{"id":549814,"date":"2006-08-11T07:14:10","date_gmt":"2006-08-11T07:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/549814-brands-hold-on.html"},"modified":"2006-08-11T07:14:10","modified_gmt":"2006-08-11T07:14:10","slug":"brands-hold-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/549814-brands-hold-on.html","title":{"rendered":"BRANDS HOLD ON"},"content":{"rendered":"

Government hasn\u2019t lived up to its promise to use free open-source software in preference to paying for it from companies like Microsoft. <\/font><\/p>\n

Open-source software is making progress with some state institutions but is far from replacing proprietary software in government as a whole. <\/font><\/p>\n

Proprietary software developer Microsoft has maintained its foothold in a market said to be worth R11bn\/year. <\/font><\/p>\n

Microsoft public affairs director Ashley de Klerk says the group increased sales to the public sector by a whopping 30% on a year-on-year basis in the 2006 financial year. Microsoft is managing to hold its own despite government\u2019s strong leaning towards open-source. <\/font><\/p>\n

The State Information Technology Agency (Sita), which is responsible for co-ordinating the state\u2019s information technology resources, decided to put the squeeze on proprietary software developers three years ago, when it began encouraging government departments to use free rival software. <\/font><\/p>\n

The decision came after Sita received a R485m bill for 100000 three-year licences from Microsoft in 2002. <\/font><\/p>\n

A year after the change in policy, billionaire Mark Shuttleworth started a campaign to promote open-source software in SA. <\/font><\/p>\n

Within days, Microsoft launched a counter campaign, arguing that its products were superior to open-source software. <\/font><\/p>\n

De Klerk says the reason Microsoft has been able to hold its own is no great secret. The group has been quietly making the point to public-sector customers that free software isn\u2019t exactly free as customers still have to pay for maintenance and other costs related to its implementation. <\/font><\/p>\n

He says Microsoft\u2019s success with government institutions comes from matching their requirements with the best solution to meet their needs. <\/font><\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s achievement in the public sector does not mean open-source has failed to take hold, says Nhlanhla Mabaso, manager of the Open Source Centre at the state-funded Meraka Institute. He says the SA Revenue Service, Sita and the department of science & technology are all using some kind of open-source software. <\/font><\/p>\n

Mabaso says a growing technology market, \u201cestablished buying patterns\u201d in some government departments, and long-standing buying agreements are supporting Microsoft\u2019s sales in the public sector. <\/font><\/p>\n

But Mabaso is not too concerned about the slow uptake of open-source software in the public sector because, he says, it takes time to migrate to a new software format. <\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many organisations, cities and states that have decided to go open source and it has taken them years to do so,\u201d he says. <\/font><\/p>\n

He says lack of branding is one of the biggest problems when it comes to awareness of open-source software. He cites as an example Microsoft\u2019s launch last month of software in local languages, which received wide media coverage. An open-source campaign that has been doing similar work for the past few years has not received as much media support. <\/font><\/p>\n

Mabaso doesn\u2019t believe government is being cynical in looking to open-source software as a way to put pressure on prices from companies like Microsoft. He believes government is serious about open-source but concedes that state institutions that indicate they are looking at open-source tend to get better discounts on proprietary software. <\/font><\/p>\n

He says government\u2019s policy is not meant to put proprietary software developers at a disadvantage. He points out that even they are allowed to provide open-source solutions. <\/font><\/p>\n

Even Microsoft is getting on the open-source bandwagon. It announced last month it was going into partnership with open-source software developer XenSource. <\/font><\/p>\n

The use of open-source software is set to increase, particularly in the public sector, says Andrea Di Maio of technology analyst firm Gartner. He says 20% of all software worldwide will be based on open-source and that the percentage in government will be higher because there is a growing trend to use more specialised software. <\/font><\/p>\n

Di Maio says this can already be seen in local government, where a trend is developing for municipalities to share software specifically for their needs under a new concept called \u201ccommunity source\u201d, which restricts software-sharing to government communities. <\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what makes government so special. The public sector is the only space where this can happen,\u201d Di Maio says. <\/font><\/p>\n

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Free software isn\u2019t making much headway in public-sector circles <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}