Tucked away in the Research section of VFI's policy page on Choice is a new paper from Bloomberg Law Reports called, "Government Procurement of Software: Provident Policies for Ensuring the Greatest Possible Return on Investment in Troubled Economic Times." Okay, that's a mouthful of a title, but the paper offers a solid analysis of the IT environment (mixed source) and how governments can obtain the best value. The main thrust is that initial software licensing costs represent only a few percent of the overall cost of an IT system. With that in mind, governments would be mistaken to think that they can benefit by insisting, by blanket procurement rule, that IT purchasers first consider or only consider open source software.

This paper is not too long (7 pages with footnotes) and provides a little more meat to a policy position that is important for maintaining a competitive and thriving IT ecosystem. I encourage VFI members to take a few minutes to read it.