I would dearly love to migrate our users to OO 2. It would be a major step towards getting XP off the bulk of our desktops. The major sticking point is still document compatibility. Admitedly I need to have a look at the final release, but it was definitely still a problem with the later betas.
A significant number of Word documents emailed to us would not display correctly, were difficult to correct in OO and would sometimes cause OO to crash. I know that the OO developers have done a fantastic job, but I just can't convert users unless this is an almost never occurrence. I occasionally compare IT notes with some guys at a winery in the region. They have a strong open source focus and will sponsor open source development. They use a customised live Kbuntu disc on most of their desktops (recent machines with 2gb of RAM). The OS is loaded to RAM on boot so the system doesn't need to keep reading from CD (slow). I'm considering a suggestion that they made to make one machine available with MS Office 2003 via remote desktop for the odd document that is a wreck in OO. I want to see if OO handles them any better if you re save in MS XML format. We've got a fantastic candidate for an Outlook replacement. I've resisted installing an exchange server here. Others have resisted ditching Outlook in favor of other collaborative open source programs. I think we have a winner in Zimbra. Take a look at the flash demo at www.zimbra.com. I played it at our last staff meeting and it was easy to get some volunteer lab rats to trial a beta install. If open source can go head to head with products like Outlook with gobs of wow factor for the end user, it is much easier. There weren't too many people mumbling about wanting Outlook after seeing the demo. It mostly lives up to the promises in the demo. The MS MAPI support mentioned in the demo isn't done yet and will be in the paid version for $28 per user per year. There are some rough edges. (inc broken TNEF implementation that is being fixed) The developers are very responsive to issues raised in their forums and are keen for feedback. There are features in addition to those in the demo that make it a dream to use compared to Outlook. It's core components (minus its AJAX web client) are the same as what we are using now. Postfix, MySQL, Amavis, ClamAV & Spamassassin. Because it does IMAP & POP3 some users can stay with Outlook if they must and be tempted over later. Tags are fantastic for keeping organised, but apart from that the search builder is a dream. Because the emails are indexed in a database per user, searches (simple or complex) are almost instant across thousands of messages. The web client appears to be as responsive as any installed local client. Older machines will struggle with it a bit though. We've got a PIII 700 that is a bit on the yawn side with it. The other main problem is the few user we have who use (and are probably commited to using) MS Publisher. Scribus makes a fantastic alternative, but will require some training and it will not open Publisher docs. Neil McAliece Murrumbidgee Division of General Practice ----- Original Message ----- From: Ian Cheong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: General Practice Computing Group Talk <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, 28 November 2005 11:05:39 PM Subject: Re: [GPCG_TALK] OpenOffice 2.0 <snip quote> More like training a staff member to use OOO was going to cost more dollars or time than the cost of the academic edition of M$ Office. The network externalities effects make unseating an incumbent a very long-term project (years-decades). As well as that, it is general human nature to desire to learn from personal mistakes rather than the wisdom and experience of those that have gone before. It's probably a power and control thing that dates to teenagerdom. BTW, here's an interesting "switch" story over several weeks from an IT security consultant. http://securityawareness.blogspot.com/2005/09/mad-as-hell-switching-to-mac-1-16.html I am amazed how bad Windows XP is. No doubt, Longhorm will have a lot of badness still bred into it, but that won't stop people forking out! Ian. -- Dr Ian R Cheong, BMedSc, FRACGP, GradDipCompSc, MBA(Exec) Health Informatics Consultant, Brisbane, Australia Elected Member, GPCG Management Committee Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (for urgent matters, please send a copy to my practice email as well: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) PRIVACY NOTE I am happy for others to forward on email sent by me to public email lists. Please ask my permission first if you wish to forward private email to other parties. _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
