Slashdot Mirror
OpenOffice Gets a Toe-Hold in The Netherlands
ChristW writes "Several sources in The Netherlands report that the city of Groningen will invest 160.000 euros yearly to switch its 3650 computers to OpenOffice. They are saving 330.000 euros per year by making this switch. The other 170.000 euros will be saved up to use for new Microsoft Office licences if it becomes necessary to renew them. The city plans to renew software every 5 years, as opposed to Microsoft, who 'forces' an upgrade cycle of 3 years. Switching from Windows to Linux is not seen as an option at this point in time, so those licenses will be renewed."
This is far better than with Office, where not only is it impossible to open later Office documents in earlier versions, but some documents saved in earlier versions cannot be opened in later versions. Also, since the old .doc format is proprietary and closed, it is nigh-on impossible to open old documents without that same old version of Office.
The Netherlands were right to make this move. OOo is an open format. They will be able to read their documents forevermore, no matter what changes there are in technology and software. And that can only be a good thing.
Meanwhile, Paris may put their deployment on hold because the French Ministry of Defense says it falls short in the area of security. Specifically they can get malicious macro code to execute with no user warning. Microsoft Office, on the other hand, annoys you at every chance that a macro will run. Fortunately the lab is actually working with OpenOffice.org to have the issues resolved.
Developers: We can use your help.
because if Open Office does blow up in their face they want to have the money in reserve to go ahead and make the switch back, just a huge backup plan if you will, not about familiarity, just they don't trust open office enough to put all their (what is it "eggs in one basket"?).
Did someone say cake?
About 3 years ago, at work (a Dutch semi-government company) we decided to switch from MS Office to OpenOffice.
Version 1.0.1 was installed on all workstations (before, only part of the workstations had MS Office because it was too expensive).
It was used for about a year, but there were continuing complaints from people who "knew how to work with MS Office and had no time to learn OpenOffice".
Those were often higher-paid employees and external consultants working in the company, and when their claims about lost hours were really true, one could argue that no money was ever saved by switching.
It was decided to go back to MS Office and buy extra licenses for the remainder of the systems.
OpenOffice is still installed, and sometimes it is useful (and used) for things like converting to PDF or repairing documents that make MS Office crash, but it no longer is the generally used package.
This clearly shows the effectiviness of "student licenses" and other pricing schemes: by making sure that the average person "knows how to use Office" (I type it in quotes because I believe the average knowledge of Office features is only skin-deep, maybe "familiar with" is a better description) you can frustrate any attempt to switch to other packages.
I guess the Groningen people will also meet this obstacle.
OpenOffice can be used as a great converter.
For instance, by creating the appropriate routines with your favorite 3G language, one can generate/manipulate existing OpenOffice documents (a set of XML files archived in common ZIP format) to generate reports. Then, using the UNO API, create a simple application that controls an OpenOffice process running in the background, feed it with the manipulated documents and tell it to save in the desired format (MS Word, MS Excel, PDF, depending on the type of report). Totally custom, a developer's dream.
Sure, it still needs a bit of improvement. Namely concerning CPU and memory usage, but try to do the above using M$ Products...
When I went back for my MBA I found that there were issues using Calc while the textbooks were all Excel based. Gnumeric, on the other hand, never once failed. (It also exports to LaTeX.) There were no financial nor statistical formulas that I found missing, and Gnumeric's solver kicked ass for optimizations. The python interface also kicks ass, as does the R interface if you ever get serious about statistics. Excel is certainly miles ahead in terms of secretary adoption, but I doubt any serious analyst or accuary would consider Excel "miles ahead" of Gnumeric. I sure don't :-)