I agree that it would be interesting.. That's one of the reasons I thought I would send out this email to even see if it was a good possiblity we should try or if it will just flat out fail. Unless someone else pops in that has done this before and says whether or not it works on a medium-large business, I may start by gaining some volunteers that would be willing to do some testing for me. Unfortunately you were right in saying the latitude I have over the situation; however I think i could talk to my boss and see how he feels about the idea of this; but I can convince him easier if there was proof out there. I do appreciate the help on this matter. Thank you all, --Mike Reeves
________________________________ From: Dan Lewis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wed 6/13/2007 5:37 PM To: [email protected] Cc: Mike Reeves Subject: Re: [users] Re: Business-world On Wednesday June 13 2007 4:47 pm, NoOp wrote: > On 06/13/2007 01:49 PM, Dan Lewis wrote: > > On Wednesday June 13 2007 2:14 pm, Mike Reeves wrote: > >> I'll get to the point. I'm looking for a solution for my > >> company that does not invovle spending tons of money on > >> Microsoft Office licensing. I was wondering if it was possible > >> to transfer over to OpenOffice fairly easily. > >> > >> You see, the business I work for is constantly growing and we're > >> always having to buy new MS Office Licenses... well we were > >> wondering if OpenOffice could be a new solution to that. > >> > >> Here's our company Specs: > >> --O/S: Mostly Windows XP, however we have a few Windows 2000 w/ > >> SP4. Also we have two servers both running Windows SBS 2003 > >> --Computers: Currently about 70, but as I said always growing. > >> --Uses of MS Office: About 30 of the computers use MS Office all > >> day (Word and excel mainly), a good handful use powerpoint, but > >> all computers do use Office a minimum of once or twice per day > >> for one thing or the other. We also have customers sending us > >> information in MS Office format. > >> > >> Basically we'd want to be able to remove MS Office from all the > >> computers and load on OpenOffice and then have it do updates. > >> Also we need to be able to continue to access our old files and > >> then (BY DEFAULT), we need to be able to save in MS Office > >> format since many of our customers receive files from us. > >> > >> Maybe MS Office is our only feasible item, however research > >> could always lead to greater things. > >> > >> I appreciate any responses received, > >> --Mike Reeves > > > > First of all, have the legal department (or the lawyer the > > company uses) look over the license for OpenOffice.org: > > http://www.openoffice.org/license.html. Then you will have a > > legal opinion as to the fact that you can install OpenOffice.org > > on to all of your computers without paying any fees for the > > program. Secondly, you might want to look into Star Office by Sun > > which provides support for their program. It is basically the > > same as OOo but has some added proprietary software included. > > There is a cost involved for each computer upon which Star Office > > is placed, but it is much smaller than MS Office. There would > > also be more help in setting up the program on a network. > > www.sun.com. > > > > Dan > > Good points. Somewhat related to this, and probably better on it's > own marketing type thread; are there users on this list that do > indeed support OOo on medium to large corporate systems? If so it > would be interesting to learn about their experiences in making the > MS to OOo transition. > > I maintain multiple retail store customers on a small scale, and it > was easy for me... I just ripped out their illegal MS Office copies > (and other unlicenced software) and mandated that they use OOo from > that point forward. The had no choice if they wanted me to maintain > their systems and network. However, folks like Mike probably don't > have that latitude so it would be interesting to hear how others > have done this on a larger scale. > > Gary Copy to Mike.
