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Origin: NewsFactor (www.newsfactor.com)
In sharp contrast, Microsoft`s (Nasdaq: MSFT) new licensing structure has won it few fans. Although the August deadline has passed for companies to sign up with the licensing program - which basically leases software to companies for a monthly fee and promises ongoing security updates and upgrades - the desire for alternatives persists, according to analysts. Although OpenOffice's appeal may grow as Microsoft's licensing rules
change and its customers threaten to abandon ship, the transition remains
costly and time-consuming. Financial companies -- most recently Merrill Lynch -- have added some OpenOffice applications, according to Quandt. Outside of the financial services sector, though, most companies are unable to handle such noncommercial products. Some commercial alternatives do exist. For example, Sun Microsystems' StarOffice 6.0, released earlier this year, is based on OpenOffice and costs far less than Microsoft Office. But even StarOffice is not on par with Microsoft, according to Quandt.
"StarOffice provides good file format compatibility, but it does
not enable macro, pivot table or anything developed in Visual Basic,"
she told NewsFactor. "Companies with substantial use of Visual Basic
scripting or macros will find migration costly due to manual conversions
and retraining." Besides training and support, Yankee Group senior analyst Laura DiDio told NewsFactor that switching to any application, much less an open source one, remains too costly for an enterprise to undertake -- mainly because companies cannot afford to remove their existing systems. "I don't ever think it's going to be a replacement in a business sense. I think it can nibble away at the fringes," DiDio said. "Let's face it, Office is so entrenched. They have 93 percent market share." What is most likely, she added, is that companies disgruntled with Microsoft
and willing to test alternative waters will install open software alongside
Windows products. But because Microsoft Office on the network is "like
skin to bones," the process of removing the applications is tricky.
"It's not that easily gotten rid of. It's interwoven into the fabric
of the network." Some organizations are taking the plunge nonetheless. Telecommunications company Verizon announced in August that it had made a massive switch, migrating all members of its development team to Linux on the desktop. That transition included substituting OpenOffice for Microsoft Office. George Hughes, a Verizon executive in charge of the switch, told attendees at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo that as a result of the shift, the company's workstation costs dropped from $20,000 to $3,000 per developer. Although this type of significant cost savings is the number one reason
why companies turn to open source software, the actual migration can be
problematic, as previously described. Therefore, even if companies are dissatisfied with Microsoft and its new licensing structure, they are more likely to stick with the Microsoft products they already use instead of upgrading or switching to an alternative, according to IDC director of infrastructure software research Al Gillen. "It doesn't mean they're going to take what they have and throw it away. It just means they're not going to follow Microsoft's road map," Gillen told NewsFactor. If companies are to make major changes like dumping Office in favor of OpenOffice, according to Gillen, there must be a notable return on investment in the offing -- much like there was when enterprises sought greater stability in the migration from Windows 9x products to Windows 2000 or XP. Once companies have a stable operating system and supporting software in place, he added, there is little motivation to rock the boat. "There's got to be some really compelling reason to move to the next product." |
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