(This page uses style sheets.)
The London Borough of Newham is in the final stages of negotiating a deal with Microsoft which includes very large reductions in licence fees and substantial additional free support. Newham have been able to do this because they have a credible Open Source alternative which they are willing to implement.
Last year the consultancy company netproject was asked to advise Newham on a sustainable desktop strategy and in the process built a demonstrator proving the capabilities of Open Source software. In November netproject presented their strategy, namely to make substantial use of Open Source, to a meeting of department heads. This meeting agreed, subject to further negotiations with Microsoft, that netproject's recommendations were to go forward to the Council's Main Board in early 2004.
Using Open Source would give the Council choice and would make sure that they were not tied into proprietary protocols or operating systems. The use of OpenOffice in particular would mean significant reductions in the total cost of the desktop. netproject proposed this solution because they were concerned that the total Microsoft solution, proposed in the Microsoft-funded report from the consultancy CGEY, would result in the council being tied to Microsoft forever. This would happen because the economic cost of changing in the future would be too great, leaving Newham with no choice or negotiating power.
Reacting to netproject's credible and practical approach, Microsoft completely changed their attitude towards Newham. They have made many concessions on licensing costs and support. Newham will benefit significantly from these Microsoft concessions but will keep their future options open by continuing to evaluate the use of Open Source through the netproject demonstrator.
netproject's director Eddie Bleasdale noted wryly that "whenever netproject demonstrates an Open Source solution to a Microsoft customer they suddenly find Microsoft's approach much more amenable. Microsoft's reaction to Newham's decision to use netproject's Secure Open Desktop Architecture proves that it is a credible and viable alternative. Open Source alternatives have already been adopted by public and private sector organisations in many countries and demand for projects similar to Newham's netproject-led one is growing rapidly."
For more information, contact netproject or phone Eddie Bleasdale direct on (office) +44 (0)20 8715 0072, (mobile) +44 (0)798 9012847 or (email) eddie@netproject.com.
netproject and the European Commission's IDA have announced the availability of the IDA Open Source Migration Guidelines, a practical and detailed set of recommendations on how to migrate to Open Source Software (OSS)-based office applications, calendaring, e-mail and other standard applications.
The guidelines have been designed to help public administrators decide whether a migration to OSS should be undertaken and describe, in broad technical terms, how such a migration could be carried out. They are based on practical experience of a limited number of publicly available case studies, and cover a wide range of management and technical concerns.
To read more, please follow the link below:
http://www.netproject.com/docs/migoss/
The police service has updated its strategy for the use of Microsoft operating systems.
The Association of Chief Police Officers' Information Technology Advisory Group (ITAG) has recommended that forces standardise their use of Microsoft operating systems on both client and server.
ITAG has recommended that forces migrate their Microsoft-based server infrastructure from NT4 to Windows Server/2000 in the short-to-medium term.
The potential for migration to the .net server architecture in the medium-to-long term will be monitored by ITAG with support from the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO).
The group further recommends that forces should move their Microsoft-based client infrastructure to Windows 2000 or Windows XP in the short term. Selection of an operating system will be dependent on whether the client or the applications software can support or be supported on Windows XP. The medium-term objective will be the full adoption of Windows XP.
The police service is however keeping an open mind on the emerging benefits of open source software like Linux.
ITAG has noted a netproject report, commissioned by PITO on behalf of ITAG, entitled "Linux Feasibility Study". This looked at potential issues with, and benefits of, using Linux as a client platform within police forces.
As a result ITAG has asked netproject to test and deploy practical demonstrators within a small number of forces. The aim of this work is to consider the practical issues of Linux deployment in more detail and quantify the business case for possible future alternatives to Microsoft operating systems and office applications.
This work is now underway with the initial involvement of West Yorkshire Police and PITO. It will be taken forward in the context of the significant strategic direction via Microsoft products outlined above.
Senior Microsoft executives are in Britain on a mission to defuse growing criticism of the corporation's plans for what it describes as a "sea-change" in computing.
But critics warn that it's the most anti-competitive strategy Microsoft has yet thought up, designed to eliminate increasingly successful - and cheaper - alternatives to its Windows operating system.
To read more and view the Channel 4 News item please follow the link below:
http://www.channel4.com/news/home/z/stories/20021107/microsft.html
netproject has been awarded a contract by the European Commission to examine the deployment of Open Source Software in the German Land of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The value of the contract is Euro 250,000.
'This contract compliments the work we are doing with the UK Police IT Organisation and with UK police forces working on the deployment of Linux on the desktop.' said Eddie Bleasdale, director of netproject. 'This contract will enable us to further develop the work done for the UK police and examine the issues of deploying Linux in a more general purpose environment.'
A major issue that has to be addressed is enabling a smooth migration from existing systems to Linux. This includes being able to support existing applications and file systems under Linux as well as proprietary software.
The migration to a Linux and Open Source environment enables a radically different approach to computing where users are able to work from any workstation connected to the corporate servers. The development of this work is being headed up by Sean Atkinson. Sean recently joined netproject from AT&T Research where he worked on 'Follow Me Computing'.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27710.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27692.html
http://www.computing.co.uk/News/1135986
West Yorkshire Police have taken delivery of their first Secure Open Desktop Architecture computers that have been designed and are supported by netproject.
Earlier this year netproject was awarded a contract by the UK Police IT Organisation to examine the issues of migrating to Linux computers on the desktop for police forces in England and Wales.
West Yorkshire Police are trialling the first computers and are working with netproject to get the new and existing applications used by the police to run on a Linux operating system and Open Source software. If successful there could be a much wider deployment of a secure Open-Source desktop, with the potential replacement of over 60,000 desktop computers in the Police Service.
'We are very interested in the advantages of the Secure Open Desktop Architecture' said Paul Friday, Head of IS for West Yorkshire Police. 'We believe that they could decrease our costs while improving our security. Our initial estimates show that with an installed base of 3,500 machines, we could save up to £1 million per year and be able to extend our information systems into places where police officers work in local partnerships.'
The Linux software has been developed at netproject's development centre in Cambridge to support smart card log on. The computers are being manufactured by a Taiwanese company, GCI, which has its European headquarters in Telford. These Secure Linux Workstations have an end user price of £299 plus VAT.
'It is our opinion that all involved with their organisation's IT strategy need to examine the way desktop computing is delivered' said Steve Hnizdur, Director, netproject. 'Linux enables very low cost computing, there is no vendor pressure to constantly upgrade working systems and Linux enables very secure systems which are highly resistant to virus infections.'
'We are getting considerable interest from other organisations that are exploring the use of desktop Linux as part for their infrastructure.' said Eddie Bleasdale. 'We are confident that the deployment of Linux on the desktop will grow at a very fast rate.'
A presentation on the architecture to support Linux on the desktop is at:
http://www.netproject.com/presentations/SecLinDesComp.pdf
The Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) has awarded netproject a contract to examine the issues of deploying Linux on up to 60,000 desktop computers in police forces throughout the UK.
'This work is part of Project Valiant that is examining the requirements for the next generation of police computing.' said Marco Dawson, PITO. 'The police need very secure, virus resistant and stable desktop computing. We believe that Linux can provide this. There is a potential total requirement for 60,000 Linux desktop systems within the UK Police Forces so we need a very good understanding of the deployment and migration issues to Linux on the desktop.'
netproject is working with organisations that are building systems that enable secure e-business. Eddie Bleasdale of netproject said that the lack of security in existing mainstream desktop operating systems and the problems with plagues of viruses is preventing organisations achieving secure e-business. 'Our experience with Linux is that it provides very high levels of security, is very reliable, virus resistant and stable. With the development of Open Source Office Automation Software and the software tools that enable Microsoft Windows applications to be ported - Linux is now ready for deployment on the desktop.'
There are a number of applications that have been developed for PITO that run under Microsoft Windows that will be required to run under Linux. The strategies and software tools that enable these to be ported to Linux will be examined.
The Linux PCs will be configured to be highly secure with the use of both Smart Cards and Biometrics to enable user identification. Software will be updated over the network. Linux will be configured so that users can not modify or add software to the PC.
Eddie Bleasdale has been working in the area of Linux and Unix for over twenty years. His company, together with West Midlands Ambulance Authority, developed and deployed Unix based Ambulance Command and Control Systems. These are the most widely used throughout the UK and are phenomenally reliable. 'We are not aware of a single software incident that has caused any downtime since these computers were first installed in 1989' said Barry Thurston, IT Director West Midlands Ambulance Service and NHS Trust.
'This is a level of reliability that should be the norm' said Eddie Bleasdale. 'It should not be acceptable for systems to fail. The way Linux has been developed enables outstandingly reliable systems that are secure. Linux and Open Source now provide the basis for secure e-business.
The office of the e-Envoy has awarded netproject a contract to examine how to achieve an Open Source PKI that could be used in the second round of PKI interoperability trials to be conducted by the UK Communications-Electronics Security Group [CESG] later this year.
'The importance of this contract is that the UK Government has recognised the need for a vendor neutral entrant to the PKI Interoperability Trials and because Open Source is free the initial survey and study is being funded by the office of the e-Envoy.' said Eddie Bleasdale, Director of netproject.
Project Director Dr Andrew Findlay said 'It is desirable that an open-source PKI be entered in the interoperability testing and demonstration. Among the benefits to flow will be the provision of a non-proprietary 'neutral ground' where vendors can work directly with the code at both ends of a communication.'
The background is that netproject, which is a consultancy club of user organisations including Royal Sun Alliance, Nationwide, National Grid, Racal Defence Systems, Government Departments, etc, has been working on the issues of achieving secure single sign on for the past 18 months.
'Public-key cryptography is not used to encrypt data directly' said Andrew Findlay, 'It is used for key exchange, key distribution, and digital signatures. Its primary benefit is allowing people who have no pre-existing security arrangement to exchange messages securely, or for a sender to authenticate a message to a random receiver.'