Scottish Police Revert to Microsoft Office

LordGuha writes "The Central Scotland Policy is removing StarOffice and replacing it with Microsoft Office citing lower maintenance and running costs and greater integration with other departments. According to the article StarOffice was implemented in 2000 when the department was low in cash but lately have estimated that the Microsoft software would cost no more and lead to greater efficiencies."

Comments

Only 5% of users were using StarOffice

[nokilli]

The other 95% were using Microsoft Office. So that answers why they were having so much trouble with StarOffice. They weren't. They were having trouble working with everybody else using Microsoft Office.

You know, it's crazy giving cops tools like Microsoft Office or StarOffice in the first place. 99.99% of people who use word processors don't get past the part where you hit keys and watch text appear on the screen. Oh yeah, and open and save documents. That's all they ever do.

I'd bet real money that the textarea element in a browser like Firefox provides all the text-editing functionality that these people need, especially if you add spell correct via JavaScript. Hit submit and there's your save function, to a central server that can be accessed from any department. Click a link and there's your file open functionality. Amazing!

You can even do forms! LOL

Why aren't they using a system like this? Because some idiot somewhere equates more-expensive with easier-to-use. It's the oldest story in IT, and it's always a tragedy.
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Why didn't you know?

*Sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

First time I've ever posted here, and I really knew what to expect from this thread, but I had to say this.

We all automatically assume that the police organization doesn't know what it's doing, doesn't know how to perform cost-benefit analysis, and all are just a bunch of non-tech-savvy pawns. They made the switch to OpenOffice *5* years ago. You don't think that's enough time to give something a shot and evaluate it? You don't think that's enough time to see how much something is going to cost or impact your organization? You don't think that they had people working on it and trying to honestly switch to OSS? Unless you work there, I think your post is way out of line (as well as a lot of others in this thread).

I'm not a Microsoft apologist, but why can't you see past your own point of view? OSS isn't better just because it's free or because it's not Microsoft. Sheesh. Give these people some credit for at least trying something new.

Re:*Sigh*

[nokilli]

I'm not disputing the accuracy of their cost-benefit analysis.

I'm simply pointing out that the reason they reached this conclusion wasn't because they were using StarOffice, but because everybody else was using Microsoft Office.

The costs were in getting StarOffice to work with Microsoft Office. The article makes it sound like it's the fault of StarOffice. It isn't. It's Microsoft who throws up the barriers to prevent OSS from working with their software, not the other way around.

If everybody else were using StarOffice, no way would they be switching to Microsoft Office.
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Why didn't you know?

Star Office Problems.

[jellomizer]

There are still some major problems for Star Office.

First it normally defaultly saves in Star Office Format not MS Word format, yes this is an easy change but people when they are done just hit the save Icon and they are done, they don't want to go threw tens of choices and find the document that everyone else uses.

Second Individuals has invested time in MS Office. From those High School Computer Class to College Classes, CS101. The education system for computers are so dumb that they teach people how to use Microsoft Word but not a Word Processor. So almost everyone who enters the Work field know Office.

Third Speed. Open Office has had a speed problem from day 1. Yea Office isn't a speed daemon but it is fast where the users feel it is important, boot up and typing and saving.

Forth Interface. Open Office is setup with a good interface for Linux but not for Windows or Mac. This is actually very important to know the OS you are porting to and follow the OS's Interface guidelines. If you don't the application looks 3rd party and just doesn't feel right.

Fifth Work Flow. Open Offices goal is to create all the functionality and compatibility of Office but it forgot to get the work flow. Watch a non technical person use Office and you will see that their ways of solving problems may surprise you. They avoid using Style Sheets and just go for the Font Drop Down, except for hitting tab they will use the space and they never ever use hot keys for anything. The menus are off limit to them (The same with the windows start button) If they don't see it it must be an advanced feature that they shouldn't use.

Open Office is good for techs but not for normal people

Re:Did anyone read TFA

[Jarnis]

You need to be a large organization, and threaten to move to OSS (or have already done so).

Then you get a killer deal - for a few years. Let's see 3 years from now what the yearly cost is after that. Maybe 200$/seat. Or more. But hey, at that point people calculate that moving (back) to OSS is (slightly) more expensive than paying MS again for another contract.

Free/cheap samples or initial contracts are nice way to milk a customer to max later on. MS can think long-term - they are willing to dump some short-term profits for long term wins. They'll milk the difference back over the next 10-15 years - probably several times over.

Nah, it was a smart move on all parts

[hey!]

Having worn both hats, geek and suit, I have to say you can't make this kind of decision purely on technical OR non-technical criteria. You have to use all your knowledge to do what's best for the organization.

Personally, I'd have taken this deal if I were the IT director, and I'm borderline Linux zealot. You take Ceasars salt, you do Ceasars bidding -- and if crucifiction doesn't appela to you, you look after his interests. MS offered them a deal that's a no-brainer. Just do the math.

They have about 1000 officers plus support staff. Don't know how many licenses this is but MS offered them a package deal at £60,000, which divided by the staff works out to £60/body/year. So it's as close to free beer as makes no difference, especially if this saves a staff position a year dealing with the fact nearly everyone else uses MS. Let's say that financially, it's the same as getting the software for free.

Add to this that the deal includes software they need to comply with legal requirements, software they estimate they'd have paid £100,000 to build custom, and now they're far ahead. It's the same old story, fortunately less common today than a few years ago: the app I need isn't available on Linux. In a couple of years when the deal runs out, the free alternatives will have closed the gap more, either forcing the market price of MS software down, or making it even more feasible to switch over if that really makes sense.

From MS's standpoint, this is very smart move. This deal is exactly what I'd have offered. MS wasn't making any dough from these guys anyways, an since its marginal cost for duplicating the software is nil, the limitation on dropping their price is that they don't want to encourage people to switch just to get the deal. That level is probably close to zero at this point in time: for most organizations, the TCO savings of F/OSS isn't attractive enough to switch once the you factor in sunk costs, conversion/training costs, and short term opportunity costs.

So, MS walks away with 60K in their pocket per year, which is not much but it is better than zero. They also get the priceless publicity of a high profile organization going F/OSS and giving up.

It's a natural and, unfortunately, effective competitive strategy in a business where the marginal cost of a product is zero. I expect that as Linux and OpenOffice get better and better we'll be hearing a lot more stories like this.