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Red Hat Government News is a monthly newsletter designed to provide government agencies worldwide with the latest information on training, offers, events, and news articles.
The beginning of a new year brings new resolutions and the opportunity to make a fresh start to achieve a personal or professional goal. This is our "once a year" opening to take on a new challenge to make a difference in our world or environment. The articles below give us insight into new ways to improve your processes and learn how to do more with less in the coming year.
Another exciting opportunity for Red Hat is its expansion in 2008 into Healthcare. One of our focuses has been on healthcare interoperability. Interoperability has many forms, and many different solutions are needed to address it in the healthcare industry. None of the solutions available today are perfect, but there are definitely advancements being made. Red Hat is actively working to improve healthcare interoperability in a number of different ways-read through our blog below or visit our website to see first hand how we address an industry that effects us all.
"The agility and flexibility it brings users helps us get to mission accomplishment faster," declares Robert Carey, Navy CIO.
"It really gives us control over our investments and really helps us in our procurement cycle," explains Casey Coleman, GSA CIO.
"It makes economic sense for the Army," adds Terry Edwards CIO, Army Material Command.
The "it" these federal IT leaders are advocating is more use of Open Source Computing, the topic of Thursday's 2 p.m. broadcast of the Federal Executive Forum on FederalNewsRadio.
CIO's Carey, Coleman and Edwards are joined on the panel by Andrew Gordon of Unisys and Paul Smith of Red Hat. Jim Flyzik of The Flyzik Group moderates.
Listen to the panelists discuss:
Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced Red Hat Enterprise MRG (Messaging, Realtime, Grid), offering new capabilities for deployment on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and third-party operating platforms that further strengthen Red Hat's position as the strategic supplier for critical enterprise applications in highly demanding environments, such as financial services and government agencies. Red Hat Enterprise MRG is a revolutionary distributed computing platform that provides exceptional performance through reliable enterprise messaging, real-time capabilities and advanced grid and high-throughput computing technologies.
January 24, 2008 - IDG News Service (London Bureau) - Educational institutions will increase spending on open-source software and services over the next few years, but that doesn't mean proprietary software will be left in the dark, according to a new report covering 14 countries.
Market research company Datamonitor predicts that primary and secondary schools and universities will spend $489.9 million on open-source software by 2012, up from $286.2 million now. The figure is based on interviews with vendors and school officials in the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, Germany, Australia, India, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Sweden and Italy, said Justin Davidson, associate analyst at Datamonitor who covers education technology.
The spending estimate covers operating systems and learning management systems, such as software used to make webcasts of lectures available online, plus maintenance and support. The figure represents a small portion of the $9 billion overall educational IT spending by those countries, but shows growing interest. "I don't think we expected it [the figure] to be so much," Davidson said. Beyond 2012, however, Datamonitor expects open-source spending to flatten.
Educators said they're attracted to open-source software since they feel they have more control over how applications are developed, Davidson said. "Some institutions feel they will get a better return on their investment from open-source software," he said. Institutions were also aware that although the software licenses are free, maintenance and support can often make open-source offerings just as expensive as proprietary programs, Davidson said.
A small minority of schools have opted for open-source for "philosophical" reasons, such as a desire not to give their money to a commercial software company. However, most decisions to use open-source were strategic, he said. Other drivers for choosing open source are increasing government interest. Certain regions in India, as well as the French government, have encouraged schools to use open-source software, especially operating systems, Davidson said. Interest in open-source software also seemed to be prompted by dissatisfaction expressed by some schools with Blackboard, a major provider of enterprise educational software and services, Davidson said.
In 2005, Blackboard bought WebCT, another educational software company, for $180 million [m]. Blackboard's share of the market grew to more than 70 percent, Davidson said. Concerns remain within schools over the dominance of one company in the market, he said.
But Blackboard's software has an appeal for institutions with smaller budgets that can't fund developers to build their own open-source applications, Davidson said. It shows proprietary and open-source software will complement each other, depending on the needs of the schools, Davidson said. "It's not the death of proprietary software," he said.
Patient lives increasingly depend on the reliability and security of information systems. Red Hat solutions provide the reliability, security, and interoperability needed to deliver safe, quality patient care. And they remove complexity out of IT infrastructure, so healthcare organizations can focus on their primary goal of care delivery.
The Red Hat Enterprise Healthcare Platform is the cost-effective open source information technology platform with services designed to meet the life-critical demands of healthcare organizations.
Modernize your IT. Transform your business.
It is the world's largest gathering for users of JBoss, Red Hat, and other related open source solutions. The event's comprehensive agenda will focus on the technologies, best practices, and industry insights to help IT executives, architects, and developers make better decisions about open source and be successful in driving business transformation in their organizations.
Special offer for Government customers - use promo code jbwo10gov
Don't let common misconceptions about freely distributed software derail your IT strategies
Depending on whom you talk to, open-source software is a welcome replacement for expensive commercial software or an out-of-control threat to information technology departments and data security. Some organizations embrace freely distributed programs with a near-religious zeal, but others avoid any code that lacks liability if a problem arises.
No wonder government chief information officers struggle to find open source's proper niche in their IT operations.
Fortunately, as open-source technologies mature and gain mainstream acceptance, many prevailing but incorrect assumptions about their pros and cons are dissolving. And with those new insights come more effective policies for adopting open source and acquiring it with the same controls as commercial software.
