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Re: [News] British Government Determines: Open Source TCO Much Lower

Sinister Midget wrote:
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> To be more specific: Office to StarOffice migration leads
>> to huge savings 
>>
>> Open source debate brought to a close - for now
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>| Bristol calculated a five-year total cost of ownership of
>>| £670,010 for StarOffice, compared with £1,706,684 for
>>| Microsoft Office. This was despite budgeting half as much
>>| in implementation and support costs for Microsoft because
>>| many users were already on its systems. 
>>| 
>>| The difference may turn out to be even greater, says IT
>>| strategy team leader Gavin Beckett. "We discovered that
>>| things were simpler than we thought they'd be," he says
>>| of the switch. "We always argued that a lot of the risk
>>| was perceived risk, rather than real risk." 
>>| 
>>| Deployment of StarOffice has cost £10,000 rather than a
>>| budgeted £87,000, as Bristol found it could re-use an
>>| existing tool. In addition, most staff have needed 30 to
>>| 60 minutes of re-training rather than the planned
>>| day's-worth. 
>> `----
>>
>> Case closed.
>>
>> http://society.guardian.co.uk/e-public/story/0,,1786068,00.
>> html 
> 
> I started to comment on this before. Then I started to
> write a rant about trolls. Then I didn't do either, and
> decided to wait. The wait got the result I expected: nada.
> 
> Where's the cheering, Erik? This directly answers, in part,
> your concerns about how the word never comes back.
> 
> Is this the sort of thing you sound the alarm about not
> being true when you yearn for an answer to why companies
> and government bodies switch to linux/OSS/alternaive
> products and never follow up with the outcome of their
> ventures? 
> 
> More importantly, where are all of the continuing successes
> of companies going to M$ after using something else for
> awhile? Are they abandoning the idea* after awhile and just
> staying quiet about it? Or do they benefit in some manner
> and the monopoly is too modest** to crow about the great
> relief these parties experience when they spend more on IT,
> software and licenses to try managing the same amount of
> output? 
> 
> * As you so adeptly attempt to imply with your continuing
> "concern" about the longterm benefits of changing to linux.
> 
> ** Insert <sarcasm></sarcasm> around that word.

It is amasing how so-called theoretical costs can be 
considerably off to real-world models.  What was expressed by 
Bristol coincides with common sense.  I have used Star Office 
and its open source derivatives.  Anyone familiar with icons 
and drop down menus will catch on quickly, as they will with 
KDE and Gnome.

<sarcasm> I guess there is a factored in with some expressed 
TCO numbers, an assumption that people are in general 
incredibly stoopid, and thus require considerable training. 
</sarcasm>

-- 
HPT

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