Bahrain has reposed a major vote of confidence in Linux by using the open source software as the engine to drive its future on-line services. IBM is providing the support, while its regional partner, Gulf Business Machines, is doing the project implementation.
In fact, the GCC states have recommended incorporating Linux within their own framework, according to Al Khalifa.
“Bahrain’s move to go with Linux is partly based on recommendations from the concerned GCC leadership. In fact, we will be hosting a conference of GCC decision makers to show them the environment in which we are running our applications on the software platform,” said Al Khalifa.
“This is a solid strategy which CIO has developed to build secure, stable and flexible e-government services in Bahrain. We have worked extensively with teams from IBM and GBM to bring together a workable solution that has been through proof-of-concept testing.”
Although the government just signed a contract with Microsoft for various software packages, at least at the infrastructural level they did an excellent choice for the Bahraini government by adopting Linux and OpenSource solutions like this.
