Hey reader! We have again back with not only amazing as always but also thrilling articles. Today’s article is going to be very different from others already present on TechGecs. Today we will talk about BOSS (Bharat Operating System Solutions). If you never heard about BOSS so, let me tell you first and foremost, what is BOSS?
What is BOSS OS?
In the year of 2015 government agency, CDAC developed an indigenous operating system ‘Bharat Operating System Solutions’ also known as BOSS. BOSS is also called India’s Own Operating System. We can say BOSS is a homegrown operating system.
BOSS operating system is developed as an alternative to Microsoft windows. It houses all the features of Microsoft Windows with edit security. Also, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology urged the all-state governments for using the BOSS operating system instead of Microsoft Windows.
Read More:- Top 5 technologies used by Indian Army
Features of Boss operating system:
· Supports for various languages like Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Urdu, Tamil, etc.
· Supports all the features of the Microsoft Windows operating system in addition to its own features.
· BOSS can safely address privacy-related concerns of the Indian government.
· BOSS Linux 6.0 features the latest Kernel, supports Intel 32 bit & 64-bit architectures, a 3D desktop environment, Graphic installer, Office application software suite Libreoffice, Internet access.
· Software, and file-sharing/converter and multimedia applications.
· It has no Wayland support.
Why BOSS came into the picture?
However, we already had Microsoft Windows Operating System but we are now moving to the BOSS operating system, why?
To answer this, first, let me tell you a little bit about Microsoft.
Microsoft was established by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975. However, in India, this company entered in 1990. They established they’re first headquarter in Hyderabad, it was the second-largest development center after the US Redmond facility. In the year 2003, the opened Microsoft India global technical support center (India GTSC) in Bangalore. It was the only 24*7 support center across the world. Gradually, Company will grow more and more.
Now, Microsoft is a tech giant company that controls the whole market today. Due to computing software, cloud computing services and windows OS Microsoft had massively grown up. In the year 2019 Microsoft reported approximately 1 billion dollar revenue.
How Indian government is dependent on Microsoft?
Nowadays this company is increasingly being a part of public sectors by providing critical infrastructure to the government.
Wherein Indian government is increasing its dependence on Microsoft on the other hand other countries have started scrutiny on Microsoft related to their privacy concerns, Malware attacks, Monopolistic practices, Tax evasion. In this case the question arises is it is good to depend on Microsoft or not?
To know this has to first know about how is Indian government depends on Microsoft and How can we become independent from this?
Microsoft had started introducing their products like Windows, Azure, office one by one. And NIC (India National Informatics center) encouraged the Indian government to use the Microsoft Product. If we talk about cloud services offered by Microsoft so we came to know that the Indian government has shown more reluctance. In 2017 Microsoft became India’s first global cloud service provider company and was approved by the MeiTy or Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
MeiTy approved three cloud models
1. Public Cloud
2. Government virtual public cloud.
3. Government community cloud.
Government community cloud is specifically dedicated cloud service to Indian Government departments, which is separated from the public and other departments.
Now Microsoft offers its Azure cloud network to public organizations. Azure offers various services like IaaS, PaaS, Disaster recovery, Manages backup, etc.
Today, the Indian government has been starting to collaborate with Microsoft for many initiatives. In August 2019 Microsoft launched Digital Governance Tech Tour. According to this, Government officials will be provided critical Artificial intelligence and intelligent cloud services. In addition to this, 5000 government personals will be provided digital skills. This efficient, transparent, and secured inter-departmental exchange of information will be ensured.
These all pieces of evidence are showing that how Microsoft has intruded in our system but there is a dark face also there can arise many threats due to this dependency like Disruption of government sectors, Malware attacks, etc.
This is a red signal to India, over dependency on Microsoft can be harmful.
Not only this but also Privacy concerns, Former agent of CIA USA revealed that software of Indian government is not totally secured, they can be easily hacked.
According to a report, the US government and American companies can access the data of non-citizens secretly and they can surveillance on them.
It is really a thinkable privacy concern on the dependency on Microsoft, it may happen that companies will share the whole confidential data of the Indian government with enemies of India like Pakistan and China.
The next important issue is Monopolistic Practices, to expand its business Microsoft resorted on various Monopolistic Practices. According to a report, Windows 10 added a default setting feature, with the help of this Microsoft and their trusted partners can access user behavior information and by using this kinda information Microsoft can design using specific products.
By using this unfair advantage Microsoft can easily threaten our upcoming startup’s ecosystem’s existence.
Despite tall claims made by the company, Microsoft has been unable to prevent cyber attacks.
Microsoft revealed in their Security endpoint report that How India is a victim of various cyber-attacks. In 2019 cryptocurrency mining and download attacks were the most major cyber threats for India.
Realizing these threats, the government of India has focused on the indigenization of technology.
The Indian government has started to use its own Operating system BOSS to be independent of Microsoft.
Attention reader!! Read our articles on Coding, Technologies, news, Digital Marketing, Tips.