[Opensource] BBC Article - Schools warned off Microsoft

[Pia Waugh]

Hi all,

<quote who="Stephen Bloomer">

> If you are running Office 2003 and you install the Office 2007
> compatibility pack (Free and in MSI format for easy deployment) you staff
> will be able to open, save and modify Office 2007 documents and not even
> know that the different format exists and if you can't print them, the
> problem is with you print server, not the file format.

Please also be aware that there is a world outside the school. I'm
supporting a small NGO (80 seats) and they bought some new computers with
Vista/Office 2007 and their problem was that they suddenly weren't
interoperable internally (in the process of fixing that) _and_ not
interoperable externally. I think sticking to 2003 formats is safe for now.

Just for interests sake, that NGO were so annoyed about the Office 2007
issues, that the policy there is about to be OpenOffice (set to MS XP data
formats by default) on the SOE, and only MS Office if someone has a business
case for it. They don't have enough licences, nor any inclination to spend
money on Office when for 80% of their users, they get no significant
benefits by spending more money.

Cheers,
Pia

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Linux Australia                                         http://linux.org.au/
 
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