Burning a CD? I'll have to ask around. I like the level of control the command line interfaces give me, but there should be very easy GUI based tools.
In 1999 or 2000 (I can't remember which) I saw a group of librarians moved from StarOffice to MS-Office. These were *not* technical people in any way. However, they found MS-Office and it's pre-requisite operating system more *difficult* to use than the familiar StarOffice/Linux set up.
It's all in what you are used to and what is supported (real support not just lip service) by the IT staff.
-Lars
Lars Nooden ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Software patents harm all Net-based business, write your MEP:
http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep6/owa/p_meps2.repartition?ilg=EN
On Thu, 19 May 2005, Alexandro Colorado wrote:
I like this articles, I trully believe that Linux is ready for the desktop. But
however there are some basic tasks that I dont think a newbie might get right
away.
Also is one of the basic tasks: - Insert a floppy (without automount) - Connect to the internet - Connect to the network - Burn a CD - Permissions
I consider myself a competent Linux user, however I still get some applications
that complain that can't write to my disk partition because they don't have the
correct permissions. I certaintly don't die because of it and can force it to
save it. But I can see a newbie squeeling like a 12yr old girl.
Quoting Maria Winslow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
On Wednesday 18 May 2005 04:07 pm, Chad Smith wrote:On 5/18/05, Maria Winslow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > for example: > > - 200 licenses for Office at a cost of $66,000 (approximate OEM cost) > - 10 macros that will cost a total of $20,000 to transition > - A necessary upgrade that will cost just slightly more to deploy OO.o > vs. Office (internal deployment, let's say $5000 for added time to > deploy) > > So the total savings is $41,000 if you transition to OO.o. > > This means that the cost of KEEPING THE STATUS QUO is $205 per seat. The > question to then ask management is - is this worth it? Are we getting an > extra $205 per seat in value by sticking with the status quo?
You leave out the re-education process. Going from MS Office XP to MS Office 2003 does require a slight readjustment period (some icons look different, more buttons on the screen, a few menu choices may have moved) but not as much as it would to go from Office XP to OOo 2.0.
This is a per seat fee, since every single person who uses the program is going to have to learn the new program. Let's say the difference in the amount of time it takes for people's productivity to return to normal when switching from MSO X to MSO X+1 compared to switching from MSO X to OOo X is 25 hours. Now, that's not the first 25 hours of using the program - that's 25 hours of total lost productivity for the life cycle of the office suite. Time wasted searching for - oh let's say the *WORD COUNT* or the *PAGE SETTINGS*. It may only take 5 minutes to walk someone through the process of finding these features, but that's 5 minutes *per* feature, and people rarely remember after less than 5 times of being told.
High retraining costs are a common misconception. From my book: (by the way,
the office suite wasn't OO.o in the Relevantive study, but it is the only
study of this kind to my knowledge that actually measured productivity when
faced with a change to a Linux desktop. I believe we should expect similar
results with OO.o. And as someone else implied, banning eBay for a week would
make up for any lost productivity, then some!)
-----------------------------
Gartner Group has claimed that retraining costs of migrating average end users
from Microsoft Office to StarOffice would be $1200 per user. If this figure
was correct, then a migration might save money over the long term, but there
would be significant training costs at the start of the migration, negating
any immediate benefit.
Their analysis appears to have been flawed, however, in light of a more recent
study by Relevantive (relevantive.de), user interface specialists from
Germany. This detailed study, with actual non-technical participants, found
that users were nearly as productive on Linux as they were on Windows XP,
having no previous experience with either. In this study, two groups of
average computer users were asked to complete a series of tasks common in a
work setting, such as handling email and word processing. One group was given
Windows XP, Office XP, and Outlook. The other was given the SUSE Linux
version 8.2 desktop. Neither group had experience with the platform provided,
although all had previous computer experience in an office environment.
Neither group was provided with any training before beginning the tasks.
The researchers found that the Linux group was 88% as productive as the
Windows group, with no training, as measured by the time it took participants
to complete the assigned tasks. Most participants claimed that it would take
about one week to become as fully productive as they normally are using
Windows. This study is solid proof that Linux is ready for the desktops of
non-technical users. Your costs associated with training for end users are
likely to be limited to extra internal mentoring and support time at the
beginning of the switch.
So, that's 25 hours * the average pay of the office worker * the number of seats - so, in your scenario, that's 25 * 200 * the average hourly wage or $5,000x were x is the hourly wage. Even at $5.15 an hour (minimum wage in the US) that's $25,750. So your "cost" of maintaining the "Status Quo" is cut by more than half.
BTW, it's by no means accurate to call it maintaining the status quo, because there is an increase in functionality of the software to upgrade from MSO X to MSO X+1.
Most office workers make more than minimum wage, usually many times that. So let's say $15 an hour (that's only $31,200 a year) - but at $15 an hour, switching to OpenOffice.org would *COST* the company $34,000 or $170 per seat.
So, the question to management is - is it worth it? Is it worth $170 per seat to switch to a *free* office system? One that doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the *cheaper* alternative? One that doesn't have *ANY* third party support (ie, macros, templates, hooks, readers, tools, viewers, etc.)? One that doesn't come with on-call professional support? One that doesn't offer 100% compatiblity with their clients or suppilers?
OOo is no where near ready for corporations. Not ones that aren't in direct competition with Microsoft anyway. That's the only reason IBM, Sun, and Novell use OOo - they don't want to use Microsoft.
-Chad Smith
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