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OpenOffice vs. MS Office for Education?
dbrian asks: "I work in a large high school district where there will be some discussion on whether or not to purchase another term of 'Software Assurance' for MS Office licenses on thousands of computers. This seems to be an ideal opportunity to promote an alternative such as OpenOffice. It will not be an easy sell, even though OpenOffice should more than satisfy all curricular needs and save the district lots of money; like many other districts we have political and cultural 'challenges'. So, I ask you, have you been successful in moving your education or business organization from MS Office to OpenOffice? What were the pros and cons from your migration? What advice do you have in selling this to tech coordinators and administrators who are not enlightened by Open Source?"
1. OpenOffice is free, but support may be obtained from a very popular computer company. (Sun Microsystems)
2. OpenOffice fully supports Microsoft Office file formats.
3. OpenOffice can be distributed to students without cost.
4. OpenOffice (and its sister project NeoOffice/J) run on ALL popular OSes, including Macintoshes.
5. OpenOffice is continually updated to have the latest features, again at no cost.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
What advice do you have in selling this to tech coordinators and administrators who are not enlightened by
Open Source?
Short of "Don't even bother", I'd say that you have your work cut out for you. Undoubtedly these people will be familiar, even comfortable, with MS Office and you will face huge momentum because your target audience probably sees no problems with MS Office. All the benefits of OSS except price will likely fall on deaf ears, so you'd better do your homework and have a very compelling presentation.
I can't offer specifics because I'm not really familiar with OO. In my mind it is self-evident. Office sucks more ways than you can count. Period.
However, you can't make this sell by bad-mouthing Microsoft or Office. Most non-techie people won't see it that way, and in fact will probably have a high opinion of Office since it's all they know. OO can't be just "good enough" to replace Office. It has to be made clear that it is superior... and not in the ways that we computer folks tend to think, but ways that will be convincing to non-technical people. You got a "gimme" on price, but the rest will be a steep hill.
Good luck, I wish you well.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I certainly hope my kids will learn more in high school than how to be good secretaries. I wrote school papers with pen/paper, and later with AppleWorks, yet I have somehow managed to move on.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Oh not this little bourbon again...a school's job is not to teach people to be little software drones, it's job is to instill critical thinking, knowledge, and ethics. Furthermore, the kid if properly taught will be able to quickly adapt to the brand-new MS Office which is somthing employers are really looking for: intelligence and adaptability. If a graduating student cannot get a job simply because he does not know Office than we should abandon the school system entirely and just simple hand-out MS manuals. There is more to knowledge than knowing how to dismiss Clippy with the right combinations.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
They will be upgrading Office regardless of whether it is MS or Open so most of your points are moot. The last one is a problem of compatibilities regardless of whether it is different versions of MS or thirdparties.
Stop being the typical MS fanboy and apologist and start being more realistic.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
You obviously haven't USED Outlook. Eudora is light years behind it. Eudora is closer to Outlook Express, that crappy free thing they give away to you. The only program I have used an liked outside of Outlook is Evolution which is what I tend to use in Linux.
Try really digging into Outlook and compare it to Eudora. The interface is a lot cleaner and more refined (especially in Outlooks 2003). The organization capabilities far outway Eudora. Calendar, Tasks, Notes, they all work great and if you have a Windows based PDA you HAVE to use outlook just for all the stuff you lose otherwise. As a PIM it is excellent. Eudora is far from being a true PIM since it has minimal if any real compatibility with either Palm or Outlook.
If you ask the true die hards though which program is the most powerful they'll tell you it is Lotus Notes. Having used Outlook/Exchange, GroupWise, and Lotus in business settings I will state that Lotus is the most powerful probably but it seems to diverge a bit from the norms setup by Outlook and GroupWise (that evil program from Novell).
I haven't used Eudora in ages, so feel free to enlighten me if they have actually added useable Rules, Spam Filtering, and cleaned up what was one of the worlds ugliest interfaces for a long while.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
You might also discuss the legal and policy importance of procuring software using open file format standards, a subject discussed at length in the article. Microsoft Office's XML Reference Schemas, because of an overly-restrictive patent license, do not satisfy such requirements, which are critical to software interoperability in eCommerce and eGovernment. OpenOffice file formats do not suffer from that vulnerability.
There is also the important issue of vendor lock-in. OpenOffice, being cross-platform, is a giant step in the direction of freeing organizations from the necessity of using a proprietary operating system. Moreover, even should the school ultimately decide to continue using the Windows platform and Microsoft Office, it can likely receive a far lower bid from a MS Office vendor by using a specification that would allow selection of OpenOffice.
Drafting government specifications in such a way that only one vendor can supply the procured product, particularly in a time of shrinking government budgets, is wasteful and anti-competitive. You might consider developing or requesting an estimated cost comparison, using the previous MS Office licensing cost as the base. A substantial savings is likely, freeing funds for other purposes.