Can a Small Business Migrate Smoothly To OpenOffice.org v3? 503
Pay The Piper writes "As an IT Support Technician in a small corporation, I've been tasked by one of my managers to determine the feasibility of transitioning our small 40 or 50 person office from Microsoft Office 2000 to Open Office 3.0. What are some of the problems I may run into as far as document cross compatibility? Has the Open Office suite evolved to a point that permits easy transition from Microsoft's suite? Besides the obvious 'free vs. expensive' argument, what are some of the pros and cons of transitioning? Are there any reliable ways to view/edit/save a document saved in the OpenXML format through Open Office, or are my co-workers and I still going to be stuck in Microsoftland?" (Given that company-wide rollouts take some time to implement, this early look at the features of OO.o 3.1 may have some relevance, too.)
Entirely Depends On Your Integration (Score:4, Insightful)
For example do you have Word setup to access a database or something ridiculous like that?
If you are just doing basic word processing it is unlikely that you will run into any problems beyond the (marginally) different UI.
Why not pilot it with a small group first? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o (Score:5, Insightful)
I love open source too, but let's be realistic here.
Re:Entirely Depends On Your Integration (Score:5, Insightful)
For example do you have Word setup to access a database or something ridiculous like that?
Mail merge is not usually an odd-ball feature for anyone who has more than a handful of friends or clients. As an aside and from experience, attempting to mail merge anything with over 3,000 rows in OOo generally results in pain.
50 people? No problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Your biggest griper will be a finance guy (like me). For him, just buy excel. Forcing him to use something other than excel is cruel and unusual punishment.
Instead of asking Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead of asking Slashdot, although I'm happy you did as OpenOffice always generates a good flameware, you should be asking your users.
In particular you should gather the people who're likely to have the biggest problems with migrating: accountants for example, often have massive and complex spreadsheets, not to mention VB macros. Create a focus group, or go around each of these people to see how they're using the software, then create a requirements document and test OpenOffice against it.
The advantage of a requirements document is that if OpenOffice doesn't 'fit the bill' at the moment, you'll be able to check newer versions (and even different office suites, such as KOffice) against it in future.
If OpenOffice meets the requirements of your users in theory, test them in practice. Gather anyone who's adventurous enough to try out OpenOffice alongside Microsoft Office and get them to give you feedback. Even if OpenOffice doesn't meet requirements now, check back in a year. Also, check on how other office suites, such as KOffice, are coming along. You may not be able to replace Office immediately, but that doesn't mean you should give up on trying!
Re:Short and long answers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your response to this disqualifies you as any kind of authority on this type of question. You are combative, hard headed and have absolutely no empathy for the folks you are supposed to be serving. As a manager, I would NEVER have this type of attitude towards people or allow that type of attitude to germinate in my department. You think your point of view is the only valid ones and anyone who disagrees is an idiot. frankly, you are the type of person that gives IT workers a bad name.
Outlook? (Score:4, Insightful)
It depends on what you're doing with email and calendar. MS Office includes Outlook, after all, and if your office is using Outlook/Exchange as its email solution then you could hit a big problem in the transition.
OOo is a good replacement for the document preparation parts of Office, with a much less irritating UI than Office 2007, but email is a problem.
Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o (Score:5, Insightful)
Aged software may be your ally this time (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o (Score:5, Insightful)
The same whiners that will complain about OO will also complain about MS Office 2007... the GUI change is so drastic. OO's GUI is closer to Office 2000 than Office 2007 is.
Re:Macros (Score:3, Insightful)
Because eventually they'll have to upgrade to Office 2007 or switch to OOo. A good chunk of the world distributes Office 2003 files right now, and they wouldn't be able to open them. Microsoft's constantly changing file format forces the world to upgrade.
We tried that (Score:5, Insightful)
We tried migrating a company with 40 users maybe three years ago, to Sun's boxed version. It was a complete and utter failure. Maybe it's gotten better now, but I'd be pretty weary. There were a thousand and one little incompatibilities. Plus some of our people use Excel for things god never intended it to do.
One thing is we deal with the government a lot, which always has the latest version of Office. Keeping up with that using non-MS software is pretty hard.
I think if your office only does very general word processing and spreadsheet use, it might work. But a lot of people have noted the powerpoint issues.
Basically, if it doesn't just work perfectly, it's a support nightmare. When we tried the experiment, I remember we'd author something, send it off, it'd come back with revisions from a customer with real MS office, we'd open it and it'd be all messed up, and that would happen going the other direction as well.
I don't think I'm ready to try that experiment any time soon. It's not worth the money saved, yet.
Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, OO.o is quite compatible with MSOffice if you don't get too insane with the formatting and such. I have yet to have someone have a problem opening a
Why bother unless you are gaining a lot? (Score:2, Insightful)
Before you serious consider upsetting the cart, make sure the features and benefits you gain are worth the headaches. Get to the end of the process, if most people don't feel the pain of change was worth the end product, they'll revolt and hang you from the patch panels.
Re:Short and long answers? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no reason to not be sensitive to people's complaints and try to solve them, but saying that someone's complaint is valid simply because they have one is also a mistake. I mean, I could complain that your nick is too long... does that make my complaint valid, and should you then change it to accommodate me?
Yes with work - depends on the office (Score:4, Insightful)
There will be two key things that determine how much work the transition will be, (in my experience).
1. How much VB is used mainly in Excel.
2. How are your workflows set up? Do they depend on other MS things that don't work with anything else?
All the other stuff is no harder than moving from an older version of MS Office to a newer. I have found it is worth looking at the little apps that people built in Excel, and spending the time on the transition seeing whether they can't be refactored to use Base, since everyone will have it, or moved over to the Starbasic stuff. (Or will it work with small changes in Novell's version?)
In transition you will need to give an overabundance of help right away to the heavy duty users, and engage them even before hand. In a small situation even have them help in looking at the little hand built apps. Plus you will find out usually about a month later when people actually really use the little odd things when they get to documents and and reports that they only look at quarterly, or monthly. Be prepared for that. Try really hard to separate the grumbling that will come simply because of change, and real issues that hurt someone's job.
Re:Short and long answers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, not a good answer...
The real question is what do your users do? If you have plain vanilla users then shifting them to OO will be not that bad.
However, if there is any use of style sheets, macros or any other automation technique then you are going to have problems galore and not worth the effort.
The problem that you are going to be fighting is why upgrade?
Open Office is not Office 2007 comparable. Office 2007 is quite the package. Though that does not mean Open Office is not usable. It really depends. I write trading systems with Excel, and have looked multiple times into Calc. And each time I keep passing. Calc is not a great spreadsheet. It is actually quite lackluster.
I would even say that GNumeric is much better spreadsheet.
Re:Short and long answers? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're doing IT for people who's job descriptions require basic computer skills, it's perfectly okay to tell them to suck it up when they have to transition away from software that is one week shy of a decade old, particularly if you offer some training classes.
Besides, when has it ever made sense to pamper employees who's skills are ten years out of date?
Re:Short and long answers? (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing I learned as a software developer, is you can create an application that conforms to specifications but is hated by the end users, even those who designed the spec. What I learned is that you need to take a lot of time up front, and talk with all of the users and other stakeholders. You need to listen to what they say and don't say and then you need to figure out what they really want. It is usually different than what they are expressly asking for. Part of that is respecting everyone in the process, regardless of their attitude. If you can demonstrate that you really want to give them what they need and will help them with that process, you will get very little of the backbiting that original poster expressed.
Where does this begin? Nothing technical. Nothing taught in school. You have to sincerely respect people from all areas, not just the IT minded. Not just the higher ups. Everyone. Once you start with that frame of mind, doors open. Granted, sometimes it takes a conscious effort to get to that frame of mind. Sometimes, people rub you the wrong way.... they have agendas, and you have to take a deep breath and step back. But calling your users Luddites and worse sure ain't the way to go. Frankly, the attitude disgusts me.
Re:50 people? No problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Just some thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
It should roll out just fine. But here is a few points:
*There may be some issues with macros or VB Script on spreadsheets that use them. :)
*Impress doesn't always play nice with PowerPoint presentations that use embedded windows media player stuff.
*Draw is still not able to open Publisher docs. So this could be a problem if you rely heavily on Publisher. Also its not as nice to work with yet.
*Don't forget about the extensions! Here is a list of the ones I use here when I deploy: http://blogs.frederic.k12.wi.us/paulsenj/?p=50 [k12.wi.us]
*You will have to deal with the "But its not Microsoft" people. This is actually the number one issue that I run into.
*If you use Outlook you will need to find something to replace it with. I would suggest a webmail system, it will make your life much easier.
Don't forget user training! (Score:3, Insightful)
We did a pilot project at my workplace (800-1000 users, pilot of ~30) and everything went smoothly because we gave a course to all. Message: factor some training for all users in the transition costs.
To answer the specific question: OO.o can save in .doc/.xls format, only macros are of concern (I did not test that). As for communicating with others without OO.o, making PDFs is the way to guarantee page layout, and it's free! People loved that feature, spared the hassle of procuring Acrobat licences.
Re:Short and long answers? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're absolutely wrong. This isn't "just a little bit of re-training". This is a big deal. The thing is, everyone uses MS Office. If someone can't do some little task, chances are they can ask one of their co-workers. You can't ever really under-estimate this kind of knowledge, and what it's worth. The cost of an entire corporation which is switching over all at once to a new piece of productivity software is quite high, in terms of productivity.
I say this as a low-level project manager who successfully convinced my company to move to OpenOffice 3. We're doing phased deployments, one team at a time, over the course of the next year, that way the whole thing doesn't grind us to a halt. We're sticking with Outlook, at least for now, but the rest of MS Office is going away, starting with Word. Why are we doing this?
1) cost
2) extensibility (plugin development)
3) stability of the ODF format
We've built some automation tools that leverage ODF to save us hundreds of man-hours per year. ODF is more elegant and stable than any of Microsoft's solutions, and so we built a whole stack of XSLT's and tools around it. We support MS Word formats, but only by running them through OO.o's conversion filters to ODF first.
If we didn't build this, the cost of switching to OO.o would far outweigh the licensing costs.
Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o (Score:5, Insightful)
which is why it is such a popular malware container. :)
Re:We tried that (Score:2, Insightful)
One thing is we deal with the government a lot, which always has the latest version of Office. Keeping up with that using non-MS software is pretty hard.
That is truly obnoxious. MS has to get paid so that you can interact with your government.
Sorry, no it won't be smooth ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I tried converting an office of about 25-30 people to Open Office and I can assure you that it will not be smooth. Now this was about 3? years ago, so I'm sure Open Office has improved greatly, and will make the job easier, but the problems I encountered were:
1) A general reluctance to move off of what they knew;
2) Concern that customers would not be able to communicate (whether the concern was valid or not);
3) Lack of training on Open Office. Everything is not the same and unfortunately users are not willing or able to work it out for themselves;
4) Some modules just were not as good as the Office modules particularly where there were heavy users or Powerpoint or Excel.
My recommendation isn't that you don't do it though. Its that you find a few people (5 or so) who will test and try and gently roll it out through the organisation, who are open to new things and who can act as "go to" people for others as you roll it our further.
I'd also be at pains to get the expert Powerpoint and Excel users to use it with some of their current presentations or spreadsheets to be certain that it works for them, and if not just say no problem and let them go on using what works.
I've found that people don't like change, and change unfortunately needs to be gradual, if its to succeed.
Re:Short and long answers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Totally agree. (Score:3, Insightful)
Since it costs nothing to try, why not download a copy and try opening several examples and try saving several examples (and testing if you can "round trip" the documents.)
There are some documents which used some features which wouldn't come across (specialized formatting stuff,) when it was tried at one of my employers/clients.
For most (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) it was okay.
The database is way too primitive (so is Microsoft's so no loss there) so we rolled our own and we used specialized drawing tools.
Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that in the eyes of your users, if MS Office corrupts or cannot read a file, it is the file's fault, but if OpenOffice cannot read a file, it is OpenOffice's fault.
Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing handles MSOffice files well, not even other Microsoft applications. Their format is a mystery wrapped in an enigma enveloped by a binary blob.
This notwithstanding, if Office 2007 fails to open an old document it will probably be considered "one of those things, document must be corrupted, never mind, these things happen". This may not be the reaction if something similar happens with OO.o
Re:Office 2007 GUI remedy (Score:4, Insightful)
By *buying* something to fix something that shouldn't have been broken in the first place. Awesome.
Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o (Score:3, Insightful)
I can confirm this...
MSOffice files from diferent versions are just mangled up by each-others.
Thankfully, apart from very small errors, OpenOffice.org opens them all with easy to correct errors only (apart from a bug that sometimes makes some images to vanish).
Alas...
Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the obvious cautious approach is to install OOo on a couple of machines, telling users to double check the saved docs open well in whatever MS version the office is using. If no problems, widen the "test" until everyone is using it, at least part time. If still OK, suggest to management that costs can be cut by not purchasing MSO on every machine, just one or two, "just in case" some specific need arises. Management usually likes to have a backup plan. Management always likes to save costs.(well, costs for the peons in the organizations, anyway.)
my little piece of advice (Score:3, Insightful)
I didn't participate in such transitions, but one of my past employers did such migration already in OO.o 1.x times.
They have employed rather pragmatical approach and made (partial) migration in several phases. At first they mandated that all employees have OOo installed. Then whole R&D (and all of internal documentation) migrated to OO.o. That was rather painful yet rewarding. Then those who didn't need M$O ditched it. At the end of migration we had most of personnel using OO.o (rather successfully; it's when I joined the company) - only of sales (minority in engineering company) and test department were using simultaneously OO.o and M$O.
I'd rate OO.o for technical purposes higher than M$O since many features in former are implemented much simpler than their counterparts in M$O. Comparing old documentation M$O template with newer OO.o template I found that OO.o template was missing all the black magic people had to employ to make derived M$O documents easy to edit. OO.o's outlines alone were saving lots of time. Export to PDF was beautifully solving problem of communication with business partners.
All in all, I'd say, that using OO.o internally is pretty easy. Yet company has to be ready to have also number of M$O installations to be able to read/edit documents from partners. Hinting your partners that you are using internally OO.o and PDF/SWX/ODF are preferred formats might lead to some nice surprises: many companies at least pilot OO.o internally and pretty happy to send you documents in your preferred format.
And piece of advise: do NOT mix OO.o and M$O documents: binary .DOC format compatibility is all but myth. Implement OO.o where you can clearly draw a line between internal confidential documents and external/public documents.