Ian Watmore — permanent secretary of the UK’s Cabinet Office, and in charge of a government efficiency drive — is calling for the UK government to end its dependence on Microsoft products, according to the BBC. Microsoft products are currently used by about 90 percent of civil servants in the UK. The government is committed to using more open-source software to save money, says Watmore, although this is being balanced with attention to the threat of hacking.
Watmore notes that he would nevertheless like the UK government to turn to Apple more often. “I personally would like to see people move off Microsoft products onto open source or use Apple technology,”
I wish he’d replaced the letters in bold with the word “other“. Replacing Microsoft with Apple isn’t the goal here. Creating an environment based on open standards and protocols and file formats should be the aim. Shame on him.
From experience over the years, there appears to have been a fashion for creating web applications dependent on using Internet Explorer, whether due to bad coding (including CSS) or designed to integrate with the user’s server login.
Despite Firefox beginning to make inroads, there’s a long way to go to make web apps portable – regardless of any plans to move towards cloud computing.
Sad to say, it’s hard to come up with something to match Sharepoint 2010 for many SMBs.