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IBM Stresses Importance of OpenDoc to MA
gordoste writes "After announcing this past weekend that the WorkPlace line of products would support the OpenDocument set of standards, IBM has sent a letter to Massachusetts' governor promoting the software. They point out that the software was built in Massachusetts and that the French tax agency saves 10% on their IT budget as a result of moving to open standard software." From the article: "Designed at IBM's development lab in Westford, Massachusetts, the IBM Workplace Managed Client will help protect an organization's investment in corporate data by promoting consistency, reliability and open accessibility of its documents. As you know, Massachusetts is recognized across the globe as an incubator for software development ... What you may not know is that software is major growth engine for IBM, and solutions being developed at these IBM locations are being built on open standards because our customers are demanding choice and control over their information technology."
The title's reference to OpenDoc threw me. OpenDoc was an early component architecture developed and then abandoned by Apple in the 90s. Ahh, the days of CyberDog...
As a result of running software based on open standards, the agency is now saving around 20m per year a considerable portion of the agency's 200m yearly IT budget.
.. but you have to be aware that it's rarely a case of "switch and save". There are other related costs that need to be considered with a large changeover to a different document standard. Not least there's the cost of re/training staff to use new software. Then there's the cost of developing a solution (doubtless IBM has one to sell) to allow access to archived materials at the same time as accessing the new format. Then there's the cost in staff turnover. Iif you're not using MS Office you may find a lot of your secretarial staff are keen to leave .. they need to keep their skills current just as much as the resident IT geeks .. and in the secretarial world 'current' = latest version of Office.
I advocate and use open standards whereever possible
While it's nice to say "these guys saved 20 million Euros" I wouldn't take that figure as red. They might have saved 20m euros on Microsoft licences (yay!), but what did the change cost elsewhere? Was that 20m euros really an overall saving?
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The non-commercial and public angle is made well enough already by the people who are in a position to make such arguments. IBM is a commercial software vendor and they wouldn't fool anybody into thinking otherwise if they tried.
Overall, I think it's a good thing that big vendors are advertising their products by stressing the value of open document formats to potential buyers because it shows that the formats are commercially supported and that businesses have an interested to continue to support them. The more commercial sales pitches MA gets for products using open document formats, the easier it will be for them to adopt such formats.
the IBM Workplace Managed Client will help protect an organization's investment in corporate data by promoting consistency, reliability and open accessibility of its documents.
The document format addresses part of the investment, namely the content assetts.
Also consider publishing workflows that occurs downstream from the document i.e. web publishing and print publishing.
Savvy corporations can also effectively leverage open standards such as the W3C's HTML, SVG, CSS and interaction workflows such as those enabled by WHATWG and.or X-Forms to achieve stellar ROI across the publishing lifecycle.
Actually, I think that's an excellent first line. It's telling those making the decision that supporting Open Document is likely to have a positive impact on the state's economy (i.e. people are currently employed writing software that uses the standard). That means that suddenly one of the options involves more money flowing in-state - a solution that makes a lot of politicians happy.
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Regardless, they are fully supporting an open standard. This puts all software on a level playing field. Alternative browsers have gained great amounts of market share recently because they all compete on a (theoretically) level playing field (in practice we all know MS has attempted their own extensions to try and make html not so open standard). So what if IBM promotes their software product. The fact it will fully support open document is good enough. I think all open source advocates want is a level playing field not hindered by market leaders forcing vendor lock-in. We just want an environment where the software speaks for itself.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Readers are still free?
Where?
It doesn't count as free if you have to buy Windows to run it.
Not least there's the cost of re/training staff to use new software.
.. they need to keep their skills current just as much as the resident IT geeks .. and in the secretarial world 'current' = latest version of Office.
1. This is true for every major upgrade of MS-Office, as well. It is not unique to switching to a "different" document editing suite.
Iif you're not using MS Office you may find a lot of your secretarial staff are keen to leave
See point 1. You just contradicted the whole "training/retraining" point you made earlier. And this is one of the most ludicrous statements I've heard in defence of MS-Office. Granted, I haven't worked in an office dedicated to creating documents since my university-worker days, but I've never met an office worker who would quit their job over MS-Office. Even those that insisted on WordPerfect (back when it was king, and MS-Office was the also-ran) made the transition to another office suite just fine.
While it's nice to say "these guys saved 20 million Euros" I wouldn't take that figure as red. They might have saved 20m euros on Microsoft licences (yay!), but what did the change cost elsewhere? Was that 20m euros really an overall saving?
This is an excellent point.
I think it will be worth it, just because they *are* moving to an open standard. It might cost a little bit up front, but over the next decade, it will save a tremendous amount of money. Hell, just being able to put the office suite licensing out to bid (which you sure as hell can't do if you use MS-Office document formats) should provide a bit of competition, which is good for the citizen or organization spending their hard-earned cash.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Nice to see a company breaking out of the quarter-to-quarter mind set and building a long term strategy for their success. And, oh yeah, a lot of us will also benefit from the sea change.
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It would have been nice to make the point without making the letter seem like a cold-call sales pitch. I found the first paragraph a bit off-putting
As opposed to Microsoft, who, in their correspondence, makes no mention that going with OpenDocument will cost them big money in lost sales?
I'd much rather a company say "We support X and here is our product that does so" then "You shouldn't go with X for FUD reasons a, b, and c. (And, while we won't tell you this, if you go with X, it will cost us $x million in annual sales)". Give credit to the company with the blatant agenda as opposed to the not-so-well hidden one.
- Tony
"I'd like to share some information on an exciting new IBM product that was built in Massachusetts but is expected to have implications on both a national and international level."
It would have been nice to make the point without making the letter seem like a cold-call sales pitch. I found the first paragraph a bit off-putting - YGMMV.
To be honest attitudes like that are part of what holds the adoption of open source back. There is nothing wrong with that attitude, I share it - I am put off too, but OSS needs to get past that "by geeks for geeks" attitude *if* it wants to dominate.
It *is* a cold-call sales pitch. You can't hide that fact. IBM shows the honesty and integrity not to try to camoflauge things, this maintains their credibility. Secondly IBM has quite a bit of experience pitching products to large organizations and government agencies. I think we should defer to IBM's judgement in this case. Finally, I find the Massachusetts reference brilliant and an example of why we should defer to IBM. They are pitching to a politician. They just gave him the choice to either (1) Embrace local industry and help it compete on a global scale, creating local jobs and tax revenue or (2) give his next political opponent a stick to beat him with during an election for failing to do so, politics is local. Insights like this are how products and technologies are "sold", not via MS/OSS cost benefit analysis. The political will often trump the technical. Is this desirable? No, but it is how things work and OSS geeks need to face this reality. The professional sales and marketing people at IBM, Red Hat, etc do understand this.
They're writing this to a Governor. You don't write letters like that the same way you'd write to your Aunt Charlotte.
First, the letter is public. So no "hey how are ya" language. Instead, you're basically writing a persuasive essay masquerading as a letter.
Second, when the letter is received, it will be by a staffer who specializes in IT issues and IT policy. This staffer has probably spoken to the Government Relations (read: lobbyist) guy that at IBM that actually authored the letter. The two guys probably have spoken a great deal on the subject and already know all the arguments. They're just putting it in writing to garner support and document the reasons why OpenDocument is the correct approach. Also, a letter forces a response-- something that can help IBM move things forward.
By the way, MS certainly has a similar Govt Relations guy in there as well. He's writing letters for Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer's signature as well.
Third, this is a IT decision last, a political decision second-to-last, and a public policy decision first. There are lots of implications that have nothing to do with the relative merits of MS Office and OpenOffice.org. Open standards are the obvious ones. But also the likelihood that MS would support OpenDocument if it really came to it. MS investment in Mass would be another one (IBM, too). The real news in this letter is that IBM is willing to take a public stand on this. The fact of the letter is more important than its content.
Anyway, you write these letters in a way to advance a public conversation. It's like a press release or a "major public address" at a graduation or something. It's intended to take a dispute public and make a declaration about your organization's thoughts.
The mechanics of lobbying is a bit of a mystery to most people. This certainly is one part of it. It's worth understanding some of the basics of how it happens.