Solutek Consulting

May 7th, 2024 - Thoughts about IT in government organizations

....................................................................

A large majority of IT (OS, software) in government organizations, has been based on the technology of a single supplier for a very long time.

We have been unable to find information about how much money a country like Finland spends on Microsoft, Oracle, etc. licenses annually, but the sums must be in the billions of euros. Almost all of this money is sent out of the country, as if buying oil from abroad isn't a sufficient trade deficit generator for a small country.

Rectifying this situation by gradually applying open source solutions will surely be expensive, but at least the money stays in circulation at home, which makes the solution sound more positive in the long run. Open source also has benefits that are beyond money, like the code being open and audited, which makes it impossible to create hidden "back doors" by either a single company or a government where that company is based in.