Los Angeles to Consider Open Source Software 324
lientz writes "According to an article at FederalComputerWeek, the city of Los Angeles is considering using Open Source software as a cost cutting measure. From the article: "...city officials could save $5.2 million by switching to OpenOffice... rather than purchasing a Microsoft Office product at $200 per license for 26,000 desktops. The savings would go to a special fund to hire more employees for the police department, a major focus for city officials right now, he added.""
Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
I can just smell it on the air.
Negotiating Ploy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical tactic (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing to see here, move along.
Yet another announcement (Score:3, Insightful)
as others have pointed out (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Negotiating Ploy? (Score:5, Insightful)
And a fine tactic it is. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lowering prices not only validates OO.o as a useable alternative, but also proves that F/OSS is a truly disruptive technology--MS can't get away with charging what they want to anymore.
But TCO could still be high... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or I could be wrong, and MS would grant a low-cost blanket license.
with 5.2 million.. (Score:2, Insightful)
communism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let's start spreading our own FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Heh (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't exactly buy it, but I can see how training and technical support are necessary yet costly in the work environment.
something for nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
If using OOooo.oOo could save them 5.2 million, how about a one-time gift of 5% of the annual savings to the project leaders? Saving a net of $4.94 million would still be a huge boost to the budget, and I'm sure that OOooO could benefit quite a bit from a one-time $260k donation.
Re:The money is going to fund police? (Score:3, Insightful)
The real goal of govt "profits" for patents and such is to benifit the public...the State using OSS is a prime example of that technology comming back to benifit everybody. The state's interest is in benifiting people...not generating some kind of cash flow! If the state can do the same work with OSS and not have to pay a private company millions of dollars they can use that money for other things...again, the state's interest is in acomplishing the goals to help people [collect taxes, child support, protect environment, etc] It's a misguided history of the govt paying for everything from private companies to the exclusion of other voluanteer or public interest groups. The current administration's tendency to "outsource" everything under the sun demeans the true purpose of govenrment.
Re:The money is going to fund police? (Score:3, Insightful)
also, more mindshare = more developers
Re:something for nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
If it suddenly becomes finacially incentive for the politicians to consider OSS, you're gonna be damned sure they will.
Re:Yet another announcement (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's say the MS price is $50 mill, OO price $60 mill (including luser training, compatibility issue etc. etc. aka TCO).
If that was the case, why should MS give a rebate? They wouldn't.
Now let's the MS price is $50 mill, OO price $40 mill. Now they consider switching, MS comes in with a $35 mill offer.
The key words here are credible threat. To make concessions, Microsoft must believe the threat is credible. That means that the cost is actually lower. So it is rational for them to suggest it, rational for MS to make a counter-offer, and rational for them to accept it.
So don't worry. OO is closing in, and sooner or later the demanded cuts get too much for MS to accept. It is just a matter of time.
Kjella
Re:Police is good (Score:2, Insightful)
1) People are familiar with MSOffice, so you don't have to train them on OO.o
2) People in charge assume that since MS is expensive and well-known, it must be better
3) OO.o doesn't make campaign contributions
Re:Negotiating Ploy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Letting the people decide. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And a fine tactic it is. (Score:3, Insightful)
The purchasers could have done this with any office suite. Its just that OO/OpenSource is the latest IT buzz word.
Purchasers were doing this before OO was around. And they do it in many different industries.
Writing up motions are nothing. Wake me up when they actually do something with OO.
Re:Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Negotiating Ploy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or pay for mod's you need in an Open Source one. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a lot of money to pay for developers to add in any features/functionality that you want but does not exist in OO.org.
Save $2 or $3 million this election cycle and save even more next cycle.
The best thing is, every year you can keep investing in development and still claim that you're saving $$millions$$ in license fees.
And if you hire local programmers, you're also "creating good jobs".
Re:Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Negotiating Ploy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Things like that change as if blown by the wind. The lifecycle of a "school software" fashion isn't even as long as most people spend learning it.
It must be only 14 years now since I was taught a RM (research machines') desktop publishing system on an early PC, which was eerily similar to programs on the BBC-B which we'd used previously.
A couple of years after that, we were using software on the Archimedes A3000 computers, which had its own word-processor software (and a lot of freeware and shareware - popular magazines were still printing source-code in each issue)
Different labs at that school were just getting PCs, but since it was MS-DOS 5, we were actually using databases and word-processors written by a teacher in our school, since commercial software was either not available, or not usable.
At home we were using Ami Pro, the best word processor available. In fact I remember being marked-down on an exam question asking "what's the key to initiate a spellcheck" because the examiner had assumed WordPerfect for DOS, and I had assumed Ami Pro for Windows 3.11
After school, I left for the "real world", and got a job somewhere they were using WordPerfect. The macro system was a mess on that program, but they were replacing it with Microsoft Word systems.
At university, MS-Word seemed to be the standard, until we tried to group-edit a 200-page thesis on "university standard" old machines, and couldn't write more than a page before it locked-up in protest at the document size. On the first project we perservered, cursing Word all the time. On the second project, we discovered LaTeX (the real standard for university word-processing)
Now I'm working again and we use Word. But it seems like every sensible company is converting to OpenOffice. And presumably once AbiWord gains features, it will succeed OpenOffice (because it's ground-up Free Software, as opposed to a late conversion, so inherantly better technically)
Could you have said even 10 years ago what word-processor I'd be using today? Why even care what's being taught in schools? (and conversely, why should schools care what's currently being used in industry)
What would be news is.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Embrace and extend as the saying goes.
Re:Heh (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, your view is somewhat correct, but simplist.
Just because you are selling 1Mil doesn't mean you are profiting 1Mil.
Considering how much Microsoft spends on marketing, lobbing, lawsuits, employees, failed products, I would say their profit margin is around 20% tops (maybe not even that much).
So, to break using a quarte mil on lobby, they would have to sell at least 1Mil AND a quarter. Of course, that would still be good business, since they would not be loosing and money, and would be able to collect the real profit down the line, by maintaining market control.
I remember a particularly interesting case here in Brazil. The major bank around here (public bank) was looking to provide its customers with a given product. Two companies reached the end of the tests, Microsoft and another one. The product in question was Microsoft Money. The non-microsoft producted ended up being the best choice. So, what did Microsoft do ? Gave Money for free, thus winning.
It all ended up in court. Last time I checked, the other company was dropping the case, because Microsoft was able to push it so long they(the other) were running out of money.
Now, back to the subject, it is even possible Microsoft will be giving Office for free to LA, even tho USA laws are a bit more hard on things like this. Then again, who knows.
Re:But TCO could still be high... (Score:2, Insightful)
There are always more oportunities to keep people that are locked on a give archtecture giving you money.
Re:My experience: OO need less support. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, comparing OpenOffice.org to past versions of MS Office is just good common sense. If Los Angeles were already on the newest version of MS Office then this wouldn't be an issue, as they would have already spent the $5.2 million. The fact of the matter is that not even half of Microsoft's Office customers are on the newest version.
Los Angeles basically has three choices. They can stick with what they currently are using, they can spend $5.2 million and upgrade to the newest MS Office, or they can migrate to OpenOffice.org and pay the one time migration costs. The fact that the politicos have already tied the upgrade "savings" to an increase in their police force means that they are serious about making the switch. There could be very large political ramifications for the politician that took $5.2 million earmarked for more policemen and spent it on software licenses. That's a very hot-button issue in L.A.
No one is going to argue that OpenOffice.org has as many features as the newest version of MS Office. The question is whether OpenOffice.org is better than the version of MS Office that you happen to be using right now. Throw in the fact that OpenOffice.org means that you no longer have to worry about licensing issues for new PCs and OO.o starts to look like a pretty good deal.
The truly scary part, at least for Microsoft, is that if Los Angeles switches to OO.o then lots of other businesses and communities that deal with Los Angeles (and there are piles of them) are also likely to experiment with OO.o. Everyone has to deal with the government.
BS: They won't pay $200/desktop for Office. (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't want to sound like a M$ shill. However, if we fight them with the same BS FUD tactics we are no better than they.
Re:Heh (Score:2, Insightful)
Typical. Ever since the Xbox it became so obvious that the only thing they do is trying to harm the fair chances of others.
If I could convince the CEO of such a company to stick with his initial decision. To make him realize that he's killing the only chance of having a fair competition with this stupid decision.
Next time there won't be no OpenOffice deal, next time there won't be no Open Source people. And guess what M$ will do when there is no competition... They'll make you pay double to make up for the last time you threatened to walk to the competition and it ``costed'' them so much money.
Re:And a fine tactic it is. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? Well over half of Microsoft's customers are still on these two versions of MS Office. OpenOffice.org isn't really competing with the newest versions of MS Office because those people have already spent their money.
There is nothing inherent in MS Office that makes it a better fit for business process automation than OpenOffice.org. In fact, Microsoft generally pushes folks that want to use MS Office as part of a business automation process to upgrade to the more expensive "Enterprise Edition" of MS Office so they can use the fancy XML document types.
With OpenOffice.org you get XML document types by default and for free. Combine that with Zope (which handles OO.org formats natively, and has workflow support) and you are most of the way there (you just need some business rules). You certainly are farther along than someone who just has the standard version of MS Office.