As some of you might already noticed, recently a lot of exposure has been granted to the news that the Dutch Government has decided on using Open Source technologies for their new communication platform. Not only Dutch news sites like nu.nl & webwereld announced this news, but even the traditional newspapers and “het Financiele Dagblad” thought this was something to proudly announce to the their readers.

Well, being true Open Source Believers from the early days, JTeam is very pleased that the world out there is finally starting to adopt the Open Source Model. More and more companies understand  the value of Open Source technologies (for example iLocal) and are convinced enough to build their business on top of it. And as for now, even the Dutch Government is starting to change. Well that’s a positive thing.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that JTeam was (and still is) involved in the decision. We empowered the Minestry of General Affairs  (Ministerie van Algemene Zaken) and its personnel for about a couple of months and helped them to setup a good development process as well as taught its employees everything they need to know in order to execute this project by themselves. This is also something that pleasantly surprises me.  Instead of outsourcing IT projects and lightling candles every day hoping that their development partners will successfully deliver, they’ve become more mature and decided to give a try themselves. Having this knowledge & experience in house will eventually result in better quality and less costs. Why? Because governmental projects are dynamic as well and also require an agile project management methodoly combined with XP development skills. It is questionable if outsourcing partners can deliver the same quality and communication skills as their internal department does. But let’s see how this project (and all related side projects) will eventually end.