[உபுண்டு தமிழகம்] TN may shut door on Microsoft

[amachu]

Chennai, Dec. 31: The Tamil Nadu government, which is on a fast-track
pushing the state to the top in the Indian IT sector, has almost shut
its door on the software giant, Microsoft, preferring the Open Source
Systems (OSS) for reasons of costs and easy migrating capabilities. 

“Initially, 99 per cent of government systems have been running on
Microsoft systems but then 2007 will be a watershed year for the state
IT sector. We are fast migrating to Linux operating systems which are so
much cheaper and can be operated at low cost, besides offering
continuous updates and freedom from viruses,” says Mr C. Umashankar,
managing director of state-owned ELCOT, vested with the responsibility
of overseeing such ambitious government projects as e-governance,
enumerating the beneficiaries of the free TV scheme, family ration cards
and the free sari-dhoti distribution.

“We have already dispatched 6,500 Linux systems to village panchayats
and another 6,100 Acer desktop systems with Suse Linux operating systems
are on their way. We are procuring 20,000 desktop systems for schools,
which will run only on Suse Linux. Remaining 30 desktop systems will
also migrate as and when the new machines arrive,” Mr Umashankar told
this newspaper.
He said all the ELCOT servers were on Redhat Linus and the government IT
company’s 28-seater software development wing was fully on Suse Linux. 

“We will train over 30,000 government officials in Linux Operating
Systems and Open Office. A contract has been already finalised with the
government departments and we have set up a Linux support centre with
two Linux-certified professionals to assist the state officers. This
number will go up to ten or more in 2007, which will be a path-breaking
year for government on migration to Linux Operating System,”  Mr
Umashankar said.  “India can live without Microsoft packages and even
progress but Microsoft will find it tough without a huge country like
India buying their software packages,” he said.

He said a top official from Microsoft India had met him twice to
convince him to continue with MS products. The official offered the XP
operating system for about Rs.7000 while he quoted Rs.500. “I explained
to her that for a mere Rs.300, I could get the entire operating system,
office productivity software and a wide range of utility tools, such as
DVD/CD writing software, database software, multimedia editing software,
vector map-drawing software plus a whole range of software development
tools. Also, I have the option of downloading this entire package in DVD
media and not even pay that Rs.300, which is the media cost and not the
software charges,” said the ELCOT chief, an IT expert himself besides
being a senior IAS bureaucrat.

He said he had also pointed out to the Microsoft official that MS Office
did not allow saving of documents in open document format. While it was
possible to open all MS Office files using Openoffice.org, the vice
versa cannot be done. “I asked her why ELCOT should buy such an inferior
product when 
 Openoffice.org is available free of cost for Windows as well as Linux. 

She said Microsoft are working on open XML format,” he added. Mr
Umashankar said he had written to state finance secretary enumerating
the “huge financial and working advantages” of shifting to Open Source
Environment in all government departments. “I have been receiving great
support from all the senior IAS officers here, from the chief secretary
downwards. It is very encouraging. 

ELCOT is not the loser when Microsoft did not accept our price of
Rs.500; on the other hand, Microsoft loses out due to our big volumes
involved,” he said. 
“There is a gross misconception among the governments and officials that
if they migrate to Open Source platform, Microsoft would get angry and
the entire software industry could come to a grinding halt. This is
totally misplaced fear,” Mr Umashankar said. 

“Within the next five years, it is going to be the IT services which
would dominate the revenue share of the IT companies, because more and
more users, governments and the corporate sector have started migrating
to OS software, thus removing the scope for more revenues from products.
It is time that the users understood this scenario and start saving
their precious revenues,” Mr Umashankar said.

Talking of the changes happening in this direction, he said he had
ordered 43 rack servers for ELCOT to host various government
applications. “All the applications are to run under OS software. I
would have paid Rs.20 lakh per server if I had adopted proprietary
software but now I have saved over Rs.8 crore from this one transaction.

We intend to procure 1000 servers in the next two years. Imagine the
amount of savings we are getting out of this,” the ELCOT chief said. “In
my view, a state government of TN magnitude would be able to save Rs
200-500 crores every year, when the National e-governance action plan
gets implemented,” he said, adding that school children too could get
the benefit of “more robust, secure and economical Open Source software
for their work,” he added. “Today, there is more demand for OSS trained
engineers. I require at least 500 trainers to train 30,000 state
officials across Tamil Nadu in the next six months. 

http://www.deccan.com/chennaichronicle/home/homedetails.asp#TN%20may%
20shut%20door%20on%20Microsoft
-- 
அன்புடன்,

ம. ஸ்ரீ ராமதாஸ்.

[SRI RAMADOSS M]
Contact Person: Ubuntu Tamil Team
Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/sriramadas
Blog: http://aamachu.blogspot.com/
IRC: amachu AT freenode Channel: #ubuntu-tam
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