August 17th, 2005
Integration cited by Scottish cops for foiling open source
By way of ZDNet reader Darren Clarke comes a pointer to a news report on British tech site ComputerWeekly.com that has the details on why, after having once forsaken proprietary software for open source, the Central Scotland Police have ditched Plan A for Plan B: Microsoft (some open source will be kept). The report quotes CSP staffer David Stirling as saying:
Although an open-source solution met our needs in the past, it was becoming more difficult to maintain. As the need for increased integration and compatibility with other criminal justice agencies and community partners grows, the value of similar infrastructures becomes more important.
Among the applications that the CSP plans to roll out on the new infrastructure are a document management system that’s expected to improve the agency’s compliance with the local Freedom of Information Act as well as document sharing amongst CSP staff. The report also mentions a "hot desking" feature that sounds like it will allow staff to gain access to their "desktop" from any workstation — the sort of desktop virtualization that Citrix is known for.
