A key deal between New Zealand’s State Services Commission, and Microsoft has fallen through, perhaps opening the door for open source software. Talks concerning a three year purchasing agreement ended with Microsoft coming away empty handed. According to the statement here;
“a formal agreement with Microsoft is no longer appropriate.”
A spokes person for the Kiwi government said they look for value for money, fitness for purpose, and strategic benefit in negotiations. Apparently;
“We didn’t feel we got the appropriate levels of benefit from the negotiations.”
So there.
The price is obviously a concern, and Microsoft may well be shooting itself in the foot with its possible pricing of Windows 7, and perhaps this is reflected by the decision of the New Zealand government. Of course it has been known for institutions to use the free nature of open source to leaver a better price for Microsofts products, but this looks like the decision has been made because open source is seen as a true viable alternative.
This decision puts the Kiwis in the same boat as the French government, who for some time now has been championing the open source cause. They are even looking at tax breaks that they hope will stimulate software development. The French police force believe that they have saved an estimated 50 Million Euros since 2004 by adopting Ubuntu.
Other governments not buying into the Microsoft ethos in it’s entirety are Canada and the UK. Both of which have decided that the cost of proprietary software is a bit much considering the alternative. Indeed, the UK government has gone as far as to say that the procurement process will now favor open source solutions over proprietary ones in cases where other relevant factors are equal.
So perhaps in the future we will see more and more money being saved on open source from more and more governments. Certainly it makes sense in the current perceived economic climate to pick the less expensive solution. An obvious route in may be choosing Open Office instead of Microsoft Office. However, I won’t hold my breath just yet.
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