[Gllug] The total cost of ownership to Ealing Council

[Jason Clifford]

On Sun, 2009-09-06 at 21:08 +0100, Alain Williams wrote:
> You start with one application (firefox), then another (perhaps thunderbird),
> and gradually move on. At some point for many users the desktop OS becomes
> irrelevant because they are running nothing but free s/ware, so when their
> hardware comes up for renewal you give them a Linux box.

The truth is that the desktop OS is *always* irrelevant. With the
exception of OS obsessed geeks, people do not use the OS directly. They
use applications only and that is where the problem really lies.

Many companies are tied to applications that are only available on
Windows or only work properly on Windows. The most common of these is MS
Office and it's facility for embedded scripts. Without a way to easily
migrate that functionality - ie to take existing files and have them
open and operate as they currently do - the barrier to moving is very
high.

OpenOffice.org and the various other applications that seek to replace
the lock-in applications are always playing catch up. Perhaps that would
be enough if they actually caught up at all but they don't seem to. I
suspect most environments running MS Office are using a version at least
2 years old - ie MS Office 2007 or 2003. OpenOffice still doesn't open
the documents from those properly in many cases and that's without the
consideration of embedded scripts, etc.

Even those who want to move away and are not tied by legacy document
requirements within their business may find that the need to exchange
documents with external business partners mandates the use of MS
platform applications.

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