UK: Local government will increase use of open source office tools
Local public administrations in the United Kingdom will increasingly turn to open source office productivity tools over the next two years, according to a survey by Public Sector Forums, an independent organisation.
"Open source office productivity software has gained a small but significant foothold in a few local authorities", the network organisation writes in its report 'Open or Closed? A Survey of Open Source Software in Local Government', that was published last week.
According to the report, 95 percent of the respondents currently use Microsoft's proprietary office tools, the remaining 5 percent using the open source alternative OpenOffice or Sun Microsystems' commercial version StarOffice.
The report is based on the answers by 168 respondents from district councils, unitary authorities, county councils, metropolitan councils and London Boroughs. The survey was held in November and December 2008.
A small majority of respondents, 65 percent, believe their council should increase their use of open source. "However, a third are either neutral or disagree (7 percent), suggesting there are a substantial contingent in local government who still need to be won over."
The key advantage of to open source is the lower cost of the software, Public Sector Forums writes. "Cost savings emerged, by a clear length, as the top reason why local authorities had chosen open source solutions. Three quarters of respondents (75 percent) cited
lower cost as one of the most important factors in their decision to use open source."
Software licensing costs commonly represented between 30 to 40 percent of local authority IT budgets, the participants estimated.
Other advantages of open source mentioned by the council administrators are vendor independence (47 percent) and functionality (40 percent).
Primary obstacles to open source adoption relate to organisational culture issues, such as risk aversion and lack of understanding at senior level, resistance to change and internal objections from management and users. "Around two-thirds (65 percent) believed the perception by management that open source is 'too risky' is preventing councils from increasing their using open source."
"When asked what would help councils to increase their adoption of open source, the top issue highlighted was the need for more visibility of successful implementation across local government, in particular high-profile, practical case studies of success, proof of concepts and greater knowledge transfer of 'what works'."
Public Sector Forums timed the publication of the report with its launch of a new website, UKGovOSS.or, meant to encourage discussion about open source and open standards in the UK's public administrations.
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too risky - to use open source??
if public administrators want to avoid risk - they should ditch micro$oft at once.
'open source' provides stability - security and easy maintanance - and low costs.