Charles Arthur writes in The Guardian: I queried the reported complaints by Liam Maxwell, the councillor responsible for IT policy at the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, about the challenge of getting open source implemented at the council. He was quoted saying that it needed central government to mandate the use of open standards in office software - specifically, ODF - so that RBW&M could migrate to cheaper desktops...

[Maxwell] suggests that IT is costing central and local government about 10 times more than it should. Certainly, initiatives like the G-Cloud could push that down; but what's clearly needed is for Francis Maude, in charge of the Cabinet Office, to mandate ODF as soon as possible, so that councils can start tomorrow on migrating to cheaper desktops. We'll all benefit, after all, if they can provide the same services at lower costs...

"...There's a real technical reason [for not moving to open source] which only central government can change. And Francis [Maude] has said he will do it. ODF would open everything up. The Dutch government did that, and that's why they saved so much money."

Read the complete article in The Guardian.