Schools and the NHS: does Linux even get a look in?

So the NHS has decided not to renew a large Microsoft licensing deal. Basically it had agreed a while ago to spend £500 million on Microsoft software in return for a £300 million discount. What a bargain!

No more though, in this time of cuts, just when we needed the money the most, the deal has been ditched and the NHS faces a massive licence bill. But it gets better; according to sources on the ground ‘the only option would be to move to free open source software’... but wait for this... ‘the staff would not move to an unfamiliar system’.

So that’s it then.

Literally they will pay for MS products with money they would otherwise use for the good. That’s how hard it is to introduce FOSS onto the desktops, even when those desktops are running crummy old DOS screens within MS XP home!

Am I surprised? No, not in the least, my experience in education tells me that exactly the same problem exists there but am I disheartened? No, I have a plan. It won't work for NHS, but it will for schools.

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