"And while new technologies might be intriguing, governments
often shy away from major IT changes because they have little
willingness to take even the slightest risks of introducing a
glitch into their infrastructures. So they stay with the companies
and technologies they know as they undergo their traditional
Request for Proposal (RFP) contract bidding and acquisition
procedures.
"But as the US economy continues to tread water, even local,
state, and federal government agencies are looking for new ways to
save money and cut their embattled budgets, while maintaining
services to residents. So could this be the right time for open
source software projects and vendors to make some real inroads into
filling niches in the government IT space and jumping into the
government RFP processes in earnest?
"Yes, say several industry experts, but it's going to take some
education on the part of the open source community to find out how
to do it successfully."
