California urged to use open source, VoIP

The Governator may terminate California's reliance on proprietary software and traditional telephone systems, if a recently published state report is heeded.

A body of independent auditors and experts recommended last week that the state consider open-source software and voice over Internet Protocol telephony as two measures to cut costs. The suggested measures are a small part of the voluminous California Performance Review, released Aug. 2.

"If all of these recommendations are implemented, they have the potential to save more than $32 billion over the next five years," the directors of the group of appointees told California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in an letter introducing the report.

The savings from using the two technologies would make up a small fraction of that total. Moving to VoIP could reduce the state's phone bill by between $20 million and $75 million a year, the report said. While there were too many variables to estimate the savings from a switch to open-source software on California's systems, the report's authors did cite two state pilot projects that cut costs by $300,000 each by using the community-developed software.
The report said VoIP technology has competitive features that would benefit the state. Internet-based phone calling has built-in benefits such as integrated caller ID, flexibility and network management tools that provide real-time monitoring of bandwidth. Departments and agencies currently use a variety of digital and analog networks and technologies from different manufacturers.

Open-source software has benefits over its proprietary cousins as well, the report stated.
"Open source is not just about cost savings," the report stated. "Since the code is open, it offers the flexibility for organizations to modify the code as needed for specific uses...open source can (also) provide superior security than closed source."

Not everyone would agree with that assessment, however. A study conducted by market researcher IDC and funded by Microsoft found that the software giant's products were more cost-effective than open-source software in four out of five instances.

As part of the information technology recommendations, the panel of 275 auditors and experts that drafted the report also suggested that California create a centralized technology division to run the state's information network. The gathering of resources would help get rid of needless redundancies and save some $24 million, the report said.

The report can be found online here: http://cpr.ca.gov/

VoIP

We have been very interested in VoIP for awhile now. Almost to the point where we may start working on our own service. But we're busy enough already and not sure if we want the extra load that a project like this would take. There seems to be VoIP providers popping up all the time. Most seem pretty good but with some differences. We have been looking at three for the most part and actually started beta testing them to see if we could use them for our customers and clients. The first one is Skype. It can be used for both computer to computer talking for free, or recently they started offering pc to phone. We have used pc to pc calls and the quality was great each time. Pc to phone we haven't tried mainly because they do charge you and we're looking for a totally free service. Next is FWD or Free World Dialup. Not much to say here, voice quality is good. And the latest being Stanaphone. STanaphone is interesting, it's new and it allows pc to pc for free, free incoming calls from pstn (regular phone lines) free voice mail via email and free call fowarding. Plus you get a normal phone number with a NY area code. I would imagine more area codes will come soon.
The biggest draw back so far with these program, as far as our needs go is for example, Skype to Skype calls are free, all day, everyday, all over the world. But you can't call say a FWD subscriber. So far these and all VoIP providers are proprietary. Now FWD is what's call SIP based and could call to a few other services, but this will usually cost you and you would have to get what I'll call a gateway service to allow the transfer. (Don't quote me on the terminology). Anyway, so right now we are testing Skype, FWD and Stanaphone and wishing all three could be combined into one somehow.

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We are a web design and hosting company, you can find us at http://www.2macswebdesign.com
Right now we are working on several different things. One, being this blog, not sure whether we should use a blog for internal purposes or open to the public. So any suggestions would be great. We already have a Forum.
Second, we are very interested in VoIP. Currently we are using Skype, which works great and highly recommend it to everyone! We use Skype for internal calls as well as customer support. Along with of course email. Give it a try and comtact us today!