Sun today announced that it had secured a whole-of-government contract to supply NSW with its open-source based Java Enterprise and Java Desktop software suites.
Michael May, Sun Microsystems national sales director, said the contract would give all NSW government departments the opportunity to purchase licenses for its enterprise productivity system at a discounted rate over four years.
According to Sun, six NSW government departments are already in the early phases of testing or deploying the software.
The departments range in size from 200 up to a "few thousand" staff representing an estimated 30,000 seats, said May.
It is understood that the trials would encompass performance and functionality of both conventional desktop applications and Sun's SunRay thin-client workstations, which Telstra is currently testing with the prospect of offering a new range of services.
The contract, secured through the newly formed NSW Department of Commerce, is a significant win for Sun. The NSW government has been one of the key territories in which it has sought acceptance in its attempt to wrestle market share from Microsoft at the enterprise level.
However, the company has to overcome heavy market inertia favouring Microsoft's proprietary server and client software product sets, particularly its ubiquitous office productivity suite Microsoft Office.
Sun's alternative office productivity suite StarOffice -- based heavily on its less-tamed open source cousin OpenOffice -- is a central component in Sun's desktop operating system Java Desktop Suite.
However, Sun Microsystems software product manager, Laurie Wong last month said that Sun had no illusions about the task it was facing, acknowledging that IT managers are cautious creatures of habit.
"We're not kidding ourselves that no matter what data is put in front of them that some will say 'that's all very nice but I like what I have and that's the way it will stay'," said Wong.
Sun's critics say that the company is trying to bite off more than it can chew with its Java Enterprise System strategy and that the package as been re-branded and packaged too frequently over the last 18 months for the market to catch on to it.
Another reason to avoid MS Office 2003?
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/27/1067213195363.html
Developer claims Patent rights breach in Office 2003
Possible remedies under civil law include retrospective awarding of royalties, the decommissioning of Microsoft customers' systems, and damages.
"When software makers don't act appropriately, aggrieved inventors are being squeezed to go down the line for compensation to the unauthorised end-user beneficiaries of their work," Wilson said.
"But when we pointed out striking similarities between our disclosure document and parts of Office 2003 Beta 2, in our view Microsoft did not respond appropriately. We can't say what the outcome will be but we think end-users are entitled to know how it might affect them before they buy."