[Opensource] Alternatives to "big-name" office software.

[Roland Gesthuizen]

Cross posting from eChalk list

Regards Roland

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Price, Ken <ken.price at education.tas.gov.au>
Date: 2009/5/27
Subject: [echalk] Alternatives to "big-name" office software.
To: echalk email list <echalk at edna.edu.au>

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=52336

Interesting article about how the District of Columbia (as in, Washington
DC) cut a $4,000,000 dollar software budget to 1/10 of that figure by
replacing the productivity software collection (in this case Microsoft
Office) with Google Apps, which includes e-mail (Gmail), calendar, documents
& spreadsheets, wikis (Google Sites) and instant messaging

"When employees go home, they have access to more technology at home than
they do at work," he says. "I said 'wait a minute, people have this access
at home, how can I bring it to the government? It made a compelling reason
for us to move that direction."

The decision wasn't solely for money-saving reasons, but also to reduce
risks of data loss, on the basis that Google's server farms are far more
extensive and geographically dispersed than any government servers.

The nearest I've seen to this in school education is NSW's outsourcing of
education email to Google, but there will probably be more examples before
too long...

More info

http://bink.nu/news/washington-dc-drops-microsoft-for-google.aspx

http://www.cio.com/article/450636/How_Vivek_Kundra_Fought_Government_Waste_One_Google_App_At_a_Time_

http://arstechnica.com/software/news/2008/10/washington-dc-latest-to-drop-microsoft-for-web-apps.ars

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_apps_microsoft_dc.php

This information came from a recent Gartner Group session - these are well
worth attending if you get a chance.

ken


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-- 
Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College
http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead
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