On Thu, 2004-11-04 at 08:40, Ignacio Valdes wrote: > >> The question > >> is, could any vendor have come up with a contract offer to swap > >>500,000 > >> NHS desktops from Microsoft to Linux and OpenOffice and other open > >> source within 3 years, including the porting of all the > >>Windows-specific > >> health software. > > Sure, IBM could suck up such amounts of money for a morning snack and > do it all with OSS.
Really? Server conversion - yes, no sweat. I'm not sure how many desktop systems and desktop system users there are in the NHS, but let's say 500,000. After subtracting server and software conversion costs, system re-integration and re-configuration costs (for tens of thousands of not entirely standardised LANs) and a profit margin for IBM, there would probably be only a few hundred pounds per user remaining for re-training. And the expensive bit about training front-line healthcare workers is not the courses themselves, it is paying to back-fill their jobs while they are off attending the training courses. So even with the best will in the world, I suspect that GBP500m might not be enough to do a complete conversion from Microsoft to OSS throughout the NHS - at least not in a short timeframe of 3 years or so. And it would be a high risk venture, mainly because a significant minority of users (and many software vendors) would complain remorselessly about having to abandon Windows. Nevertheless, apart from giving the notional GBP40 million of R&D funds to British universities instead of Microsoft, then NHS NPfIT should have sequestered a significant proportion of the license fees - say 10% - that's GBP50 million - for OSS development, so that when the next contract review date comes up (in three years), they can renegotiate with Microsoft from a position of strength, not from a position of complete proprietary lock-in. -- Tim C PGP/GnuPG Key 1024D/EAF993D0 available from keyservers everywhere or at http://members.optushome.com.au/tchur/pubkey.asc Key fingerprint = 8C22 BF76 33BA B3B5 1D5B EB37 7891 46A9 EAF9 93D0
