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Switching From Microsoft Office To LibreOffice Saves Toulouse 1 Million Euros

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-about-the-napoleans dept.

jrepin sends this EU report: The French city of Toulouse saved 1 million euro by migrating all its desktops from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice. This project was rooted in a global digital policy which positions free software as a driver of local economic development and employment. Former IT policy-maker Erwane Monthubert said, "Software licenses for productivity suites cost Toulouse 1.8 million euro every three years. Migration cost us about 800,000 euro, due partly to some developments. One million euro has actually been saved in the first three years. It is a compelling proof in the actual context of local public finance. ... France has a high value in free software at the international level. Every decision-maker should know this."

44 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. As We Speak by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As we speak, Microsoft is instructing its European "business partners" to give a certain French city a shitload of really cheap Office licenses.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    1. Re:As We Speak by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      As we speak, Microsoft is instructing its European "business partners" to give a certain French city a shitload of really cheap Office licenses.

      Either that or members of city council wake up with severed horse heads in their beds.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    2. Re:As We Speak by mspohr · · Score: 2

      Cheap is a better offer but it's hard to compete with free.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    3. Re:As We Speak by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Either your name is on the volume licensing agreement... or your brains."

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:As We Speak by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think we'll see more and more international organizations/companies migrating from US company products.

      The problem is not using US products, the problem is having to use the expensive MS Office suite specifically.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    5. Re:As We Speak by JanneM · · Score: 2

      Cheaper than zero?

      Bribes would effectively create a negative cost, at least for the peoplereceiving them.

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    6. Re:As We Speak by satuon · · Score: 2

      But LibreOffice is still giving them value as a plausible threat, even if they're not using it. Besides, who knows how much time they must waste because of incompatibilities in documents they get from the outside world. If the offer is cheap enough, it might be worth it.

  2. sure, works for France by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Try installing LibreOffice in America, and the users will whine, "why it not Microsoft????" They'll complain to your boss, you'll be fired and ostracized, and you'll have to learn French and relocate to France if you ever want to work again.

    1. Re:sure, works for France by OrangeTide · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If I could get a job in France, I think I'd move. I'd have more vacation time and I can drink wine at lunch.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    2. Re:sure, works for France by roman_mir · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You can have all the vacation time you want anywhere you live, all you do is negotiate terms of your own contract. Vacation time is not something that government can force an employer to add on top of your salary, it is your salary, it is just a different way to pay you. You can get more money or more vacation time, your call. It is the same situation with anything that is mandated by a government that must be part of your employment contract. You want to get medical insurance through your employer then your hourly rate is going to be lower, same with any tax.

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
    3. Re:sure, works for France by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      You can do that in the US too. Just in the other order.

      Drink Wine at lunch => More "vacation" time :)

    4. Re:sure, works for France by swb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You can have all the vacation time you want anywhere you live

      Which is why every American takes 6 weeks in the summer.

      In my experience, most permanent job employers don't like to negotiate on vacation time. Sometimes they'll give on a day or two, but usually they're not crazy about vacation time that deviates from whatever the position qualifies for. The only explanation ever given to me was that because salary is "secret" it's easier to compensate employees differentially; vacation is visible to other employees at the same level and differential compensation creates tension.

      In a contract employment situation you can negotiate anything, but I've found in shorter term contracts there's usually some kind of deadline that's non-negotiable, making free-lance vacationing a little bit challenging.

    5. Re:sure, works for France by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Vacation time is not something that government can force an employer to add on top of your salary, it is your salary, it is just a different way to pay you.

      I don't know for sure about France but in many European countries vacation is by law on top of your salary, so you're still getting your normal paycheck when you're on vacation. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case in France as well.

    6. Re:sure, works for France by AnOnyxMouseCoward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In a theoretical world you would be correct, but in practice you're wrong. It's very hard to negotiate something out of the norm, which in the US, is vacation time. For example, try negotiating a role as an associate in investment banking while saying "hey cut down 5 weeks of my salary I'll take extra time off." It can't work, because the culture doesn't allow it. You either accept the role with no vacation and high pay, or you don't get hired. I can easily negotiate a couple grands on a salary, but getting an extra week off? Rough.

      Also the "market wage" (or "market total compensation package") is highly dependent on the laws regulating it. If every single company in the US was paying you a pittance, with some paying less or more of a pittance, you would technically be "forced" to work for close to nothing because you won't have the choice to do otherwise. That's exactly what's happening with the minimum wage and people with no education. They can't work for themselves because they lack that capacity, and are stuck accepting $7/h because that's the only thing they can have (that, or crime, I guess). It would take extraordinary courage to pay your employees more than "you have to", even if sometimes that's the right thing to do for the company and the country (notice how Seattle isn't dying off right now, and how Ford helped bring a middle-class to America).

    7. Re:sure, works for France by roman_mir · · Score: 2

      Well of-course you should be able to negotiate how you want to get your compensation, but that's the point. What if government came out with a law telling you that you absolutely cannot negotiate the terms, you cannot be paid in medical insurance but instead you have to always be compensated in government bonds?

      The reason that it was a good deal for your father was because the part of the total compensation that was the medical insurance was not taxed the same way as money. Income taxes didn't apply to that part of the compensation. The other reason was all the changes that government introduced related to health care and insurance, especially (if this was the USA) in 1965, with the introduction of Medicare, the prices went up because of government money in health insurance. The last reason is of-course inflation. The government likes to pretend that there is no inflation, but the reality is quite different. Inflation is rampant, so getting the same good (as a percentage value of the total compensation package) today as 60 years ago for example means that you are able to escape the horrific effects of inflation as well.

      I didn't say you shouldn't be able to be paid in vacation days or in insurance or in gallons of milk. All I am saying is that you should be able to make those choices for yourself and not have government dictate to you how to get paid.

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
    8. Re:sure, works for France by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2

      1 Luxembourg $4,089
      2 Norway $3,678
      3 Austria $3,437
      4 United States $3,263
      5 United Kingdom $3,065
      6 Belgium $3,035
      7 Sweden $3,023
      8 Ireland $2,997
      9 Finland $2,925
      10 South Korea $2,903
      11 France $2,886

      So basically, you get better, less expensive, more effective* mostly free national health care, better social security, better standards of living, shorter working days (8-4/9-5 vs 8-5/9-6), and 6 weeks vacation.

      For that you surrender $387 a month. In france.

      It costs you less in Sweden, Belgium, and UK. I think working conditions in Ireland are currently worse than in the U.S.

      It costs you nothing in Luxembourg (atypical), Norway, and Austria.

      *While exceptions exist in the U.S., they are usually for very expensive treatments. In general, the mortality rate, child and infant mortality rate, and lifespan are better in the listed countries. U.S. health care outcomes for the bottom 80% are worse than 28 or 29 other 1st world countries.

      ---

      More generally (not in response to your post), you can't negotiate vacation in the U.S. It's a benefit- it's hard coded in the software. I did it once- getting a week without pay- after five years my new manager just arbitrarily cancelled it when I got my paid 3rd week. There was no one to appeal to if I wanted to remain employed.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    9. Re:sure, works for France by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2

      In ireland, you get 20 days vacation and 9 paid holidays a year.

      The average Irish working week is 39 hours and the legal maximum 48.

      I was forced to work 83 hours at my last employers. On salary.

      Then a year later, they laid all of us off and replaced us with indians.

      Then we found out through leaks they had been PLANNING to lay us off when they ordered us to work those hours.

      People had heart attacks, divorces.

      It's evil and society shouldn't tolerate it.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    10. Re: sure, works for France by roman_mir · · Score: 2

      No, I am running my own business, I am creating value out of nothing by building stuff that didn't exist before I decided to build it. It's not a zero sum game, that's how businesses make money by making new products.

      However this is not the subject under discussion here, while the economy is not a zero sum game your total value to me as an employee has a minimum and a maximum levels on it, so your total compensation will be within certain boundaries, thus if government dictates a minimum number of paid vacation days, those will be counted as part of your total compensation and your hourly wage is also part of that total compensation, so is the payroll tax (both sides of it, the employee and the employer portion), so is anything else.

      The minimum boundary to your total compensation package is the your value in the market and the minimum dictated level of compensation by the government. So what you are going to get into your hands will be the delta: total compensation package minus all the other expenses that are government mandated (taxes, minimum paid vacation, whatever), the cash that you receive is the rest of it.

      You are not going to be paid more than you are worth in the market and you are not going to be paid more on top of what you are worth in the market regardless of what the government dictates. Your total pay will include all of those components.

      This, by the way, is a huge problem for the economy. To pay somebody 18,000 dollars for example, the employer has to shell out 27,000 (or so), so the labour prices are high while the wages are low.

      Well, that's what you get for all this government, that and the falling value of your money and the rising cost of living.

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
    11. Re:sure, works for France by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      In my experience, most permanent job employers don't like to negotiate on vacation time.

      It takes more negotiation skill. I recently negotiated a 4-day work week. I took a 20% pay cut for it (totally worth it). Essentially, instead of framing it as an adversarial negotiation, I considered it a problem for us to solve together. "I want to work here, you want me to work here, but this is what I need. How can we solve this problem?" Most of the time was spent helping them overcome concerns. At one point, I said, "yeah, that's a managerial problem, but I'm confident the managers here are capable of overcoming it."

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    12. Re:sure, works for France by Cyberax · · Score: 2

      No, you're DEMONSTRATABLY not. Most people in the US are dissatisfied with the number of vacation days ( http://www.zerohedge.com/news/... ) yet lack ANY power to change it. If the market actually worked (hint: it doesn't) then employers offering more vacation days would get better employees, gain a competitive advantage and crush employers with less vacation time.

      Of course, in reality it's a race to the bottom. If a minimum vacation time wasn't set by law, then there'd be NO vacation time at all in a short amount of time.

    13. Re:sure, works for France by Rob+Y. · · Score: 2

      A negotiation in which you, presumably, had them over a barrel. You can bet your employers are kicking themselves for letting you become essential enough to be able to negotiate such a deal. I'm speaking from some experience, since I "negotiated" a 3-day workweek after mass layoffs and indescriminate outsourcing, the results of which finally proved to them that they indeed needed me there.

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    14. Re:sure, works for France by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2

      Well, we can say that we should not tolerate it and then make legal changes to prevent it.

      For example, we could fix the abuse of exempt status and require pay for hours over 50 per week for people who are not actively managing at least a few other people or who are owners of more than 10% of the business or whose income is at least triple the average income (currently about $150,000).

      The united states is somewhat unique among the top 25 countries with high hours, low protections, low services but yet only 14th in per capita income. And that per capita income is skewed because our gini index is so far out of whack compared to other non-3rd world countries.

      The average wasn't 80 hours a week (that's goldmen sachs.. who recently officially cut back from 110 hours a week to 90 hours a week). The average was 72 hours a week for about 6 months (including a 27 and a 28 day "week" where we worked sundays and saturdays. It was about 68 hours for the rest of the 18 months. The insane hours were for releases where we were both on call overnight and had to work the next day (I slept in the car in the office parking lot- showered in the gym and went back to work after 4 hours sleep).

      We can fight these trends by sharing the information that if you have indian contracting company workers, and you are changing your software in a huge project- the repeated occurrence is to lay off 90-95% of the american staff when the project is done. So LOOK FOR A JOB as soon as those conditions start.
      Be aware that if the company suddenly starts working you 60-80 hours a week- they have no respect for you and you have no security. So don't wait til they dump several hundred of you on the market at the same time.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  3. Good to hear by redmid17 · · Score: 2, Informative
    Germany experienced both sides of the coin: http://www.infoworld.com/d/ope...

    The French police seem to have had a good amount of success as well: http://www.zdnet.com/french-po...

    There are probably always going to be use cases for the majority of users to be fine with Open or Libre office. Some specialized functionality in finance might merit excel. There is nothing I've found on Linux that easily replaces Visio or Project ( libre-project is fine for reading, but I've had many issues with creating them). It's what I use at home (lubuntu). At work, I do have to say I prefer Outlook/Exchange for integrated mail and calendar, but I could probably live without Word/Excel/PPT.

    Here's to hoping Libreoffice and the other forks can continue to expand and refine their software.

    1. Re:Good to hear by just_another_sean · · Score: 3, Informative

      Most of what I've ever had to use it for was pretty simple so genuinely asking here; is Dia not a good Visio replacement? Are there features in Visio that make it more attractive for even simple stuff or is it that Visio has advanced features that haven't been replicated elsewhere?

      --
      Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
  4. And... by Stargoat · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And how much time was lost from (1) employees needing to learn a new system, (2) reintegrating email onto a new client platform, and (3) finding a new way to conduct patching. (Microsoft, for all their deficiencies, is better than its competitors at keeping patches up-to-date. I'm looking at you, Apple.)

    I'm not saying that the move may not be correct in terms of dollars and sense, but please answer these questions before blowing sunshine up my ass.

    --
    Hoist Number One and Number Six.
    1. Re:And... by Knightman · · Score: 2, Informative

      Regarding point 1, I think users are relieved that there is no fscking ribbons in LibreOffice which makes it much easier to transition...

      --
      --- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
    2. Re:And... by just_another_sean · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, if you read TFA (no, I'm not new here) they have a sidebar call out that answers your question...

      "Software licenses for productivity suites cost Toulouse 1.8 million euro every three years. Migration cost us about 800,000 euro, due partly to some developments. One million euro has actually been saved in the first three years. It is a compelling proof in the actual context of local public finance," says Monthubert.

      So about 8K in migration costs vs. 18K in licensing. Assuming another 2-3K of unforeseen support over training issues or missing features that haven't been caught yet it should be a significant savings. And if you factor in the migration cost as a one time payment and assume support costs go down over time as people get used to the new system than the savings become very large indeed after the three years cited in the article.

      --
      Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
    3. Re:And... by dskoll · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In my small company, we all use Linux on the desktop. Here are our answers:

      Time to learn a new system: It took my employees maybe a day to learn LibreOffice (they already new MS Office). Anyone who needs more than a day to come up to speed with casual use of LibreOffice is too stupid to be employable, IMO.

      Reintegrating mail onto a new client platform: Well, I just said "Here's your email program" and gave them Claws Mail. They were up and running in about 30 minutes. Again, anyone who cannot learn a simple graphical mail client in a day or so is too stupid to be employable.

      Keeping patches up-to-date: One word for you: apt-get

    4. Re:And... by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 2, Informative

      In my small company, we all use Linux on the desktop.

      I really see no reason for using MS Office if you're a small company.

      However, for large companies, collaboration tools, internationalization of documents, corporate-wide style hints, advanced spreadsheet macros, shareable diagram objects, integrated calendars, meeting room tracking, distribution policy enforcement, etc. are important, and just aren't quite there on most of the alternatives. Google Docs does a reasonable job at some of that, but not all.

    5. Re:And... by dskoll · · Score: 2

      LibreOffice can do most of that, with the exception of integrated calendars. Claws Mail has a plugin that can generate and accept Outlook invitations. Also, our CRM tool, (SugarCRM) has a usable shared calendar; it was pretty easy to hack to to generate Outlook-compatible invitations for our external partners.

      We use Subversion for revision control and collaboration. My first choice would have been git but I realize there are limits to what you can expect non-technical people to learn. :)

      I don't believe there's anything magical about MS Office that couldn't be done with open-source alternatives. MSFT just does a very good job of marketing. Also, people are lazy and go with the familiar.

  5. Put some of the money back in... by recoiledsnake · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The exemptions were given because some Word macros and sophisticated Excel files could not be reproduced in LibreOffice or other open source productivity suites. These are examples of what Serp calls “some less mature features” in free software: “When it comes to making some kinds of presentations, for example, there is often a little extra to do [compared to the same process in PowerPoint]. So for some people the process is not so clear, and this can cause adaptability problems in everyday work.”

    How about they use some of the saved money to either donate or contribute code to make the software work better?

    Instead we have companies and other organizations making and saving tens of billions of dollars off Open Source(like Google, Yahoo, Red Hat, Facebook, Twitter, Apple etc.) and then we end up with catastrophic security nightmares like HeartBleed because no one could be bothered to send a couple of bucks over to the overburdened couple of folks that everyone relies on for security. And then we have asshats on message boards like this one who likely never contributed to OpenSSL or looked at the code for bugs but feel entitled to call the coders stupid for the bugs after the fact.

    --
    This space for rent.
    1. Re:Put some of the money back in... by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 2

      Isnt that the point of FOSS that users dont need to give back? If they need to give back anything, might as well use a paid software.

    2. Re:Put some of the money back in... by vadim_t · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, FOSS is about freedom, not being free of charge.

      The Free Software movement was started when Richard Stallman got annoyed because he couldn't make his own modifications to a printer driver.

    3. Re:Put some of the money back in... by carrier+lost · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Conan, what is good?"

      "To see your enemies driven before you, to have their libraries forked and to hear the lamentation of their wizards"

      --
      XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
  6. The real question by Starteck81 · · Score: 2

    The real question is, what is the long term impact to productivity and work flow? Sure you can save money up front by switching to a different software suite but that doesn't matter if it disrupts your business in a significant way. Before the shouting starts I'm not implying that there is anything wrong. I'm would like to see an actual study done to determine the effect.

    --
    "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
    1. Re:The real question by khchung · · Score: 2

      The real question is, what is the long term impact to productivity and work flow? Sure you can save money up front by switching to a different software suite but that doesn't matter if it disrupts your business in a significant way.

      And what is the long term impact of MS Office changing their UI every couple versions?

      Not to say open sourced software don't have this problem *cough* Firefox *cough*, but the point is these things happen all the time, and cannot be avoided just by sticking to MS Office. You just plan the migration at the right time in the cycle then it won't become an additional cost.

      --
      Oliver.
  7. Can't fix limited functionality in MS. $1M / year by raymorris · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > or you're functionality is limited, or the feature plain sucks

    Our experience is the cost of limited functionality in off-the-shelf software is a significantly higher cost than the license cost.
    With the old proprietary system, an employee would spend 4 hours each Friday copying and pasting from one program to another.
    With the new modular open source software, I spent an hour authoring a module to completely automate the data transfer, and have it happen in real time.

    For just that one little function alone, this year we saved 4 hours X 52 weeks X ~$40/hr = $8,320 per year.
    I do one of those every week. A little change to the software for a big change in the process. I'd be surprised if we haven't saved at least $1 million / year total, from all the little tweaks, correction, and additions we've done to the open source software to make our process better, faster, more efficient, and more accurate. I know the P/L from the from the program using the open source stuff sure has improved, but it's hard to quantify how much of that is due to the software. I could easily prove it's saved at least as much as my salary though, and my salary was being paid when we had the proprietary software too, for a specialist who was paid to admin the system and figure out hacks to get the proprietary system to almost meet our needs using duct tape and bubble gum.

  8. Re:Blah by nine-times · · Score: 2

    Of course, the employees probably already spend 2-3 hours/year dealing with the piece of shit that is Microsoft Office. They probably also devote some amount of IT time and resources to dealing with licensing and activation issues, additional troubleshooting associated with imaging and installation procedures, etc.

    Actually, really, I'm not being fair. MS Office is not a piece of shit. It's a really good application, though the whole installation/licensing/activation thing can be a bit of a nightmare at times. LibreOffice is also a very good application that most people could use as their office suit without serious difficulties. Mostly people just get upset because people know it's free. The fact that it's cheap makes them think it's "cheap" in the sense of "flimsy" and "poor quality", so they resent being moved onto it. That seems to be the single largest issue, in my experience.

  9. Munich did it already by WoOS · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Munich decided to move completely to Linux (so not only from MS Office on MS Windows to LibreOffice on MS Windows) 10 years ago and managed to complete the move last year. One of the main complaints of users seems to be lack of compatibility when exchanging documents with the MS world.
    Now if more cities move to Open/LibreOffice, companies trading with them might have to produce more compatible documents and MS might finally loose its compatibility "strangle" on its user.

    1. Re:Munich did it already by BitZtream · · Score: 2

      Bullshit.

      RTF is entirely undocumented, even within Microsoft. Every app has its own flavor.

      If you've never had a problem with RTF than you've never actually used it for anything more than basic plan text.

      RTF's lack of compatibility and documentation is FAR worse than the standard .doc format

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  10. administrative operations by tomhath · · Score: 2

    For local government purposes the city is part of Toulouse Métropole (“Greater Toulouse”), which includes 37 neighbouring communities and has a total population of around 714,000. Toulouse Métropole employs some 10,000 staff to manage its administrative operations.

    I don't know much about local government in the US or France. But that seems like a heck of a lot of administrators for that number of people.

  11. Re:French dialog boxes by rogoshen1 · · Score: 2

    i wonder if members of the french resistance would get angry over hearing that tired goddamn joke time and time again? Anger in the
    Buzz Aldrin punching a dude in the face for saying the moon landing was a fraud.. that type of anger.

  12. Re:It's TCO, not licenses only by xeno · · Score: 2

    or the feature plain sucks (track changes in Office > Libre)

    Huh? Have you used a recent version of LOffice? The track-changes feature in LO is considerably more elegant than MSOffice, both visually (in page view you still see the tagged and ordered comments/changes while displaying an accurate representation of the print view), and logically (I can reply by comment on a comment in LO, and record the justification for edits as the comments are ordered in a threaded conversation. And you don't lose the comments if you select and type instead of explicitly deleting text. By contrast in MSOffice, if you overwrite a section with track changes turned on, it always deletes the comments that went with the old text -- so MSOffice only has "track SOME changes."

    I know it's a minor issue, but that in that respect, LO wins hands-down.

    --
    I think not...(*poof*)
  13. $1000 if you can get Word to read Word documents by raymorris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'll give you a thousand dollars if you can get a current copy of MS Word to read old MS Word documents, like OpenOffice can. Since Microsoft can't pull that off, I'm guessing you won't either. I suppose you could shellExecute(OpenOffice.exe) from a Word macro. :)

    So yeah, you COULD throw out all your company's documents in order to avoid having two "power users" of Word learn different menu locations for a few things. That would make sense, if you had Balmer's dick in your mouth.