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Open Source Making Inroads in Small Businesses
prostoalex writes "In a story mainly about new OpenOffice release, NewsFactor Network quotes an interesting finding of Jupiter Research analyst: "Open-source productivity suites did "surprisingly well" in the mid-size business market, with the OpenOffice suite alone claiming a share of about 6%. Furthermore, [Joe Wilcox] found that some 19% of small businesses ran Linux on their desktop, and a whopping 26% ran Linux on their servers.""
And those pockets are in small and mid-size businesses -- those of 1,000 employees or less -- where paying top dollar for Microsoft's very expensive productivity suite does not make much sense. In conducting research for a new report, Wilcox found that open-source productivity suites did "surprisingly well" in the mid-size business market, with the OpenOffice suite alone claiming a share of about 6 percent. Furthermore, he found that some 19 percent of small businesses ran Linux on their desktop, and a whopping 26 percent ran Linux on their servers.
I want to know some more detail... What state? What area of business? 26% server share, sure, believeable, 6% OO share, eh, not too believeable, but I will go with it based on the fact that they have shown no data to back up this claim... 19% on the desktop? Uh, no way, that's just too unbelievable for me.
I love Linux and I think it has great potentional but I think this "research" is just as skewed as anything that is funded by MS...
Small to mid-size business move faster than big business. When the smaller ones are more competitive and saving cash the larger businesses will have to follow suit to remain competitive.
Trolling is a art,
Where? Silicon Valley?
Everywhere I've been, it's more like 1% running Linux on the desktop. At least, if you're only counting places where the management has made the decision to run Linux, not places where individual IT folks are running elicit Linux boxes on our^H^H^Htheir desktops.
As we may remember from a recent interview with James Gosling, he made the statement,
"There's no way that I could pay nearly $4,000 for a freaking word processor at home. It just isn't going to happen."
If the home user cannot justify purchasing an expensive office suite, it is no surprise that the small business will try to avoid it as well. Initiatives such as OpenOffice really help to push these boundaries, making Open Source software appealing to business, and to the end user.
I personally use Abiword and OpenOffice in my day to day word processing, and I prefer it much to the expensive Microsoft Office suite.
We're a small business, and we run open source on our server and a few desktops. We'll be moving to more in the future.
You can just imagine the look on my boss's face when he asked how much he had to pay for my software and upgrades.
Basically, we use open source because this company lives month to month. We make plenty of money, but there's not enough to throw around on wild expenses. Also, the only excuse for not using open source is not having any employees smart enough to handle it. The MS philosophy is to make computers dumbed down to the level of the dumbest user. And that's why a lot of businesses use windows. But in a sense, if you have open source knowledge and background, then the sum of all open source software is like a benefit you bring to the company once they hire you. Because you have free or cheap access to a program to do just about everything on just about any hardware. What could be better for a small business? This had a large role in my employment.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Personally, I find it sickening that schools (here in the UK at least) are teaching lessons as what amount to "Microsoft Office Classes"... My housemate is a teacher, she has little knowledge past the standard MSOffice skills an average office worker would pick up, yet she's planning lessons and teaching these kids.
IMHO there needs to be a definite line between teaching kids how a word processor works, and teaching kids "MS Word 2000" or whatever...
What happens to all these kids when they finally get jobs? their employer has to either spend more money training them, or shell out for the latest microsoft product that they are vaguely familar with...
I'm in the IT department of a small company.. ~70 hosts and ~8 servers. The need arose a while ago to have a seperate database offloading data from the MS SQL server for reporting purposes. I installed linux on a redundant P3 lying around and set things up because I didnt want to hit the management with a bill for some fancy UNIX solution, and I'm just used to linux.
So now theres the need to use a better VPN solution than the one that comes with win2k, and to replace the MS proxy server. Will I hit them with a bill for the cobalt raq server, an RS/6000 or a used Pentium3 with Linux/FreeBSD? I've no beef with FreeBSD, but I had to install something on the RedHat that doesnt install on FreeBSD.
So Linux is eventual. Everyone will have a need for a utility server and not want to pay for it... and the techie who suggests it will be preferred, for saving the small business some money, natural selection of OSes comes with it.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
While it's not for everybody, the open source solution really seems to make sense if a group or company can get started with it. I work for a small (~2500 customer) ISP in central Michigan and we use a combination of Linux and Windows 2000. When I started at the ISP, it was a Microsoft-only shop. I introduced the first UNIX server -- a FreeBSD machine -- after about six months. It had a much better uptime, could seemingly handle more tasks, and was easily maintained.
But the main reason that it worked, I think, is that I was there to take care of the new FreeBSD server and answer any questions. If a company does not have a knowledgeable *NIX person on staff, then the chances of that company making an open source solution work are probably greatly reduced.
There is still, I think, a good deal to overcome to really get Linux and open source software into businesses for good. It doesn't help to have a free or even much-less-expensive solution if nobody knows how to use it or fix it. Maybe we just need to breed more *NIX-loving types. :)
If only schools could switch to OpenOffice to, and we could probably get rid of the MS Office dominance for ever in a few years..
Not necessarily. Apple owned the school market for years but couldn't make great inroads into the business market.
Trolling is a art,
These small and medium sized businesses can move more quickly and make changes that they see as being a better business decision. Costs and benefits of any decision are up-close and personal.
Hmmm... let's see ... I have to retrain myself a little to understand the new application (which takes time), suffer a little loss of features, but it costs a lot less, especially over time.
Large companies take longer to do this. The costs and benefits appear different. Large companies like MyCorp have negotiated multi-year, site-wide contracts with companies like Microsoft for things like Office. Consequently, at the department level those products appear "free", we don't pay for them because it comes out of some company wide expenditure, just like electricity and phone service. (And, too, the standardization on One product helps to minimize support costs; so the old One product line is more firmly entrenched . The support techs are more familiar with the old devil than the new devil.)
OpenOffice still has a way to go to compete against that impression in large companies. CIO's are cautious about making a big move unless they feel real comfortable that they understand the costs involved.
While in a small business, the proprietor feels and benefits the costs directly, in the large business, the CIO assumes all of the costs of worrying about the transition. If they're wrong, it's not like they'll just go back the next day like the small business can. No, a bad IT decision in a large company is head-on-a-platter time.
Therefore, study the issue and defer a major transition decision until more evidence is available.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
You know, this has always irritated me. Why is some specialized document format used for sending documents back and forth? With Word, it spreads problems like macro viruses. Yes, at least an open format is nicer because you don't require a $600 office suite to read it.
But shouldn't we really be using PDF or something similar? Then there are no issues with document formatting - it looks exactly like it would when you print it. There are no issues with having office suite x and/or y. There are tons of free converters - in fact, OOo 1.1 has a button to do it in one click - and free viewers.
We've been using PDF at my office for at least a couple years now (though the primary wordprocessor here is WordPerfect .. I'm trying to migrate to OOo right now). But basically any attachment is sent out with PDF. It makes things easier for our staff (who aren't great with computers) because all they have to do is print to PDF, save, and then send the email.
For collaboration, use text files, or just plain email, then one person can sit down and format the document. I don't understand why sending .doc files is so widely used.
Speak before you think
I'm sure that my observations mirror those of many, many others. Linux is making significant penetration into many new markets, true. But the desktop and small-business-server aren't two of those markets.
That is, once people know 2 or 3 people who say "we used OpenOffice/StarOffice at company X and it was fine and saved us a packet".
OpenOffice isn't going to grow because of IT Directors deciding to use it. It will be people installing it themselves, or trying it at home and finding they like it and forcing the issue upwards.
I think Microsoft is finally starting to succeed in eliminating the 'casual' software pirating. Sure, there are the larger corporate versions that don't have the activation feature - but most of the smaller companies (less than 25 people) won't have that type of license. A few years back, you could buy a dell and take the copy of office 97 and stick it on every desktop - not legal, but easily to do. Now that is just not the case as today's software loves to finger print your hardware to prevent this from happening.
So why the increase in OSS? I suspect a big chunk comes from folks who look at the CAL's, email, file, or print servers - all the things in addition to an office suite - and have to decide if they really want to pony up for it. A personal example: a friend was looking to get a copy of office to update their resume, among other things. With the product activation, they could not install my copy of Word. Best case, they could buy a student edition for $130 (and sign up for classes) or plunk down $200 for a normal version. I explained what the activation did, pointed them to some on-line vendors I trust, and then gave them the link to Open Office to use while they thought about what to do.
Office is just peanuts, IMHO. The back office pieces are the spendy bits, and that is where a lot of the OSS software shines. Even for something as basic as a web server for the public, is it really worth two grand for IIS? Some folks might say yes, others might go Apache...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Well. And after 6 months, another user send you "NEWER" Word version document. Then what? $x99 for new word, oh and yes, guess what, you need need Windows for $x99 too. Oh boy.
:)))
I have no problems with Word documents in OpenOffice.Org.
Oh. Btw you made your homepage in Word? OO.Org does it better
My wife runs a small business (40 employees) and I do the computing stuff (in my leisure time, basically). So I have some experience in SMB and Linux.
5 years ago I introduced Linux file + print servers, routers, and firewalls. Since I was a newbie in the beginning I had a steep learning curve to climb up. After that, everything was perfect. No problems with the 4 Linux and 1 FreeBSD servers, but there still is a NT machine, because some software the company (fashion business) needs runs only on windows. The maintenance costs for this machine are 10 times higher than the 5 other servers combined. I would be glad to get rid of it, but software we need is simply not avaliable in Linux. This is a big obstacle towards an MSfree life.
Then, the desktops. All these Win machines on the desktops require far too much attention. Many of them are > 5 years old and need to be replaced. So this is a good time to migrate towards OSS. So I gave a KDE desktop machine a try --> endless hassle with MS office formats, OpenOffice crawls, users dislike it because it's not Windows, 1 GHz + 256 MB RAM needed etc etc. My conclusion is that it is not the MS desktops which are the problem. Maybe some might be better off with Linux desktops but I think the gain will never be more than 10%, if at all.
The real problem is that there is an overly complex machine at every desk capable of gazillion CPU cycles per sec and able to process GB of data, for what? Writing an invoice (3 kB data) or booking something into an accounting system (234 bytes data). That's what 80% of all workplaces are like. For these 80%, all these diskussions about which desktop is the best are regularly missing the point. That's why I will give thin clients a try. So my idea is: big server machine for those 80 %, old PCs as thin clients, typical desktop with 4 buttons: e-mail, web, write_a_letter, modify_database; Linux or MACs for the remaining 20% (mostly designers). This will take a long time to set up, because there are no off-the-shelf solutions. So the 2nd big obstacle is: there are no experts available to help SMBs. My wife's company would still be locked in Windows if I were not around. Businesses of this size cannot afford a full-time sysadmin. If Joe Fashion or Jill Plumber needs a network for their 5 employees business, they will always end up with MS, provided by the local we-sell-computers shop.
For SMBs, the break even for OSS is still far, far away.
I think the freedom to "just do it" is as significant a factor as the free price and the freedom to modify the code. The ability to download open source software, install it on an old, redundant computer, and play around with it without having to ask anyone for permission or money is a huge factor. Even if the techie knows that his boss will probably approve the money, it is still a hassle. The boss might say "no", the boss might not be around, the boss might use the discussion to bring up other, unpleasant things, such as WTF those clueless users in Marketing are demanding right now.
Of course, this "freedom from hassles" is also why people use the software that is installed by default on the computers they buy instead of going through the hassles of downloading OSS. It does cut both ways. This changes when it is time to upgrade the system, and then the hassle factor comes back in. If you can upgrade that Win98 box to Linux without having to get permission, then even if the TCO is higher for OSS, it will still get done.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
The point I switched over to RH for work was when it set up the display & wireless card on my notebook straight out of the box. Goodbye Win2K. The only app I'm really missing is AutoRoute - for most things OpenOffice is just fine. Its a bit sad that there isn't more educational software for Linux - all the stuff in PC World is for PCs. Having said that my kids are happy enough with mame, doom, pingus etc...
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Instead of teaching general word processing concepts. I.E. text can be selected, then cut, copied, pasted, files can be saved and opened. Margins need to be set. Text can be delt with on a character level, word level, sentence level, paragraph level, then in some programs in "sections" or pages" or with "styles".
If you teach these concepts, then someone can set down at a new wordprocessor they have not seen before, take an inventory of the tools available, and they style (Word is paragraph based, built around sections, Wordperfect is character based, built around pages). Then they can get to work and be productive.
If you have been trained in how to use Word (or any other wordprocessor), click here, pick this menu option, you are lost in a new program, especially if you rely on where things are at on the menu.
A vocational school should teach MSWord, or WordPerfect or OpenOffice, or whatever a student would feel is the WordProcessor they need to learn how to use to get a job. Or what the local job market is demanding for entry level word processing skills.
A regular school or college should teach WordProcessing concepts and theory. Students should be exposed to several different word prcoessors and DTP programs after having some theory, and then the class should focus on basic mastery of one product.
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