Thought this might help. It'll certainly help me! I'm currently marketing to government and business in Sydney so this sort of paper is proof positive that other interested parties (ie UK Govt - Ministry of Defence) are predicting that the future is OSS! OSS btw means Open Source Software.
This email contains a summary of the report, the link to the pdf, and the original e-gov article that got my interest. There are some of the predicitions: Future Trends Where will it all end? We now have to move into the area of predictions (5 ). Within five years, 50% of the volume of the software infrastructure market could be taken by OSS (6). We expect that OSS's position in the small server market (file and print servers and Web servers) will grow fastest. OSS's position in large servers (e.g. those managing massive multi-user databases), such as those that underpin many large Government procurements, will grow from its current position of near zero penetration, to a position where OSS is a viable option, within 2 - 3 years. Within the developed world, we as yet see no sign that OSS will become a viable alternative to Microsoft Windows, for users (general purpose) desktop machines in the corporate or home PC markets (7) . However, OSS on the desktop may soon become a significant player on the desktop in the developing world. For these reasons the study recommends against any preference for OSS on the desktop, but also recommends that this issue be reassessed by the end of 2002, by which time early trials of the use of OSS desktops may have generated sufficient evidence to warrant a reassessment. OSS is already suited to restricted functionality desktops, such as those used in industry for point-of-sales and point-of-service (8) terminals; and in these areas OSS s market share is likely to grow significantly. We expect OSS to rapidly (9) become the market leader in consumer computing devices 10 . We expect the market for new portable and consumer computing devices (such as set-top boxes and smart mobile phones) to remain very dynamic, with no dominant market leader emerging. OSS is however likely to be a significant (11) player in this market. We expect that the software infrastructure that is implemented on top of operating systems (so-called middleware) will move gradually (12) from proprietary products towards OSS. Notes: 5. The Authors are members of a substantial team funded by the MOD who track market trends, and these are the consensus views of that team. 6. There is considerable confusion about Linux market share statistics and projections - see for example http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/11177.html for a discussion of current statistics of Linux server market share. 7. The first real trials are starting now. For example, see Computing Aug 2 2001, pg 3 which reports that Central Scottish Police and an unnamed local council have adopted Sun s Open Source Star Office suite. A comparable initiative in the City of Largo, Florida, is reported at http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/1441239 8. Such as those used for airline bookings, travel agents etc. 9. Within the next year. 10. We refer here to devices such as Web pads, set-top boxes and digital video recorders. We exclude hard real-time embedded computers and those driving a range of special-purpose hardware peripherals (industrial process control, washing machines etc.). 11. Greater than 20% in the next 3 years. 12. We anticipate OSS taking 25% of the middleware market in 2 years, and 50% in 5 years. Grab this: http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/documents/QinetiQ_OSS_rep.pdf This is the article that got my interest: * GOVERNMENT OPENS UP ITS HORIZONS. The UK government has recognised that the open source software movement is not "a hype bubble that will burst" and could deliver better value than proprietary systems, in a new draft policy document released for consultation. 'Open source software - use within UK government' suggests that open source solutions should always be considered alongside proprietary ones in public tenders, and that the government should seek to avoid long-term 'lock-in' to proprietary systems. Other proposals are for the government to obtain full rights to any bespoke or customised software it procures, "wherever this achieves value for money". The government should also "explore further the possibilities" of demanding an open source specification for all government- funded software research by academic institutions. The document is available for consultation until 12 March on: http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/rfc/rfc_document.asp?docnum=429 <http://www.eurekait.com/cgi-bin/sqwebmail?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.govtalk.gov.uk%2Frfc%2Frfc_document.asp%3Fdocnum%3D429> Meanwhile a global group has formed to promote the use of open source materials in schools via an online portal, 'Schoolforge' ( http://www.schoolforge.net <http://www.eurekait.com/cgi-bin/sqwebmail?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.schoolforge.net>). The community was formed partly in response to one of the proposed elements in the settlement of the ongoing US Government vs Microsoft competition trial, whereby Microsoft would provide 1 billion dollars of software and hardware to underprivileged schools. Schoolforge says the proposal "appears to offer an alleged monopoly still more ways to further its grasp", and is calling for the courts to insist that Microsoft provides hardware alone, allowing schools to run open source software. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
