On 10/13/2010 01:06 PM, Simon Brouwer wrote: > http://blogs.technet.com/b/whymicrosoft/archive/2010/10/05/15-customers-who-switched-to-microsoft-office-after-evaluating-openoffice-org.aspx > > ;) >
I followed the link for the Forsyth school disctrict: <http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000008223> and found that disappointing. However I doubt that the switch back wasn't the school district's alone... I reckon there was tremendous pressure from M$ (including financial) to switch back. <http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/6/3/563ae87f-1b08-49d9-85e3-24a61d3c7e7e/northcarolinapdf.pdf> [Not Georgia I know, but I expect there is similar for Georgia] Page 6 on the 2008 Adobe InDesign pdf (apparently M$ hasn't figured out how to make pdf's on their own): <quote> Since 2003, Microsoft and its employees have provided more than $44.6 million in cash and software to North Carolina community organizations, schools, and human-service agencies. </quote> Page 9: <quote> The Student Select program enables students (through their parents if they are a minor) and faculty to buy single Microsoft products for home use at a discount of over 85 percent*. The program makes it easy and affordable for students and faculty to work on school projects on a home computer using the same Microsoft programs used at school. </quote> I reckon if OOo has a similar budget there wouldn't be an issue. <http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Community_Council/Funding_And_Budgets> <http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Community_Council/Funding_And_Budgets/Budget_2010> That said; converting near 20,000 systems over to OOo requires more than $$ and understandably is a very difficult task. To do it in a school district would be considerably harder than in a corporate environment; you have parents, students, teachers, admin, state & local government - who often run antiquated programs/macros, etc. Perhaps if Sun Microsystems/Oracle would have put a dedicated team in to assist the story may have been different... --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
