UK turns to open source

The UK government has revealed an IT strategy that focuses on open source software, the consolidation of data centres and Web sites, and smaller IT projects, says ZDNet.

Monolithic IT projects have not been successful, cabinet office minister Francis Maude said in a statement. “For too long, government has wasted vast amounts of money on ineffective and duplicate IT systems,” said Maude. “We need to ensure that frontline services have the tools to do their job to deliver effective public services."

The Labour government spent £16 billion on IT in 2008 to 2009. Now, the coalition government is planning a number of measures designed to cut costs and reduce the size of its IT projects.

According to IT Pro, the report says: “Where appropriate, government will procure open source solutions.

“When used in conjunction with compulsory open standards, open source presents significant opportunities for the design and delivery of interoperable solutions.”

The government says it wants to make specific open standards mandatory, claiming it would make IT solutions fully interoperable. “We want government ICT to be open: open to the people and organisations that use our services and open to any provider - regardless of size,” Maude said.

“There have been significant failings. The coalition government is determined to do things better.”

Meanwhile, ComputerWeekly reports that as part of the strategy, government will push ahead with a move to cloud computing, which will include large-scale data centre, network, software and asset consolidation.

A cloud computing strategy will be published in the next six months to detail the transition of services, building on the work done on the G-Cloud initiative unveiled by the Labour administration.

An online government applications store, to enable the reuse of business applications and components across the public sector, will also be created in the next 12 to 24 months. And the private sector is to deliver the first instances of public sector networks in the next six to 12 months.

The government reaffirmed its intention to move away from large IT projects worth more than £100 million, although it did not rule out such projects entirely. The oligopoly of large suppliers that monopolise IT will also be broken by streamlining procurement and opening up contracts to SMEs, it says.