[Klug-general] answer to my FOI request from Kent County Coucil

[Sharon Kimble]

Jonathan Kaye <jdkaye at riseup.net> writes:

> Dan Attwood wrote on 14/10/14 08:43:
>
>     >Agreed. But they talk about a "strategic commitment" to Microsoft. Do
>     >you know what a "strategic commitment" is? Do council members have stock
>     >options in Microsoft? Seriously though, why on earth would anyone have a
>     >"strategic commitment" to a corporation?
>    
>     They mean their 5 and 10 years plans. ie.
>     We currently have Windows on all our machines and it works and we happy with the associated costs, current staff training etc.
>     We expect, and MS have told us ,that they will release new versions of all their products and  we will have a clear supported upgrade
>     path to those products
>     Within that we have a estimated life span and refresh rate of hardware etc.
>    
>     If they switched to OSS they would still need a "strategic commitment" to that as an organisation
>
> Thanks for the explanation Dan. I've written to some Dutch reporters who covered the Munich switch to Free software. I sent them the FOI
> response. Here's an extract from the Munich article:
>
> As of November last year, the city saved more than £8.9 million because of the switch. More recent figures were not immediately available,
> but cost savings were not the only goal of the operation. It was also done to be less dependent on manufacturers, product cycles and
> proprietary OSes, the council said Thursday.
>
> "All project objectives were achieved and in some cases even exceeded," the council said. One of the goals was to migrate 12,000 desktops
> to LiMux, but in the end, the city managed to create over 14,800 LiMux workspaces for its approximately 15,500 desktops.
>
> source: http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-sector/3493623/munich-declares-switch-open-source-successfully-completed/
> I've asked them to comment on the FOI response I received. We'll see what they have to say.
>
> It seems the UK government is also moving in this direction but I guess it's all too much for our Kent County councillors.
> Jonathan

I've been following this thread with interest, as I was working for,
what was then, HM Customs & Excise, when they moved over to "MS Windows
2000". The move-over was handled by a national team that visited
branches in turn and converted the branch by sections. We went to a talk
about it, and when we went back to our section, we were already
converted! We had a new computer, monitor and keyboard, and then for a
day or two there was a "floorwalker" who showed us what we could do with
the new system and how to achieve the results we were looking for. The
most awkward thing about the changeover was the labelling of all
computers, printers, and everything that was connected to the network
before the new computers arrived. And then, repeating the exercise once
the team had gone, so we could provide in-office support and know what
computer was where.

But in typical penny-pinching civil service manner, the person who
co-ordinated the changeover was not a permanent member of staff, but
someone who was employed as a "casual", she was only made 'permanent'
after it was all completed!

New laptops and rucsacs to carry them in were also part of the package
for officers who went out on "custom inspections" to review the publics VAT
records. Overall it went quite smoothly with very few problems, but I
feel that was because most of the staff were computer-literate, and had
their own computers at home. I think that if they had been moving over
to some form of Linux, then there would've been far more problems and
staff wouldn't have been able to support their colleagues.

I've also found this site - http://fixmydocuments.eu/?page_id=27 - which
looks interesting.

Sharon.
-- 
A taste of linux = http://www.sharons.org.uk
my git repo = https://bitbucket.org/boudiccas/dots
TGmeds = http://www.tgmeds.org.uk
Debian testing, fluxbox 1.3.5, emacs 24.3.94.1
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