Solveig’s OpenOffice Migration Case Studies
For SearchEnterpriseLinux, Solveig writes a case study on Migrating a Corporation to OpenOffice.
“Janet Neu is a training director for a large corporation. The corporation is working through its pilot program and, assuming success with the pilot program, will be rolling out OpenOffice.org to thousands of desktops.”
The reason for this company’s switch came down to the cost of Microsoft Office licenses. While the per-seat licenses are far from cheap, that’s not even the entire story:
“Neu notes that one reason Microsoft Office had such a high cost is that they were required to have licenses for every user that might conceivably use it. “As many as 30% of those who had licenses for Microsoft Office don’t even use an office suite for their job,” she stated. Those users now have OpenOffice.org, just in case, but it doesn’t cost anything to have it there.”
There has been resistance from users to adopting a new work tool, but perseverance on the part of the company has overcome those groundless complaints.
“Neu has observed a slow improvement in the transition over the last several months, in part because more people have been using it at home prior to being switched over. Other employees might be upset at the transition at first, but then talk to a friend or family member, such as an open source enthusiast son or daughter, and might then be more receptive to the switch to OpenOffice.org.”