Just so you know... the 'overwhelming significant majority' of workplaces are still using XP....

Linux still has some distance to go, but is a much better value proposition than Windows and associated licensing. Even using Windows there are still other options such as Open Office.

The world is GREY people.

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Majority rules, eh? Robert McKenzie -- 01/12/09 (in reply to #320392790)

Obviously if Windows is used on more computers then you should only expose students to that environment. Make sure they get locked in ASAP.

By the same logic, as most cars use petrol, you should brainwash your students into never considering alternative fuels either.

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good point! Anonymous -- 01/12/09 (in reply to #320393191)

and don't forget telstra in that logic comparison too!

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Well said Robert. Peter T. -- 02/12/09 (in reply to #320393191)

Well said Robert. Students need to be exposed to many different forms of thinking etc, not be allowed to close their minds to alternatives.

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Completely missed the point! Peter T. -- 27/11/09

Anonymous, congratulations on being mindless neophyte who completely missed the point. I too have W7 on a laptop and it is good. And I run Vista on two desktop, and it too is good. And I don't run Linux anymore, though I have done so in the past and I like it. But all of that is really not relevant. The article is about the cost to the public purse of MS software. What IS relevant is public monies, monies wasted on MS software. Monies that could be diverted to alternatives, such as more teachers, nurses, police etc. My post was not a a Linux lover, not as a Linux fanboi (which I am not!) but as a taxpayer wanting to see better value for my taxes; taxes constantly wasted by this blithering Labor Government. This article has everything to do with the laptops. But you are in love with a little computer with W7 on it and are incapable of seeing anything else beyond that. I am really left to wonder if your myopia is so bad that you should not be in charge of our children.

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$$$ over education Anonymous -- 27/11/09 (in reply to #320392846)

Sorry your right, why let the penny pinching stop at Linux. Perhaps we could assist in saving your tax dollars by putting 60 kids in a class, heck now they have a laptop bulldoze the buildings and sell the land (we'll just email them work).

Why should educational outcomes drive the agenda. We could just let a pack of accountants run through schools and base every decision on money.

Better you have another $30 a week in your paypack than raise informed skill and emotionally intelligent youth.

This morning I marked a students term of work. This particular student had not submitted quality work all term and was a passive participant in lessons. This term he submitted a comprehsive digital portfolio of work that was ordered in a way that would rival many gifted and talented students.

I'm not in love (in the literal interpretation you have implied) with the laptop (nor any other of the 5 operating systems I run). Rather I am passionate in how this device has transformed the teaching and learning in my class. My students are more enagged than ever and producing a standard of work I have not seen in my educational career.

And your right I am myopic, myopic towards educating children and feel this is worth far more than $30 a fortnight in my pay packet. Or does that make me Hyperopic?

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Only W7 can achieve educational outcomes Peter T. -- 28/11/09 (in reply to #320392902)

So, in other words, only Windows 7 could achieve your desired educational outcomes. Thank God for M$. Where would you be if they had put some other OS onto those little computers? And apparently there is now a link with W7 and emotionally intelligent youth? Wow! And apparently if it were not for W7, you would not have been able to engage children in the classroom in any form at all. Now you have raised W7 to truly God-like status! None of the above could have been achieved had it not been for W7 being on those little computers. XP could not have done this. Vista could not have done it. Neither could any version of Linux nor of OS 10. Only W7! Such a proposition is utter garbage; utterly ridiculous and you know it to be so. You may continue this discussion if you wish to do so. But every time that you do respond, I will find no problem in deconstructing your vacuous arguments.

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Game set and match Anonymous -- 28/11/09 (in reply to #320392926)

Your right we could argue all day on this but...

I have 30 students in a class learning like never before. I am able to provide my students with learning experience unrivalled.

You just get to comment on web articles complaining about it.

lol :-)

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Checkmate Peter T. -- 29/11/09 (in reply to #320392949)

A flagrantly boorish attempt to end debate. No-one, and certainly not I, has suggested that the current achieve some type of outcome. But then again, that is not the purpose and intent of the article nor of any debate on this site. Critically, the debate is about whether the same outcomes could have been achieve another way and at a cheaper cost. You've continually tried to deflect that debate and been found wanting. Please try and focus on what was written in the article and what has been posted on this site. Try to debate the issue, not cloud your inability to debate by posting emotionally vacuous claptrap. Again I state that your argument is that the current learning outcomes could only have been achieved with the current OS installed. You debate than no other OS could have achieved the current learning outcomes. If you believe that to be so, then prove it! Put 'pen to paper' as it were and prove to all the readers that the one OS is the only one that can do the job. You are the one making that debate, not I. So prove it.

Oh, and for the second time, you have incorrectly used "your" when you should have been using "you're". Just what are you actually teaching? Certainly not English!

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and also Peter T. -- 28/11/09

I should also add, returning to the content of the article, that the Government is now looking to change to OSS and SaaS. That is the critical point. The Government is only NOW looking to reduce the cost of software spending etc, something it could have done very much sooner. Had the laptops to schoolchildren only been commenced now, then it would be reasonable to speculate that they would have been released to students without W7 and most likely with Linux.

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It's not too late for NSW Graeme Harrison (prof at-symbol post.harvard.edu) -- 01/12/09

I too believe that a great opportunity was missed when DET went for a fully-locked-in commercial royalty approach. The fact that DET could not take a NSW-wide approach was a pity. DET simply thought, it doesn't cost us (DET) much to lock the kids into a Microsoft environment... which misses the point that those kids will then be paying for royalties all their lives.

BUT it is not too late for NSW. The government at Premier level ought come out with a statement requiring each tender to justify why it could not be Open Source. In other words, open source ought be the standard, with deviations as required for legacy application needs. This approach stops proprietary lock-ins from being self-promulgating.

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