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Following is the speech by Mr Stephen Mak Hung-sung, Acting Director of Information Technology Services, at the opening ceremony of the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo HK2003 and the Linux Business Adoption Award Presentation Ceremony today (November 4):
Mr Fung, Mr Yeung, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am delighted to be here to officiate the opening of the LinuxWorld Conference
& Expo - Hong Kong 2003 and the presentation ceremony of the Linux
Business Adoption Award 2003. The LinuxWorld Conference & Expo provides
an excellent opportunity for industry players, IT professionals, business
executives and end-users to exchange industry and product information,
and actual product usage experiences.
The Linux Business Adoption Award is one of the key activities of the
Linux Business Adoption Campaign 2003. It is the first event of its kind
in Hong Kong to showcase the best practice of business and educational
applications on the Linux platform. Today, I am delighted to see that
the Government, the private sector and the educational sector have successfully
deployed Linux both in the infrastructure and business applications areas.
From the number of entries of the Award, in particular the educational
sector, it is encouraging to see that Linux, or open source software (OSS)
more generally, is providing us a viable option for deployment. The adoption
of open source products is gradually gaining acceptance. As the Linux
Business Adoption Campaign gathers momentum, there will be more experience
sharing seminars to come. We do expect that the coming seminars will provide
more opportunities to enterprises and educational organisations to gain
more insight and information about the deployment of Linux and OSS solutions
in enhancing their business and operations.
In selecting software products and services, the Government emphasises
value for money and interoperability with no preference for brand names
or particular technologies. We welcome the broadening of product choice
as a result of the development of OSS. We have adopted various policies
and measures to promote OSS as a viable option for deployment and government
departments have been installing OSS progressively. About half of all
government departments have already started to install close to 1,000
OSS solutions on their computers and servers.
As you may have already noticed, the Government has earlier issued a public
consultation paper on the 2004 Digital 21 Strategy for ICT development.
Among other things, the Strategy reinforces Government's commitment to
facilitating the development of innovative applications, deepening the
e-government programme, and fostering the development of OSS through provision
of funding and other support measures. No doubt open source technology,
including Linux-based solutions, will play an important role in enhancing
our ICT infrastructure and industry landscape. Events and campaigns such
as those featured today will be conducive to this cause.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the participants of
the Award. Without their participation, the event cannot be so successful.
I should also thank our partners, the Hong Kong Productivity Council and
the Hong Kong Linux Industry Association, for organising this event. The
LinuxWorld Conference & Expo will be held here today and tomorrow,
I hope you will all find it both inspiring and rewarding.
Thank you.
Ends/Tuesday, November 4, 2003
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