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City Of Austin Migrating To OpenOffice.org
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Dec 17, 2003 10:32 AM
from the how-'bout-oo.o-in-the-smf dept.
from the how-'bout-oo.o-in-the-smf dept.
An anonymous reader writes "NewsForge.com has a story up this morning about the City of Austin and the results of their pilot program on OpenOffice.org. The bottom line is this: they have found that more than 80% of the city's 5K desktops can use OO.o instead of MS Office. Let the migrations begin!"
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They are switching to something cheaper? (Score:5, Funny)
There's some history here... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There's some history here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:There's some history here... (Score:4, Insightful)
This should be leading to some good discussions about open standards rather than just open source. If that app had been built on an open standard then a real comparisson could have been made between the office platforms based merit rather than lock-in.
TW
Parent
That makes sense... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:That makes sense... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:That makes sense... (Score:5, Interesting)
I would guess that Dell is probably the largest private employer in Austin. Granted, they're technically in Round Rock. IBM has a relatively small campus in Austin, even after acquiring Tivoli. And as far as AMD goes, Intel also has an office there as well.
My guess is another reason, if not more likely, is The University of Texas. The UT CS department is a pretty open source heavy department. The rest of the university, other than the business school, is pretty apathetic to Microsoft. I would guess that people making these decisions in Austin are either influenced by, educated by, or former employees of the university.
Overall though, Austin is a pretty tech centric city. So, at least to me, who lived there for a number of years, this isn't really that much of a surprise.
Parent
Re:That makes sense... (Score:5, Informative)
I would guess that people making these decisions in Austin are either influenced by, educated by, or former employees of the university.
Actually, while good guesses, neither of the suggestions above is relevant. I'm a city employee, and I'm familiar with some of the decision making that went on. A couple of things occurred within the last 12+ months that caused this to occur. The first is an economy that tanked. The second was the promotion of a new CIO who is open minded when it comes to technology. There was also extreme disgruntlement (internally and externally) with the contract the city signed with Microsoft (see Joe Barr's Linuxworld articles). This is just a start, the city is also looking at using Linux.
Parent
I think we'll start to see more of this (Score:5, Interesting)
This is definitely one of those cases where an open source product is obviously of greater value than it's commercial counterpart, both financially and from a quality standpoint.
Keep up the good work, OO.o!
Re:I think we'll start to see more of this (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I think we'll start to see more of this (Score:4, Interesting)
Now if only IT departments will start cutting costs this way INSTEAD of offshoring everything. I can hope, can't I?
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This one application (Score:4, Interesting)
RTFA:This one application (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Anyone know of OO has run into DMCA troubles? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Anyone know of OO has run into DMCA troubles? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Anyone know of OO has run into DMCA troubles? (Score:5, Interesting)
They are under investigation exactly for the reason of trying to abuse their desktop monopoly in order to squash competition on the server side (Kerberos anyone?)
Attempting to abuse a virtual standard on which so many businesses and government agencies depend would guarantee bad trouble for Microsoft. And else then in the US they have not that much cronies in high places here.
Parent
is it just me? (Score:4, Insightful)
Weird, I tried to read the article (yes .. i know .. this is slashdot) .. and couldn't find the article.
EA? (Score:4, Insightful)
I tried to tell them... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I tried to tell them... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
OO 1.1 is (finally) a viable alternative (Score:5, Interesting)
Lowers System Cost (Score:5, Interesting)
The original email (Score:5, Informative)
Subject: [alg] Another Open Source win at the City
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 07:57:01 -0600
To: alg@austinlug.org
I thought a few of you might be interested in this...
We just concluded our first round of "official" Linux pilots, with one
of those being an OpenOffice replacement of Microsoft Office. It turns
out that the limited pilot we did (40 users) provided enough information
to be able to start converting some departments and users over to OO
from MS Office. First on the schedule is my department, Communications
and Technology Management, which will be having MS Office *uninstalled*
and OO installed in it's place on the majority of department desktops.
That should be around 300 people (we can't get everyone off MS Office
right now as we have one major application, the Agenda Management System
for the City Council, that requires the MS programs).
Training programs and help desk support is being put in place so it
looks like OO will be there for the long-term. Our pilot figured out
that about 80% of the users at the City could use OO instead of MS
Office so, at the very least, the City will not be paying Redmond for
anymore new licenses and at the very best, it will start converting
those apps that require MS Office over to something that will work in
the new OO environment.
We're finishing up the documentation for the rest of the pilots so I'll
keep ya'll posted...
-s.
--
Scott Brown
Technology and Support Services
OpenNetworks
website: http://www.opennetworks.org
Re:The original email (Score:4, Insightful)
So, this story seems premature. It should be "City of Austin Considering Migrating to OO.o".
(BTW, I worked at a place that did the same thing a few years ago, except with Lotus SmartSuite which could be had almost for free from IBM. SmartSuite worked great in the IT dept, but a large number of users said "Fuck You" and started pirating MS Office. This led to a showdown between IT and a VP, and IT got their ass handed to them. Next thing you know, they are buying/supporting both Lotus and Microsoft.
So, IT Dude saying that OO is a great solution doesn't really mean anything, politically.)
Parent
OpenOffice to the rescue (Score:4, Interesting)
If you haven't already check out the development section of their web site:
http://development.openoffice.org/index.ht
I am really amazed with the level of documentation, add on's, scripts/macros, and integration with other languages.
Re:OpenOffice to the rescue (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mean to sound trollish, but what exactly is your definition of "near future"? Because from where I sit, I don't see OpenOffice taking over MS Office within this decade alone. Not because OpenOffice isn't a good product, but because of the fact that hundreds of thousands of companies have millions (if not billions) of dollars invested in their infrastructure which includes MS Office, Exchange, etc... That takes time to convert.
Parent
Re:OpenOffice to the rescue (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
The FOLLOWUP question is... (Score:5, Funny)
In my experience, most city employees really only need a good Solitare implementation to accomplish their day-to-day work. Given the number of quality Solitare packages for Linux, it would probably be no issue to get everyone moved over.
Seriously though...for many, the hassle of setting up MS Office under WINE is a major stumbling block to moving to a Linux desktop. With the removal of MS Office from the equation, I would think that Austin may want to give Ximian Desktop or something of the sort a closer look.
-JT
Re:The FOLLOWUP question is... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Austin is a very tech town (Score:5, Interesting)
The government also has pockets of very tech-savvy people, but they are often hampered by a lack of support. A current canidate for state representative Mark Strama [markstrama.com] is pretty "with it" technology-wise. (Founded NewVoter.com which was the first online voter registration in the US, and whose tech resulted in over 700K voter registrations in 2000.) Strama really wants to leverage new technology and open source where possible in his campaign, but hasn't had a lot of luck finding a full time technicial manager to oversee things.
Moving groups of non-technicial people to a new product (be it OpenOffice, Linux, or anything) requires some sort of on site advocate. The key to transition is having a knowledgable support person to make the technology "just work" as opposed to leaving the user to struggle on his or her own.
If you're interested in seeing open source succeed, consider helping out your local canidate use it in his or her race. Teach the leaders, the people will follow.
possible motivation (Score:5, Insightful)
Austin had a good scare a while back, with rumors of a Microsoft/BSA audit of the city's computers. The BSA is based in Austin, BTW. Anyway, I'm willing to bet that Austin didn't take too kindly to the hassles that Microsoft put them through, and are now happily giving them the boot up their ass.
Good for them.
Austin is a Statement (Score:5, Insightful)
Ways to make the transition smoother. (Score:5, Interesting)
So, if everyone has been using Office for the last 10 years, they aren't going to want to try anything new, irregardless of the benefits of said change.
When this is the case, I find that users will suddenly get stupider. As dumb as they were before, and as clueless as they were before, they are now clueless with a purpose. That purpose? To make you regret making them change their desktop. Suddenly many will be looking for reasons to have things not work. The simplest of these being folks who think something doesn't work at all now, just because it doesn't work exactly like it used to. Others being the type who actively search for weak areas in the software so they can bitch about the lack of some arcane/unused feature that used to be available.
So, the solution to all this? Cut 'em a check. That's right, instead of just switching them over and telling them it's for the good of XYZ, figure out how much money you'll save to switch over to Open Office. Then take about 70% of your savings the first year and cut a check to be split up amongst your users. I would think that if everyone got a $100 in cash on the day you put Open Office on their machines, suddenly the guy installing OO around the office would be getting calls left and right by people who can't wait to get updated, vs. the grumblind you'd otherwise face.
After the first year you're still saving a bundle, everyone is used to OO, and the County can pocket the savings, all with a lot less headache.
Re:Ways to make the transition smoother. (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess what, people hate changing from version to version of MS Office too. You should have heard the moans of fear in my workplace when it was rumored that we were going to be upgrading. You could just wait until the next major MS Office upgrade and give them a choice
Parent
And some tried Open went for MS Office. (Score:4, Informative)
See the comment of janderk at the end. Essentially, he tried to convert a Dutch school but because of this bug, he failed.
OpenOffice question. (Score:5, Interesting)
Can anybody tell me why the OO team decided not to use the Win-Print.api that MS has available in the SDK?
I work for a printer company and I would _LOVE_ to use and show OO in our showroom but OO does not allow access to the WIN-print.api (therefore not allowing us to use the extra features/functionality that our devices offer).
OO is great if you have a 1-tray laser/inkjet printer. I could convert our office (and probably our corporation (still using Office97)), and my customers; by showing the cost savings that OO will provide, but dammit the drivers don't work.
Texas or Minnesota? (Score:4, Funny)
"City Of Austin (Texas) Migrating To OpenOffice.org."
Otherwise there may be confusion with Austin, Minnesota [spamtownusa.com]
-kgj
City of Largo: Migration to OO Finished Last Week (Score:5, Interesting)
The comments about users not liking change is true, and it's true that they complain no matter what you do---even upgrades of the same product.
We got word of a location that moved to OO on Win32, and they had a brilliant idea. OpenOffice was provided to them for use for free, if they wanted to continue to use Office they had to *buy their own copy* (~$399 payroll deduction + upgrades + support costs).
Dave Richards
City of Largo, Florida
drichard@largo.com
Re:why not 100%? (Score:5, Informative)
Certainly makes sense that they're going to need to solve that dependancy before they switch those people to OO.org...
Parent
Re:80%? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:80%? (Score:4, Informative)
We can use OO, but it has some serious annoyances. The major one being that each worksheet in a file can't have it's own margin/header/print preferences set. Those settings have to apply to the whole workbook.
We set up checkoff sheets for product installations, and we have like 700 sheets in a workbook, and many of them have to print with slightly different settings, which makes this a very very annoying bug...
That and you can't have a "-" in the name of a worksheet. That one I just don't understand...
Parent
Re:80%? (Score:4, Informative)
learn it, love it.
Parent
Re:Windows 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
You obviously never used OpenOffice before. You can work with OOo through COM under MS Windows just as you can with MS Office.
Here is a little VB Script example, copy n paste the text below into a text file and save it as ooo.vbs, then just double click it and watch.
office_automation [openoffice.org]
writerdemo [openoffice.org]
There is nothing open about MS Office. Where can I download the specs of the MS Office formats? Oh, that is right, they are proprietary "IP". But wait, MS Office 2003 uses "open" XML. Gee that is just great, too bad the encoded data in the XML is proprietary "IP" and the XML wrapper is more of a PR stunt then MS truly opening up the MS Office documents formats.
A better solution is to use OPEN STANDARDS. Instead of having your application spit out some MS Word doc, have it spit out HTML or PDF. Then anyone, anywhere can read it. Instead of spitting out an MS Excel file, have it spit out a plain ole CSV file. Then you can import it to just about any app or DB and work with the data any way you want.
Parent
Re:Okay...Will this legitimize OO for other orgs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Okay...Will this legitimize OO for other orgs? (Score:5, Informative)
It works very well, and i have complicated vba code running - the reports previewed fine, queries good, forms, etc...
you can download a version to do testing. Access was the only thing holding me back from moving to Linux - i use it all the time
What i would love to see would be Corel open sourcing the Paradox db so it could be ported to Linux - that was a great platform...
Parent
Re:Don't bother RTFA, this arcitle is FUD, here's (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Mod parent appropriately (Score:4, Interesting)
When exactly did the Gannett owned, Reuters dominated USA Today become a credible news source? Or CNN, notorious for parroting the positions of those with vested interests without even bothering to check if it makes sense or contradicts earlier statements? All of the mentioned periodicals are tertiary news sources... They rely upon other people who have seen the news, and are willing to talk about it. USA Today is arguably a quadiary news source, as it just recycles tertiary articles from other sources. The e-mail posted from the initiator of this project is a primary news source, and an article posted by someone who has seen this e-mail is a secondary news source. Primary and secondary news sources, while necessarily less well known as they do not focus on the dissemination of news, are a far more accurate source of information than those who re-release pre-digested data.
You just got the best news source you could hope to get, and you complained because it wasn't USA Today.
Parent
Re:Don't bother RTFA, this arcitle is FUD, here's (Score:4, Funny)
Well obviously it's anti-Microsoft FUD, trying to convince people that not every business computer runs Office. Silly, I know, but there are probably some managers out there feeling uncertainty and doubt about the hegemony of Microsoft, and wondering why they don't switch.
Parent
Those pesky legacy apps. (Score:5, Interesting)
First the disclaimer: I hate M$. I've moved myself to the Apple platform, I run a Linux server at home, I almost never use my Windows machine.
But I've been in many clients' offices where I was about to save hundreds of man-hours where clerical people did repetitive tasks by writing a quick VBA application. I've also seen specialized applications (in particular, I have intimate exposure to one used in most non-profit organizations) built completely from the Windows COM/ActiveX architecture, and these apps integrate really nicely with Office in a way that OpenOffice would have to have strong COM integration to compete. (It may, I haven't looked recently.)
I felt bad writing these apps because I knew I was helping to entrench these clients in their Windows world, but when they are running on a shoestring budget (and non-profits get KILLER cheap deals with M$ software) if I can help cut an office's labor by 10% or more, I think I'm morally obligated to do so.
One last point: last time I gave OpenOffice a spin on Windows, it seemed to have a cool feature-set, but anything approaching a complex 100+ page document caused application crashes. I haven't seen Office crash since 2000.
For the most part, I'd say it's not a question of "if" but "when". But "when" might not be today.
Parent
Re:why, why, WHY (Score:5, Informative)
The reason is because Open Office would conflict with the trademark of some Korean office suite.
If more open source software projects would name themselves after their domain name, it would make it really easy for customers to know where to go for information. Imagine if Mozilla.org would do this.
Parent