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September 23, 2008

Earlier this morning, open source IT solutions providers have been granted official permission to supply software to the U.K. public sector for the first time in British history. No less than two Open Source software vendors have been awarded one seat each on the £80 million Software for Educational Institutions Framework, making them official suppliers to various schools in the United Kingdom.

This event scores a major victory in what has been a long and frustrating battle against favoritism shown to conventional commercial software companies in British politics and traditional procurement processes.

The UK's procurement frameworks, a fast-track process for public sector purchasers, handled a little over £4.38 billion of business in the year to April 2008. They aren't meant to prevent companies not on the lists from selling to the public sector but this had not been the experience of the Open Source community over the past couple of years.

Mark Taylor, president of Sirius Corp., one of the winning Open Source suppliers, said "we were utterly stunned. It's a significant breakthrough for Open Source software and the Linux community as a whole."

Jill Henry of Novell U.K. also confirmed her company had also won a seat on the same framework and that it was the first time an Open Source company had won the coveted position. Novell has been on frameworks before, but not in a capacity that would sanction its supply of Open Source software, and certainly not on a governmental level.

Taylor says "in the past, schools would tell you: We want this software, if it doesn't cost us anything and if it's really good. And administrators would answer: Well the software's not on the approved list, and there isn't a supplier who can supply it on the list either, so you're on your own with that."

Overall, another ten open source vendors and systems integrators have been awarded one seat each on the framework. However, the Office for Government Commerce has refused to divulge the names until Sep. 24.

Becta, the educational technology team that oversaw the bidding for the seats, was unavailable for comment.

"Obviously, there's a reasonable amount of pressure on the schools not to operate outside the framework," Taylor said.

Taylor added "it's important not just that we support each other because we come from the same group, but it is also where Sirius has its experience and we would certainly like to see this project succeed."

Peter Huish, managing director of Linux IT, said he had signed up for a seat on the framework but resigned from bidding after accepting that he was competing for a piece of history rather than pursuing a prudent business strategy.

Linux IT's expertise was in providing mission-critical systems to industries such as various financial institutions. Huish felt that schools could have represented a certain form of distraction to his team.

Source: IT Direction.

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