Proprietary Software Preferred Over Open Source in the U.K. Government

A recent request, in which the United Kingdom government was forced to reveal the large sums of money spent on proprietary software, shows that the time for open source applications has come.

As V3 tells us, most Whitehall departments spend millions of pounds on programs that in some situations can be acquired for free.

Even though they stated many times before that alternative solutions would be considered to reduce functionality costs, it seems that it's easier said than done.

The recently emerged data shows that most of the budget allocated for IT related purposes is spent on the services provided by large vendors.

For instance, Home Office used £21 million of its budget on solutions from Raytheon Systems, which supplied the necessary means for broadcasting and telecommunications. HP also got a great deal, with more than half a million pounds received from the state for services and products.

The amounts are fairly large when you take in consideration that the department's budget for IT is £26 million.

Another good example is the Department for Work and Pension which spent more than £1 million pounds for the services supplied by Oracle, Microsoft and IBM, the last one receiving more than £400 thousand over the past year.

Security services providers have also made a great profit from their tight collaboration with the state departments, Symantec and RSA Security being just a few of them.

A more detailed document is provided on Google Docs, showing the exact amounts paid on proprietary solutions.

When asked, James Peel, product manager at an open source company, said that “There is a stigma around open source software, but there shouldn't be. The reality is it's just software - some of it good, some of it bad. The key is to evaluate the technology before signing up, just as you would any piece of software."

"The problem is that too many people think the best software is the most expensive software. As a result they end up wasting money on expensive proprietary technology," he added.