Open source advocate urges educators to use bargaining power
Open source advocate urges educators to use bargaining power
Apr 06, 2005: Outspoken Microsoft critic and open source software proponent Con Zymaris has called on education departments across Australia to use their considerable bargaining power when negotiating the price they pay for proprietary software, and has even introduced a free information referral service to show them how to do so.
Zymaris, who is the CEO of open source services provider Cybersource, said he believes the service can help the state Departments of Education and the independent schools save millions in software licence fees.
"We achieve this by providing educators with the bargaining leverage that's needed to dramatically reduce the prices paid for proprietary software.
"Educational software users are always short on budgets for IT. Software licence costs are eating into an increasing portion of those budgets. However, what many education Departments don't realise is that they have substantial leverage when it next comes time to negotiate with proprietary software vendors," said Zymaris.
While the service touts open source alternatives to proprietary software as a means of saving money, Zymaris insists that the service is not only of use to Departments and schools that are happy to go down the open source road, but also to those whose contracts with the likes of Microsoft are up for renewal.
"Our suggestion to Australia's education Departments is a simple one: you control what software is placed in front of hundreds of thousands of students and teachers. This gives you immense leverage when it comes to negotiating with vendors - if you know how to use it.
"In many instances, it's not educators who should be paying the vendors for selecting proprietary software - vendors should be paying you for the privilege of indoctrinating your students with their wares. And make no mistake about it, when prodded in the right way, vendors will pay."
Zymaris continued: "Can you imagine how, as just one example, Microsoft would react if they were told that 5 million students in various states, would now be learning Linux and OpenOffice.org? If you were Microsoft, wouldn't you pay to ensure that your products were preferentially placed in front of those students? I'm sure they would. They know what damage to their mindshare would be caused by millions of students entering industry with a comfortable knowledge of Linux and other open source alternatives."
More information about the Cybersource Open Source in Education referral service can be obtained by emailing info@cybersource.com.au
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