Government arrangements could lead to about £9 billion of Microsoft spending over five years, with official estimates at £1.9 billion per year under the current agreement. A large majority of readers favoured moving away from Microsoft. The Crown Commercial Service said the MoU would offer enhanced value across Microsoft’s portfolio and could cover schools, hospitals, councils and emergency services. Critics urged exploration of free and open source alternatives to reduce costs. One viewpoint recommended pilots, trials or hybrid vendor strategies to create competition and savings while maintaining service continuity. Another warned of hidden costs, lock-in and incompatibilities with open source.
Last year, the government negotiated a Strategic Partnership Arrangement 2024 (SPA24) memorandum of understanding (MoU) that took effect in November and is scheduled to last until 2029. The Crown Commercial Service (CCS), which arranged the MoU, said it would offer "enhanced value across Microsoft's portfolio of products and services." Public bodies using the agreement might include schools, hospitals, councils, and emergency services, for example.
Critics, however, have argued that a government facing fiscal challenges on all sides and a mountain of debt could look for free and open source software alternatives, which have become largely commoditized. Invited to debate these points, former deputy UK government CIO Bill McCluggage wrote that small-scale pilots, trials of open source software, or hybrid vendor strategies could create competition and generate savings while maintaining service continuity.
In the opposing corner, Jos Creese, who has held IT leadership roles in UK central and local government, pointed out that the public sector hasn't had a great history of avoiding the big tech brands. "It is not that open source is not viable, but rather that the true costs often only come to light over time," he said. "Rather than a panacea," Creese added, "open source can create unforeseen risks of lock-in and incompatibilities across increasingly integrated systems. As the links between different public service organisations become more crucial, incompatibility creates all manner of prob
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