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I for one would like a discussion on the use of Linux in a small
office/business environment. <br>
<br>
The main issues, IMHO are :<br>
<br>
- dealing with legacy industry specific DOS and windoze based programs
- IRIS for accountants etc. there is a raft of stuff out there for
lawyers, Post offices etc etc. I know of a clothing company that uses a
DOS program for laying out patterns onto material - they have four DOS
based PC's just in case one fails - I am trying to use DOSEMU to run
this at the moment.<br>
<br>
- Office integration, still not mainstream with OO. Lots of SME's use
macro based Excel spreadsheets for their accounts and Word templates
for standard letters. The use of cross-over office still requires a
copy of Office to be purchased, does anyone know if the server edition
shares one copy of M$ Office?<br>
<br>
- Printers, lots of label, invoice print programs out there as well as
old printers, some without Linux drivers.<br>
<br>
- Sage, QuickBooks etc.<br>
<br>
Now saying all that I think that the opportunity is immense as SMEs
can't afford to keep on the Dell->XP->Office treadmill for much
longer, they want to use their computer systems for more than 18 months
without replacing them. <br>
<br>
The rest of the Linux story is great, particularly security, NFS, as
well as Firefox and Thunderbird - a lot of people do use the calendar
function of Outlook a lot, so Evolution for them!<br>
<br>
David Aldred wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid200412081907.37657.david@familyaldred.org.uk"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Monday 06 Dec 2004 23:46, Michael Leuty wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Friday 03 Dec 2004 09:44, Haber, Michael wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Legacy applications will be your major problem.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Just a quick update on the conversion of our Church Office to Linux. ...
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">However, the secretary using M-L has noticed that her computer is not
prone to the crashes and freezes which frequently afflict the two Win98
PCs. Her first language is Slovenian, and she was delighted when I used
LocaleDrake to change all the menus and dialog boxes into that
language.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Michael, thanks for your update: it's useful in my thinking round the likely
school 'debate' on systems!
I hadn't thought of the I18N advantage: the language departments (in common
with most) use target-language teaching, so having their machines running
with suitable localisation could be a most 'marketable' advantage!
It will be some time before the school actually does anything, for various
reasons, but in a month or two perhaps we could all have a bit of further
general discussion on 'conversion' of a school/office environment to Linux -
either on-list or at a pub somewhere.
</pre>
</blockquote>
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