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Migrating Your Office from Windows to Linux?
bastiji asks: "I work at a mid-sized company, around 50 people and 90% M$ shop (10% being the Sun server doing our backups). Most of my users are using Office 85% of the time with some specialized apps thrown in for good measure. With the upcoming licensing changes from M$ my finance guys are worried about increased spending on even the software that we already own. I've been to told to look for alternatives and I'm asking for your help. How does one begin to do migration from a totally dependent M$ shop to the least expensive options. Are there any examples for mid-sized firms taking this route and any public examples of cost-savings?"
Get one ofthe new MAC servers with unlimited clinet connects. Install Start Office and leave the desktop OS's alone.
When someone yells "Stop" or goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
Standard functionality ( such as office, email ) you can do, but trying to find a replacement for something 'specilaized' wont be easy.. and forget wine running something 'wierd' ( at least today ).
Perhaps use linux on desktop + metaframe
( plugin for citrix works great on linux ) for those apps you just *cant* replace...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What wrath? After the migration is done... M$ can call anything but will be eating the dust...
You can even deny the "right" to auditory... and even deny the right of M$ to know how many computers and licences you have...
Unless they come with a court order...
And even then... you can refuse to deliver the data to M$ and demand to deliver it only to the court itself...
Cheers...
P.S.- Of course you can end with all your licenses voided but alas...
I'd suggest having the users (or leads or whatever) try the windows version of star office. Make sure they can do what they need to do, before you switch them. Otherwise you'll be forced to switch back, and they'll have a negative view of Linux.
:)
Also make a list (you can't plan something like this too much) of all the apps they're using, and what features they're using, and make sure you can provide all of those features before you switch.
And put lots of pictures of Tux around the place. His cute smile will calm everyone's fears.
Have your finance people taken into account that the majority of the employees know Microsoft products fairly well and would have to be retrained for such a migration. The problem getting Linux or other OSS into the office isn't cost or a technical issue. Its a people issue, plain and simple people know MS Products, they've been using them for years. A move to a completely different operating system and business suit will leave the employees feeling abandoned and useless and will more than likely hurt productivity.
Something to consider. This is probably the biggest reason that OSS has had such a hard time infiltrating the office.
scott
If I were doing this I would create a "I want that" sort of environment. What I mean is pick a Linux distro that has a lot of eye candy and cool features, ala SuSE or Mandrake, and give it to some of your more advanced users, those willing to experiment a little bit. Let them play around with it, and give them some freedom to customize as much as they want. Once they start to really make the GUI look nice, and playing with some of the stuff that is just not available with out of the box Windows/Office they will start to attract other users. Have them tell the rest of the staff that this is the "future" and they are beta testing for the optimal environment. It wouldn't hurt if you got them new machine, or monitors, give a users some incentive to learn and use Linux.
With KDE 3 it's really not that hard to learn the OS, how many Windows users use a CMD shell, the same will be true for the average run of the mill Linux user if the GUI is setup right. I have been using KDE3 for a while now and it is at least as easy if not easier than Windows to do just about anything.
If you allow fairly unrestricted Internet access I would make sure that all of the multimedia apps are working correctly, and that flash is working as well. These are big things for the weenies, they want the bells and whistles that Windows provides, and with a good distro they're all there, but they may need some tweaking to get them running flawlessly.
Just my $0.02, but that is what I would do.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
I would suggest that you proceed slowly. Linux doesn't have the mature GUI that Windows offers and it takes some getting used to. Most non-technical people are inherently disturbed by change - they fear change. My current employer is considering this. We have organized groups by job function. The admin assistants will be going first since word processing, email, etc. are fairly robust for Linux. I suggest that you look at Ximian.com and their Evolution product, namely for the email client. I also suggest AbiWord as a good "Word" replacement. The whole office suite is relatively simple to replace.
Our developers and IT staff, which make a large part of our company, are having difficulty since we use many of those "specalized applications" that you were referring to. We have had some luck with WINE. You might also want to check out Lindows. VMWare is another option, but that still requires a Windows license - however - it wil allow you to run what just became your legacy apps until you can migrate off them as well.
HDGary secures my bank
It does seem like it should be that simple but you neglect the existence of the BSA audit. If you go that route you can expect to hear from the BSA before too long offering an amnesty if you buy the latest versions of the software. If you don't, of course, they'll take you to court and they'll get you for that one or two pieces of software you didn't license. Every company has one or two pieces of software they didn't license. That's all they need to get you for the software costs and legal fees. Fun, non?
My suggestion is that if you choose not to go the Microsoft route make a point of either:
1) purging every vestige of microsoft's sofware from your office
2) making sure everything is in pristine order for when the BSA comes along
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Diferentiate between quick-learners and, uh, reluctant-learners, first. If you can't figure this out intuitively, ask. "Would you like to try something new?"
;-)
Entice even *one* person to try a new, alternative Office suite (start with an MS-Windows install of TOS Office). Ask for their feedback. Observe their learnning experience and learn from it, yourself. Then take it to the next level.
Teach a half-dozen people -- in your spare time. Grow your "install base". Always return to the original group(s) and make sure they're not feeling abandoned, etc.
Next, introduce *one* new person to a "pretty" desktop (Grome/KDE). Show them all the ease-of-use options first. Then help them understand the details as they walk through the learning curve. Every newbie will be diferent. But every newbie needs encouragement; A reason to stay the course.
By all means, show them the same app. they used on MS-Windows (e.g. TOS Office) running on the new desktop! Help them make "familiarity connections".
Be methodical, plodding, patient and open-minded. You'll succeed far sooner than you ever dreamed! The initial newbies, if you employ them, will help newer newbies. And the love will spread...
Do I sound like I've done this before?
The "specialized apps" are where it really makes the difference, unfortunately. For example, if you're doing mechanical engineering, there's nothing out there like Pro/ENGINEER for linux (That I know of...). Also, stupid little things like shipping and receiving needing to use UPS software and accounting using Peachtree or Quickbooks. There's not a lot of professional-level software like this out there for Linux. Don't get me wrong - there's a lot of stuff - I run it exclusively, but I have to reboot to use Pro/E.
Nonperiodic Central Trajectory
Easy to say when you don't resell software ... if you do, you'll *have* to get a M$ partnership to resell those.
We can barely get some of the administrative people we have trained on Windows.
I tried to get my fiance to use Linux (SuSE 8.0), her response was "I don't want to learn Linux. I want to use Windows, that's what we have at work". Even though 90% of what she does on her computer at home (online banking, documents, web surfing) can be done just as easily on Linux, the exception being playing games (which I already have a dedicated machine for doing just that).
I tried telling her "There's nothing to learn really, you click on the menu, launch the program and use it like you would a Windows computer". Alas, to no avail.
My point being, even if you convince them it's cheaper, more stable, they won't care unless you force it down their throats. It's like medicine or a new dish. Some people like to try new things, others don't.
Not to mention the fact that you have to convince them that productivity won't be hurt. (now the Systems and help desk productivity might be hurt having to run around and say to everyone "it's just like windows". Your biggest problems will come when everyone and their dog wants to install their personal stuff (screensavers, wallpaper, P2P apps, etc...) on their new Linux machines, then get mad when you tell them it won't work.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
erm. When I said:
"...Linux simply cannot read some of the MS formats (Access DB, oddities in Excel/Word files), you still need to keep some MS products around"
I really meant:
"...Linux apps capable of reading all of the MS formats (Access DB, oddities in Excel/Word files), do not exist yet, you still need to keep some MS products around."
This is a small change to the way KDE and Gnome look, but I think it's an important change: the typical Gnome taskbar along the bottom is three times as big as Windows users are used to, and is cluttered with a bunch of useless toys. Get rid of everything except the buttons that indicate which programs are running, and of course the button that users think of as the "start" button.
The default menus in most distros are also way too extensive. They tend to have the same thing several times in several places. Pick the dozon or so programs your users generally need and put them in the main "start" menu. Hide the rest in a single "advanced" menu, or even get rid of the menu items altogether.
Put icons for the most important programs right on the desktop: Spreadsheet, Word Processor (not "Text Document" like Open Office says), etc.
By default, don't allow multiple desktops. Users who are advanced enough to understand the concept will know to ask you for it.
Finally, sit and watch users play with the system. Note any place that they frown and get confused. Don't believe self-deprecatory excuses that they just don't know what they're doing and they're sure the system is fine: if they don't know how to do something it's the systems' fault for not being easy enough.
Miko O'Sullivan
See here's what happens. The BSA says play nice with them and they'll be lenient with you. Nice means either paying for new software or paying for them to audit you and then pay for the license you were supposed to have. Keep in mind, that having a copy of office and a receipt for it is not legally licensed unless you've got the little certificate of authenticity. So if you weren't keep pristine records they'll possibly have you paying twice for your software.
Now, that's the "NICE" approach. The less than nice approach is that they file suit against you in court. During discovery they get to audit you and can find that lone piece of software that was infringing. Now you have to pay for that license, penalties, court costs, audit costs, damages. Now if it turns out that you are the one organization on earth that has all of your software licensed legitmately, then you can probably recover the costs for your legal defense, but even then you just wasted a lot of time and resources.
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As a user already familiar with MS Office, I had no difficulty at all learning how to use StarOffice. The migration was almost completely painless. The only hangup I've hit so far is that OLE controls on speadsheets (buttons, checkboxes, etc.) don't translate -- but that's a very esoteric feature. 90% of users will not see any significant difference.
May I suggest OsX ?
most windows apps, streaming media, etc. are available on osX, and you still have the freedom to run unix if you want.
I too, await getting flamed...
A lot of it just comes down to file formats. If you can't switch now, then at least you can make it easier to switch later: have your users start saving their stuff to standardized formats instead of closed proprietary lock-in formats. Yes, OpenOffice can read MS Word files, but just about everything can read RTF, and RTF has all the functionality needed, 99% (subjective) of the time.
Once you get out of needing dead-end tools, you'll be in a better position to be able to use whatever you want to.
Start doing it now, even if you don't ever intend to break free of MS. Standard files might even be more compatable with future MS products than today's lock-in formats will be.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Only proceed to the next step when the current one is fully completed.
P.S.:
You can also run MS Office with CodeWeaver's CrossOver (also based on Wine), but since you want to cut costs, you probably don't want to run MS Office.
I have noticed that also. The funny thing about these
posts is that many of the complaints about open-source
applied to the state of world in 1997-98. I am
amazed at how quickly linux and BSD went from pretty
impossible to install and use to pretty easy to install
and use.
As a windows refugee I know of what I speak.
-- For many microsoft people the light just will never
turn on about open-source. Unfortunately.
-- let them astroturf. time is running out.
That's not a bug, that's a security feature. And that's how you sell it to management.
Although you can install your own wallpaper, of course; assuming that windows wallpapers still come as essentially giant bitmaps?
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
If only Macintosh would port OS/X to the x86 architecture problem solved. Actually if you are buying new hardware get a mac. OS/X rules and you can always run linux if you disagree. A little off topice, but OS/X is what linux w/KDE/Gnome should aspire to be (except that linux would be free of course)
It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.
Agreed. You save the most money by not buying Office. Switching OS's saves far less, but at the cost of tremendous end-user issues. Most machines will come with a no extra cost windows license the will work acceptably without upgrades to newer versions for many many years.
Most office users end up only using Word. Buy Works which includes Word 2002 for $100. Don't bother with upgrades. Use Office or any replacement for those users who need other components.
You can save 60% of more of the cost at almost no hassle. Don't worry about upgrades, you'll get that when the useful life of the machines are over.
Do the servers first. Use stable no-nonsense apps like Samba, Bind, Sendmail, and go with a stable distro. I have used Redhat and had good support. After a while like that, when you feel ready, you can fire up some clients to test with. Get feedback early on about what works and what needs work from real users. Go back and retool. Rinse and Repeat.
Then after some time, make a cost benefit analysis of your own. Tweak the numbers. Figure in support costs. Codeweaver licences are 50 bucks a seat. Add in anything like unforseen funds for any incidentals, like bringing in a heavy Linux Guru. Don't try to short change a major conversion.
Then show it to your boss. This is the ammo he/she needs to sell it to the top managment.
Good Luck.
I may be bad with names, but I'll never forget your IP address
Because of the stability and usability. Windows 2000 and XP appear to be very stable and no one can deny that they are lightyears ahead of anything on linux when it comes to desktop comfort.
This is only your personal preference. I use both KDE and windows daily, and I prefer having the multiple desktops and clean GUI of KDE. Because I know how to use Linux (translate: know what I want to do), I find the KDE interface easier to use. I also find it more aesthetically pleasing - how many Windows boxes have active backgrounds?
I just hate it when I encounter yet another website that doesn't load using Konqueror, mozilla, opera... you fill in the blanks. I just hate it that I can't play movies on my linux machine without five days of intensive configuration battles.The main problem I've found with Linux is that it is a chore to configure, but once you've got it configured correctly, nothing breaks. Contrast this with Windows, where botched application installation can break pieces throughout the entire system. Correcting a bad install in Linux may involve little more than editing a text file; in Windows, you may have to reinstall the OS, reregister with Microsoft, and reinstall every application that you use. I've spent countless hours doing this, and even though I hate vi and editing text files, I have to admit that I prefer the Linux/UNIX method of editing a few lines to the 8+ hour complete system reinstalls I have to do with Windows.
Someone once said there's no such thing as a free lunch. With Linux, it's reliable, and it's free, but if you want to play movies, you may have to spend a substantial amount of time downloading and configuring the application, and then reading the documentation, fixing bugs, and recompiling. With Windows, you pay for a system which basically takes all of these things out of your way, but at great risk; if the software is buggy, or the install fails, it could break the entire system. There is simply no recourse for a botched install - if you're lucky, you might get away with reinstalling only the application(s) affected. If not, you could end up reinstalling the entire OS.
And I haven't even begun to talk about virus/security issues. If you value your data, Linux might be your only option (either that or a constant backup plan...)
When one thinks about the system as a whole, Windows is only suitable for people who want to use the PC as an entertainment device - people who rely on the integrity of their data and the security of their computer systems should not run Windows. Use Windows for games - use Linux for serious computing.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I think that simply moving towards a different Office Suite would be a great short-term solution and a great first-step in a long-term move away from Microsoft.
SHORT TERM:
Take Staroffice for Windows; I think they just announced their new pricing scheme and volume licensing for small businesses is like $50 per copy. You get a good, easy to learn program that works on top of an environment your people already know. AND it costs significantly less than Microsoft so the finance guys are happy. Keeping Windows on the machines also avoids the headaches of installing and upkeeping a Linux house, which unless you have someone in house is VERY expensive (consultants aren't cheap). ~$40 per copy of OEM Windows with the PC is a lot better than a "free" OS that requires hundreds or thousands in fees to get going.
LONG TERM:
The advantage to this is that you have also (hopefully) shown everyone that Open Source works. In 3-5 years you can walk into the boss's office with a plan to migrate away from Windows, given the right *nix platform, and there will be very little backtalk about reliability, etc. since they already know Open Source works.
I talk to much. Going from MS Office to Staroffice will save you $250 per PC at least. Try that first before doing anything more complicated.
Great. Way to make things cheaper, ace.
Support deal: $100 per seat, maybe $10,000 for a site.
Training: $1000 per user, and it probably won't help if it took them years of hands on to learn Windows. You weren't thinking a $50 CompUSA class, were you?
VMWare: $100 per seat plus the windows license.
Plus the work you lose while the enployees away and when they come back and resist the transition.
Those $200 yearly office upgrades don't look so bad when combined with your $1200 per machine transition costs (plus labor costs and $100 "geeks" working to make Wine work "near perfect").
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Hi, I did not do a migration specifically, but I did support a company of
over 200 desktop Linux users including creating and maintaining the build
that was used and developing the support infrastructure.
Since Linux offers vastly more options in terms of administration and
management of a large deployment of workstations I think you are clearly
making the right choice, well beyond the mere savings in software cost.
My finding was that there are several key things which make the transition
work: providing users with a stable system with an ergonomic graphical
interface (such as KDE), providing good tools to match those that users
would expect, laying out policy from the top-level down about acceptable
document formats and standards to be used (this is *extremely* important
since one Microsoft user can try to force a whole department to switch to
his standard therefore policy *has* to be set about document and other
formats), and finally spreading the good news about open-source and
conveying to users a sense of enthusiasm that they are participating in an
important revolution.
Finally, I can say it amazed me when I say people who were not particularly technically adept and had never used anything other than Windows working with Linux with complete and total ease.
On the other side there will always be the "picky" user who perceives the switch away from the software they are used to as an imposition. I found that patience and spending extra time with such people could eventually win them over and instill in them the same enthusiasm for open-source that many share.
Except the new office down the road sends you an Office 2005 document, your ancient system will no longer be able to read it.
And people like getting new toys. Espically faster ones. New computers running Linux with a step-up in monitor size is a good start (you are probably saving a lot more money then the cost of 15" to 17" or higher!)
Be sure you migrate your tech. department first, they will put the most stress on the systems.
You biggest consideration is not technical, it's organic. Making people feel good about the change and giving them more skills in the new platform will ensure a successfull transition. The limiting factor is peoples reluctance and ability to change, provide fun, effective training, and you will have increased the profitability of your company. You could actually calculate the increased effectiveness by measuring the time required to perform some common tasks; then measure those same tasks on the new platform after training. Picture a presentation meeting:
"By switching platforms, we save 50(users)*$1,000.00(licensing/year)= $50,000.00/year in licensing fees and 50 * 30(minutes saved per day per user due to training, but you call it new platform task efficiency)* 250(work days)/60min * $20.00/hour = $125,000.00 in gained productivity. In essence, ladies and gentlemen, we can't afford not to change.
linuxforlife@nerdmaker.com
Forward migrate ... to MAC OS X.
Sidegrade your Office licenses (yes, MS will let you do this for the same cost as a "normal" upgrade).
Microsoft's Mac version has almost none of the evil of the PC version, and the programs are virtually identical across platforms (except that the Mac version works better and has more features ...).
Frankly, after an extremely short retraining time, your staff and your techs will love you for this.
Mac OS X *is* UNIX, ya know ... sheesh. Next time, give us a hard one.
Thats pretty much the best idea yet, IMHO. It seems the biggest problem I have (switching my family to Linux) is people that just don't WANT to learn anything new. I don't know how the new StarOffice licences work, (is it single OS? Are there Windows and Linux installers on the same CD? Can you use the same registration code on both?) but it might be a better idea (if the SO licence does not allow you to install the Linux version after the Windows version is deleted) is to install OpenOffice.org on computers, unless the person specifically needs, say, the database.
If you use Exchange, check out Evolution. I havent tried it yet, but it looks nice. If anyone has used it, can you please say something about how it compares to Outlook?
As far as office programs go, I have found SO/OO.o to be better than MS Office in many situations, but a little slower to start up. If you have older (200 MHz or less) machines, consider upgrading them. On my systems (lowest is pII 350) SO and OO.o take a while to start, but once they are up, they are faster than MS Office. Do NOT install SO 5.2. NO ONE will like it, as it is so integrated into one huge program as to be basically just a memory hog. You will be much happier with OO.o or SO 6.0.
Also, have a few systems with Linux on them for people to try out. Say that it will be the OS you will have on all new computers from that point on, and if anyone wants to try it out in advance, they can. It will be good training, and you will get an idea of users likes/dislikes/preferecnes, and will be able to set it up better for them. Also, some may be ready to switch right now!
Also, consider trying to convince people to use things such as (my)SQL for databases, so that they will be able to access it with many different programs, etc. I wonder if there is a nice program that will make an SQL database (i really dont know much about SQL, just a few basic commands) that will look like an Access database to users. It would be nice for switching people over.
/usr/games/fortune