Between 20 and 30 percent of all Microsoft operating systems and applications currently in use at South African local authorities is unlicensed and with certain applications, such as Microsoft Office, the unauthorised use rate is as high as 50 percent.
These were the findings of research carried out for the recent conference on MS applications and local government, organised by Ultra Network Solutions, a member of the Softline Group. The conference, held at the end of last year at the MS head offices in Sunninghill, Johannesburg, was attended by IT managers from several town councils in Gauteng and surrounding provinces, MS staff, and network specialists from Ultra, whose software runs on MS operating systems.
"During the course of our work for local authorities, we saw that the councils often misunderstood licensing, usage and upgrade issues," says Warren Papas, corporate account manager at Ultra. After discussing it with Microsoft, Ultra decided to invite all interested municipalities to a conference on these topics. "It is not in their long term interests to run with unlicensed software," Papas says, attributing the misuse to misinformation rather than maliciousness.
As a result of the conference, one of Ultra`s largest local authority clients, Edenvale / Modderfontein MLC, undertook an audit of their users and their systems. The result was they found that 40 operating systems in the local authority were illegal and needed to be legalised to avoid penalties. In addition, the council upgraded 60 of their MS Office packs, whilst legalizing all others.
As the East Rand Metropole becomes more firmly established, Ultra hopes to repeat the exercise with other local authorities falling under that megacity`s jurisdiction.
"Ultra organised the conference primarily as service towards the local authorities, and also to create a profile for the company in that sector as the network and official MS reseller with sector specific knowledge," says Mike Williams, Special Project Sales Manager at Ultra, "In addition it enhanced our relationship with MS as not just another reseller but a value add reseller," Williams concludes.
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