[libreoffice-marketing] Re: Making LibO Remarkable 2

Le 2011-01-03 06:25, Ian Lynch a écrit :

Hi Ian

> > In Ontario, all school boards use Microsoft products many of which are
> > priced as cost per seat. When contracts are negotiated, the IT departments
> > do as much as possible to reduce the amount of cost per seat (that is the
> > cost of software for every computer) in their board.
>
>
> If they were really serious about it they would move every seat to Ubuntu.
> That would reduce the cost per seat and even if they argued they had some
> software that would not run, have they really done an analysis to prove
> these things are vital to learning and that there are no other methods of
> delivery such as VNC? They also need to add up the savings over say 10 years
> and offset that against any short term transition costs such as training and
> support for technical staff. If they haven't done that exercise they are not
> doing their jobs.

Actually, this analysis has been done, mostly with Suse or Red Hat in 
mind (at the time). The investment in MSO, as well as the majority of 
educational software running on Win platform with no lack of linux 
versions are the hold ups. This gap is narrowing quite quickly and I 
would say that things do look promising for LibreOffice.

> > This is their mandate. IT department will do this if this means renewing
> > licences for Windows on every seat to lower the MSO suite cost per seat.
>
>
> So they are not reducing cost per seat absolutely, they are reducing cost
> per seat after assuming they are using a MS platform without it seems doing
> a proper analysis of why they are using a MS platform.

Yes, that is right

> > I find that IT departments will adopt alternatives when these are easily
> > implemented over their networks (many of these use Novel). If the network
> > installation is not easily accomplished and maintained then they will keep
> > the structure that has a proven track record. TCO (total cost of ownership)
> > is high up on their list of concerns.
>
> TCO would be much lower with Ubuntu because the system of up grades is
> simpler. We use Ubuntu here and transitioned from MS systems so we are
> talking from experience. BECTA in the UK did a survey in 2005 showing
> considerable overall savings if schools migrate to open source. If that was
> true in 2005 it is only going to be more so in 2011. I have no sympathy with
> schools that moan about lack of funding and then deploy expensive
> proprietary IT systems without even having a transition strategy.

Completely agree. There are quite a few hurdles before any changes. The 
lack of market presence of OOo and LibreOffice in N.America are the main 
largest problems in rationalizing the switch. Once the LibreOffice brand 
gains market presence, this will change quite drastically.

> To gain a foothold in school boards, LibreOffice will have to make sure that
> > it will be easily network installable and maintained.
>
>
> In practical terms yes, that was a big problem with OOo in schools. It
> probably means it is easier to deploy web based office tools instead. OTOH
> you could say that deploying LO on windows is a first step in a planned
> migration to open source systems. (There are grounds for such a strategy
> based on equality of opportunity and inclusion since pupils can then use the
> same software legally at home without incurring charges) Since most Linux
> distributions use LO it makes sense to use LO so that it is the same
> software when they eventually migrate to Linux.

I don't think migrating to a Linux based system/network or staying on a 
Windows platform has anything to do with this. It is more of having any 
kind of solid network install and toolset for IT. At this point, most of 
IT personnel are quite aware of the prowess or Linux platforms. Students 
will adopt LibreOffice if it is used in the schools.
> > It will also have to prove having a robust file interoperability especially
> > for MSO file formats. We are not at the point where opensource file formats
> >   are the norm in N. America. Once a school board in a province has moved to
> > LibreOffice in one of its provincially run schoolboards, many will follow
> > suit. Getting a foothold in one schoolboard will be the one that will start
> > the domino effect. After this point, the migration to LibreOffice will be
> > unstoppable.
>
>
> Again a stepping stone is to retain some MS Office - you have paid for the
> licenses so why not use the resource? Use VNC for network access. Then if
> you get sent a really complex document that won't format in LO you can
> access it in MS Office. That will be relatively rare so the inconvenience is
> a price worth paying for the savings overall.

VNS would just add more complexity to an already overburdened support 
system. I don't think this will ever be adopted by any boards and 
implemented over a network of (in my case) 10,000 networked computers 
with limited IT staff. I think it will just come down to a migration as 
soon as comparable linux software is available. The cost savings are 
just impossible to ignore as well as solid performance.

Cheers

Marc


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