Re: [libreoffice-users] There goes Open-Source in the White House

Hi :)
Yes, hence the use of TCO (=Total Cost of Ownership).  

Macs usually have a much lower TCO than MS because systems are less prone to 
malware and need less maintenance.  Also they are a status symbol so who cares 
if it actually works or not?

TCO is not just licensing and  re-training costs but includes a ton of other 
factors.  Such as time taken to roll it out across a large number of computers 
along with  patches, updates, settings.  New or updated Support Contracts or 
in-house IT Staff training.  


Of course OpenSource can usually mitigate against the re-training costs by 
allowing products to be installed alongside existing & competing ones allowing 
migration in a series of steps
1.  Old system is kept as default so people can play with the newer one and 
slowly get used to it.  Training for a percentage of staff in rotation.  
Roll-out can be done over a period of time.  Compatibility checks.  

2.  Newer system is made default but older one is still available, just more 
difficult to get at.   Follow-up training.  Again this switch can be staggered 
across the organisation rather than all-at-once.  

3.  Older system stops being installed on newer or refurbished machines.  

Costs will be higher, particularly in the 1st stage which can push people into 
rushing it which ramps the costs up even more.  Imo the 2nd stage is the one 
worth giving the most time to.  The first stage needs a fair fraction of that 
time just to make sure things will work and that there are enough trained people 
to help colleagues if there is trouble but it's only at the 2nd stage where 
people will really take it seriously or even notice it at all.  


Elected governments are seldom interested in longer term results.  They need 
fast results in order to get re-elected.  It's tricky to get a longer-term view 
without compromising important values.  The Uk attempts it reasonably well but 
it's far from perfect.  Anyway the only relevance that sort of thinking has is 
on how to set-up our own BoD and i think that's better discussed on a different 
list.  


Regards from
Tom :)




________________________________
From: planas <jslozier@gmail.com>
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Sent: Sat, 6 August, 2011 4:25:14
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] There goes Open-Source in the White House

On Fri, 2011-08-05 at 20:53 +0000, toki wrote: 

> On 08/05/2011 05:57 PM, upscope wrote:
>
> > our government is looking for big budget cuts. One would be replace  all the 
> MS stuff with open source software. 
>
>
> If the united states government, or the government of the united kingdom
> ruled today that effective 1 January 2012, only FLOSS may be used by the
> government, and closed source, proprietary software was banned, the
> budget savings would, at the earliest, be visible in 2016, and probably
> not until 2020, or even 2025. This is simply due to the unbreakable
> contracts various software vendors have with those governments.
> Contracts that requires the vendors to be paid, regardless of whether or
> not the product meets the contract specifications, assuming it is
> delivered in the first place.
>
> Long term, FLOSS saves money. Short term, it doesn't save money, and can
> be described as costing money.
>
> jonathon
> -- 
> If Bing copied Google, there wouldn't be anything new worth requesting.
>
> If Bing did not copy Google, there wouldn't be anything relevant worth
> requesting.
>
>                               DaveJakeman 20110207 Groklaw.

Actually changing to another application/OS, etc will require a learning
curve at the beginning. The advantage that FOSS has is the primary cost
to using is the learning curve in most cases. I think often the actual
costs of switching forget if I switched from LO to KOffice I have a
learning curve, I do not know KOffice so I need to learn its quirks to
become proficient. If a purchase is involved it just adds to the cost.

Jay Lozier
jslozier@gmail.com
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