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

Did they get a cheaper deal from Microsoft?

[Paul Crowley]

The key question is, did their temporary move put enough pressure on Microsoft to get them a cheaper deal for Office? In which case, it's worth moving to OpenOffice even if you intend to move back...

Re:Only 5% of users were using StarOffice

[heffrey]

My simple reading skills saw "It was also more difficult to configure the open-source software so that police officers could access their files from any police station, he said." and assumed that mean Linux rather than Staw Office. But the detailed issues involved are not totally clear from the various media coverage.

As for the cost, the Register's coverage said, "Stirling also wanted to avoid splashing out £100,000 on a third party application to meet the deadline for compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, and instead chose to overhaul the entire IT system. He adds that he is still making a saving overall, by making the switch."

Re:Only 5% of users were using StarOffice

[scribblej]

Well, I'm your typical slashdotter, about 30 and a professional programmer. I just say that to say this: I've never read, heard, or seen a concept that couldn't be expressed in simple text typed into notepad. Furthermore, I'm pretty certain the vast majority of things I've read (think advertising) could benefit from some less "features."

I really don't understand why a police officer -- or anyone else for that matter -- would require more than the grandparent poster suggests. Rather than just making assertions ("You're arrogant and you have zero clue") why not educate us. Why do they need more? What, specifically, would they need? What idea is there that cannot be expressed in text?

How does a blind person see a font?

Re:Still?

[Mr. Underbridge]

Most of the documents I'm dealing with contain inserted images, figures drawn with the built-in drawing utility, tables, styles, templates, equations and whatnot. Using a recent OO version, I can generally access the text and images, but that's about it: forget about page layout, most equations and drawings, etc.

I'm a scientist, so I can assure you I deal with equations, figures, pictures, etc. all the time. The newest version of OO - 1.9 - deals with equations from MS Equation and images too. Not sure what you're using for your drawings. I'd recommend common image formats and the conversion will be fine - if you use less supported proprietary standards and expect them to work outside Word, well, that's not very realistic when the plugin was probably made for Word and Word alone.

The layout looked fine too for me. I agree that, with the myriad of vendor plugins that exist for Word, that guaranteeing interoperability won't get you far. But as a user you can make sure your documents open fine in either by avoiding more rare plugin formats.

Microsoft Already Won That War

[blueZhift]

This isn't really any big surprise. Microsoft Office became the defacto standard a long time ago, so not using Office automatically puts you out of step with the majority of businesses. Even if StarOffice and OpenOffice had 100% compatibility, they would still not be Microsoft Office. Whether by ethical means or not, Microsoft won the market, so until such time as PCs are no longer in use or we no longer need tools like Microsoft Office, competitors don't stand a chance no matter how good they are. Indeed, Windows itself is not the secret of Microsoft's power, that would be Office.

StarOffice too complex, more so that MS word.

[goombah99]

Exactly. MS word may be dull, unispired, and poorly designed with layers of complexity. But it does its job well and is not hard to use. Star office is slow, has an clumsy layout. is unattractive, and is even more complex.

I've tried it and hate it. It's why I use macs: linux office apps suck. My office mate is a dieshard roll-your-own linux user and has been using star office as long as it has been around. He still truggles with it's byzantine menus. My other office mate is also a pure linux user and he gave up on it. He only uses TeX. He found remebering laTex is actually a lot easier and more consistent and powerful than remembering the star-office menu confusion.

Not surprised at all

[rongage]

When you try to do something even mildly advanced in OOo (like using Avery Labels in Landscape instead of Portrait mode) or even something as simple as printing a #10 envelope, OOo often falls down, badly.

When these issues are brought up to the developers (via their bug reporting system), the report is either ignored outright (in the case of the envelope printing) or the report is dismissed as a "feature enhancement" request and not a bug.

Come on people, you can't ask people to submit bug reports only to ignore or dismiss those reports.

I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that this agency indeed had submitted bug reports and were summarily ignored and/or dismissed. Hint time folks: this tends to piss people off, especially decision makers!