[OPLINTECH] Open Office Software

[Tom Mason]

To further add a business slant, does someone have a cost justification
spreadsheet comparing the 5 year rotational cost of MS office versus the
support cost of OO?  We change our customer's version of Office when they
demand it or every 4-5 years.  At $60 AE cost per PC, that's $12-15 per PC
per year.  That's also a high cost compared to larger volume purchases such
as Cleveland Public may make.

I don't know the Open Office compatibility well, but I assume it works well
from Chad's comments.  
All schools train students on MS Office use currently and most businesses
use MS Office(95%?). I'm just trying to figure out why and how the library
can pay someone to re-train the staff, patrons, students who need Word
because of teacher's requirements, etc, for the less than $15 it costs per
year per pc or less for education/library customers.  

I don't think there is a justification for the time spent making the change,
answering questions about versions, compatibility and so on, so I'd like to
see the cost/benefit analysis that someone has done that includes Reference
staff time, support staff time, consultant time, and user irritation time
(with having to do something new).  Based on past experience, I would
anticipate an average of 60 min staff/support per day per 20 pc's, answering
questions, retraining new staff, explaining to staff and patrons, etc.  20
pc's cost is $300 per year for licenses for MS Office.  A librarian is
conservatively $50k cost per year with benefits.  1 hour is roughly $24 x 52
= $1250/year versus $300 MS office Cost.

Is this a good subject for study, for techs to know about and continue
watching? Of course.  However, the extra costs may be better spent on books
or new PC's, more bandwidth or fulfilling more user requests.  No survey
I've seen says the public is demanding OO vs MS Office.

Btw We don't sell MS Office or MS software to libraries other than the XP
OEM we put on the new custom computers we build.  We've been supporting
libraries for over 15 years in multiple states.

As Chad says "fwiw".

Thomas Mason, MCSE, AANG, Sr. Consultant
Management Assistance, Inc.
Manufacturing, Academic and Government Solutions
"We make it happen for you!"
masontj at manasst.com 440.355.6962 Fax:440-355-4355


-----Original Message-----
From: oplintech-bounces at oplin.org [mailto:oplintech-bounces at oplin.org] On
Behalf Of Chad Neeper (list)
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 2:39 PM
To: oplintech at oplin.org
Subject: Re: [OPLINTECH] Open Office Software

To add a business slant:  I've been exclusively using OOo for business 
for four+ years now. There's no going back to MS Office or Corel Office 
(both of which I've used extensively in the last ten+ years). Especially 
within OOo Calc (think Excel or Quattro Pro), I can attest to the 
completeness of the feature set and compatibility OOo has with MS 
Office. OOo is pretty much a no-brainer compared with MS Office.

When it comes to the schools and libraries I support, I've been slowly 
introducing OOo. I think Chauncey's comments about staff adoption are 
spot-on. Some of the staff take to it right away with no problems. 
Others are resistant to change and don't want to take any time at all to 
adjust to a different program, even though the OOo interface is similar 
to that of pre-2007 MS Office.

For what it's worth,
Chad

-----------------------
Chad Neeper
Senior Systems Engineer

Level 9 Networks
740-548-8070 (voice)
866-214-6607 (fax)

--   Full LAN/WAN consulting services   --
-- Specialized in libraries and schools --



shivelri at oplin.org wrote:
> Hello, I am the IT Specialist at Greenville Public Library and we have 
> started to use OO for some of our patron and staff computers. I was 
> curious as to how many other libraries are using OO and what their 
> experience has been with it? Do the patrons get along fine with it? 
> Does the staff?
>
> _______________________________________________
> OPLINTECH mailing list
> OPLINTECH at oplin.org
> http://mail.oplin.org/mailman/listinfo/oplintech
>   

-- 

-----------------------
Chad Neeper
Senior Systems Engineer

Level 9 Networks
740-548-8070 (voice)
866-214-6607 (fax)

--   Full LAN/WAN consulting services   --
-- Specialized in libraries and schools --

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