U.K. government considers Sun in open-source software push

IDG News Service - The U.K. government has signed a five-year agreement with Sun Microsystems Inc. to potentially offer the company's new Java Desktop System and Java Enterprise System software to public-sector agencies as part of an overall open-source push.
The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) purchasing authority said today that it will soon begin trials of the software to evaluate costs and usability in the hopes of saving money on hardware and software upgrades. However, the OGC said that it is evaluating all of its options before making a final decision and that no definitive agreement has been made to purchase and deploy the software.
The government has been performing similar trials with IBM's open-source server software and is particularly interested in an open-source alternative for the desktop, according to OGC spokesman Martin Day.
"Sun came forward and said that it has a desktop product we could use, and suddenly we realized we could have end-to-end open-source systems," Day said.
Sun, which is working to shore up widespread support for its new open-source offerings, is offering the agency its Linux-based Java Desktop System bundled with its Java Enterprise System at a reduced price.
Although the OGC has been testing IBM's server software, Day said the agency hasn't made a commitment to any particular vendor and will run trials on all systems before it decides which products, if any, to roll out to the government's 500,000 civil servants and public sector employees.
"We have an open door, and we're happy to run trials with a number of vendors to make sure our research is in place," Day said. "What we don't want to do is take only one open-source provider, because then all we're doing is swapping the name Microsoft for IBM."
The OGC is just one of a growing number of government agencies around the world looking to curb costs through the adoption of open-source software.
For example, Sun recently announced a deal with the Chinese-government-backed China Standard Software Co. to offer potentially millions of computers in China running the Java Desktop System (see story).

Sun CEO Scott McNealy trumpeted the China deal at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas last month and again last week at the SunNetwork conference in Berlin. McNealy apparently hopped a flight to the U.K. after the Berlin show to sign a deal with the OGC Friday.
Richard Barrington, head of government affairs and public policy for Sun in the U.K., predicted that there would be more government deals to come, as well as agreements as soon