Mydland further claimed the policy could lead to Draconian penalties with the state's IT business losing $28 million in the first year and $70 million by 2014.
Another opponent of the Kriss policy, Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology, also presented arguments to the Senate Committee against the policy. While there has been scant mention throughout the brouhaha of specific companies, the major firms with proprietary products include Microsoft, Oracle and IBM. Each of those, in turn, is surrounded by a universe of hundreds of independent companies that work with proprietary products.
As for Secretary Kriss, he has complained that his comments have been misinterpreted causing a misunderstanding. Late last year, he met with members of the Massachusetts Software Council to explain his IT policies. Members attending the meeting said Kriss allayed their fears on the issue. The Software Council has not taken a public stance on the issue.
Kriss' memo, though, has been seized upon by his critics as evidence that he plans to force open source standards and software on the state's IT installations. The memo also stated: "Implementing a full Open Standards, Open Source policy will take time, energy, and money. We have a large installed base of systems, many using obsolete technology, which cannot be quickly converted or replaced. We will follow two possible development paths: 1) new applications must follow Open Standards, Open Source, while 2) existing applications will be evaluated for 'encapsulation' or migration to Open Standards, Open Source.
"One impact of this policy is that many FY04 IT capital projects, some with preliminary vendor discussions (RFI, RFR, RFP) and/or prior project work, will be reviewed for Open Standards, Open Source compliance. While this may delay projects initially, the improved speed of Open Standards, Open Source will likely shorten overall IT implementations."
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