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Accountancy firm dumps Microsoft for OpenOffice
ZDNet Australia understands the key driver of the migration at the 150-person HLB Mann Judd Association office is cost, with management being reticent about paying for new licences for the latest versions of Microsoft's flagship Office products. It is believed an initial deployment of OpenOffice.org on about 40 desktops is being extended to the entire office. The Melbourne HLB Mann Judd office declined to comment on the specifics of the rollout including whether the deployment may spread to other Australian offices within the association. The HLB Mann Judd Association here is a tightly-knit grouping of independently-owned accountancy and business advice firms servicing markets such as Brisbane, Cairns, the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart. |
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Comments (4)
Well...You didn't hear me say not to!!!
These "percent of" articles really frost my cookies.
In my books, $10,000,000 is real money that can help even a large corporation compete better.
Companies do some very stilted "make v. buy" calculations.
When it comes to free software, it should be "make v. buy v. support".
Always, always, always: If the total costs come out the same because free software requires you to hire some talented people -- GO WITH THE FREE SOFTWARE!!!!!!
Using the same software everybody else can't give you a competitive edge.
Talented people who can be available for other things once you've made the initial switch/implementation -- They can.
Thank facting you, Microsoft.
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That logic actually applies to small businesses much more than to large businesses.
Why?
Say you save $5,000 by avoiding Office, but that you incur some cost in training, learning curve, conversions, etc.
That $5,000 might by a little consultant time, some books, some classes, etc, but it's not going to bring you any long term concrete benefits -- other, of course, than being free of Office.
If, instead, you save $5,000,000, you could do something like this:
Take $3,000,000 -$4,000,000 and hire 20-30 people of the varying skill sets and levels you need to learn the product, translate documents, teach others, develop documentation, web help pages, maybe even an tranet-based document translation service for those really stubborn documents.
Pilot the project in select groups to get pointers for general rollout. Still have $1,000,000 in contingency money.
At the end of the day, you haven't save much, though any contingency money can go to hiring/equipment/what have you, but:
1. You've probably rationalized your documents because of the scrutiny you've been forced to give the process,
2. You've got a good team of people to make sure that Office software questions get addressed,
3. Your documents are now in OpenDocument format, which frees your in-house programmers (and large companies have plenty of those) to work with them in creative new ways that might just add some competitive advantage to your operation (Hmmmm......didn't Wal-Mart get some mileage by making its IT a competitive advantage?)
3a. They don't become obsolete.
4. Having thoroughly studied and set up the process, new hires find the transition painless -- probably more painless than before, even with the change in software tools.
5. The next time you absolutely HAVE to upgrade Office...YOU don't! At that point, you're really money ahead.