Govt OSS migration still being researched

Johannesburg, 13 Jun 2006

Although government`s 'OSS for workstations` tender was awarded to eight companies in February, the State IT Agency (SITA) continues to research migration strategies.

This is according to Jill Matshana, a specialist in research at SITA, who has confirmed that no roll-outs will be possible for some months, as pilots to test the feasibility of open source software (OSS) migration are still taking place.

Matshana admits it might seem odd to award a tender and then continue researching the feasibility of the project afterwards, but argues that the continued research is necessary, as part of an ongoing process.

"The open source tender is there to allow SITA to buy services from open source vendors," she says, explaining that it makes any acquisitions possible, and is a necessary element of the groundwork.

She says the research is analysing the Vine OSS, and where it can be used in government.

National-level migration

The pilots are being conducted with the migration of all levels of government in mind, she notes, including national level.

The tender, of which the value is difficult to determine, was awarded to eight companies: Business Connexion, Choice Technologies, IBM, GijimaAst, ImpiLinux, Novell, Obsidian and SourceCom.

"Open source has numerous benefits at all levels of government - but we are not looking towards implementation just yet," notes Matshana.

She expects the research process to last about three months, after which her team will present recommendations to the Information Management Systems Unit at SITA, which will be responsible for OSS deployment.

Wynand Swart, project manager at SITA, says that, over the next three years, SITA aims to migrate about 200 000 workstations to OSS, but he cautions that it is a time-consuming process, because a large OSS project such as this has not been done before.

"There`s definitely an interest [in OSS migration in different government departments]," he says.

Swart declines to comment further on the extent of the government`s intended OSS migration strategies, but notes: "Government has over one million workstations in total - so that`s the potential limit."