In an exclusive interview with Computerworld Australia, Colin Knowles, the ABC's CIO and head of technology, said open source was considered for a CMS solution, but would have been a "high risk strategy" because of the amount of development work required.

"You have to balance what is the risk of having to do development against being able to touch and feel the core elements of work," Knowles said.

"Our general view is we will acquire when we can and we are quite happy to shift the work practices to fit the last 20 percent rather than build 80 or 100 percent with all the risks of that."

The ABC is still in contract negotiations with content management system vendors and will not announce the chosen supplier until a final decision is made. It has also formed a technology strategy group with a view to facilitating debate about real and disruptive technological trends.

Knowles said there are plenty of examples of organizations which started building their own applications and five years later "they are still building."