Barre Open System Institute
17 Averill Street
Barre, Vermont
05641
August 14, 2009
Shap Smith
Speaker of the House
Vermont House of Representatives
115 State Street
Montpelier, Vermont
Dear Speaker Smith,
Please find attached a brief White Paper detailing significant cost and resource savings for the State of Vermont. This savings would be the direct result of avoiding the institutional “Microsoft Tax” imposed on every computer system.
I believe that it may be possible to save the State of Vermont five million dollars annually, and the following White Paper briefly summarizes the savings and proposes a basic implementation methodology
Thank you for your time.
Kindest Regards,
Paul Flint
flint@flint.com
(802) 479-2360
(202) 537-0480
White Paper
PREPARED FOR
Speaker of the House
Shap Smith
Speaker of the House
115 State Street
Montpelier, Vermont 05633-5201
Version 0.01
August 14, 2009
By
Barre Open Systems Institute
17 Averill Street
Barre Vermont
SUMMARY
Removal of social service and /or personnel in the attempt to balance the State budget will only worsen Vermont’s economic standing and enflate unemployment. The Barre Open Systems Institute (BOSI) feels that eliminating the “Microsoft Tax” by implementing open source solutions on state processes is a better local solution and could offer great savings, as well as create job opportunities for local technology providers.
There are approximately 8150 State Employees in the State of Vermont. Estimating an additional 1850 seats for consultants, contractors, other state functionaries would allow us to estimate that there are 10,000 computer workstations operational in the Vermont State government.
Several years ago an informal Pentagon study discovered that an astonishing amount of money was spent for the operation and maintenance of proprietary Microsoft based computer systems, both workstations and servers. The beneficiary of this expense was Microsoft, the Redmond Washington monopoly. These expenses include the following yearly estimates of cost allocation:
|
Cost Per Workstation Per Year |
||
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No. |
Description |
Estimated Annual Fees |
|
1. |
Virus and security protection |
100.00 |
|
2. |
Microsoft Office |
350.00 |
|
3. |
Outlook Exchange Server Electronic Mail |
150.00 |
|
|
TOTAL |
$ 600.00 |
These are all baseline workstation functions supplied to by default to each workstation.
BOSI believes that if these and other license fees could be minimized or eliminated a significant cost savings to the Vermont State Budget could be achieved. Numerous work-alike products have existed for years, are mature and available gratis. One such example of this is the Open Office product.
Other savings are available by electing not to use the Microsoft Operating system. These immediate savings can be referenced via the Internet and could be included as part of our continuing study and report.
We conservatively believe that this cost savings might approach or exceed five million dollars per year.
We believe that if we appealed to the state employees with the proposition that if they voluntarily chose to adopt open source systems in their individual workstation configurations, workers adapting to this cost saving could participate in the savings accrued in the form of additional take home pay, either as a bonus or other monetary incentive award.
|
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
|
Open Source and Open Systems are the cutting edge of software development. |
Implementation of open source systems at a state level is an unfamiliar business practice. |
|
Obama administration is pushing open source solutions instead of proprietary solutions |
|
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Vermont labor would be directly involved in the implementation of Open Source Solutions |
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The result of the exclusive use of closed source systems by the state causes all other business entities in the state to follow suit with the result of multiplying the “Microsoft Tax” statewide to most businesses. |
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Open Office is totally cross compatible to the Microsoft Office Suite. This is only one approach to this, as there are several open source solutions that provide this level of data compatibility. |
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Availability of source code and right to modify and maintain software is part of the open source solution. This is the equivalent of extending the service life of equipment by owning a service technical manual, which allows for a vastly longer service live of an asset. |
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Open source software has a positive ideology closely aligned with modern democratic thinking. |
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I have applied to work for Public Strategies Group (PSG) as a local resource for this activity. BOSI intend to use this engagement to further refine and enhance this concept. While I know that time is a resource very precious in this process I would ask you for the time, either within the PSG framework or otherwise to refine this concept of throwing off the decades long yolk of a monopoly. I would propose that the final work product would be a detailed, conservative and business like predictor of the hard savings that would be immediately available in the mitigation of elimination of the Microsoft Tax on the State of Vermont.