The breakthrough Linux deal with the NSW Government could see Australia’s largest state government move tens of thousands of desktops from Windows to Linux.

Paul Kangro, a systems engineer and Linux specialist, is one of a team of three technologists worldwide at Novell who help customers understand the company’s technology from an architectural perspective. He played a key role in helping Novell achieve the Linux deal, which will encourage NSW Government agencies to buy open source solutions.

According to Kangro, the win means potentially displacing Microsoft Windows with Linux on tens of thousands of desktops and thousands of servers throughout NSW Government agencies.

“Clearly there are tens of thousands of desktops and thousands of servers,” Kangro says. “The servers are running Windows, Unix or Linux, while based on what we know the desktops are running Windows. We have had some pilot Linux desktop projects running in the Government for six to nine months to look at Linux as an alternative.

Kangro says that Novell expects to replace Windows on both servers and desktops throughout many agencies.

“It is probably fair to say that the lowest hanging fruit is going to be at the server end but it is also fair to say that it’s actually going to be a combination of both servers and desktops. If we looked at this five years ago, there was not really much of an alternative for a desktop, but today people  wanting to show due diligence need to say, ‘well if I’m going to make a strategic decision to go with vendor A or vendor B I need to understand the offering. Does everyone necessarily need Brand A of desktop or can some people be happily running Linux.’

“It puts us into a box seat to provide open source based solutions to the Government,” Kangro says. “There are certainly no more than a handful of these types of contracts in the world. Governments talk about Linux and about wanting to do it but until you actually get onto a panel contract it remains a moot point. What was nice about this contract was that it was not just product; it includes consulting services, migration services, training services, support services, desktop, data centre, Linux and so on. It is actually a complete end-to-end set of solutions.”

Kangro believes the cost differential between Microsoft and Linux on the desktop will inevitably be a no-brainer for government users.

“There are a number of reports out there which allude to savings of 25% to 30% for Linux as a desktop. There are two elements, one being the much lower upfront cost of acquisition. You’re talking about a recommended retail for a one-off Linux desktop of about US$50 fully maintained for 12 months, which includes all the productivity tools such as Open Office and software like Gimp, which allows you to do Photoshop type of activities, all of which add up to at least a multi-thousand dollar purchase to get equivalent functionality with proprietary software.”
According to Kangro, users in the NSW Government will find the security and maintenance requirements of Linux much less onerous than their current experience with Windows. ...more