[LUAU] Bristol Switches to StarOffice

[Julian Yap]

England's eighth most populous city, Bristol with 5,500 local
government computers recently evaluated the option of standardizing on
their mixed office application environment.  The right solution for
the right problem and trying to deliver that solution at the lowest
total cost of ownership (TCO) possible.[1]

"The obvious solution was to standardize on Microsoft Office, but that
is where the external driver came in. Microsoft's changes to its volume
licensing terms removed upgrade rights and introduced Software
Assurance. The council assessed the impact of this new policy and
discovered that it would increase its costs significantly."

Ultimately, the council decided to move over to Sun's StarOffice
suite.  Thank you Microsoft's Software Assurance.

The main thing I'd like to emphasize is the excellent report on
Building a Business Case Report for StarOffice[2] that was created for the
Open Source Academy.

The report pulls no punches and is extremely objective.  For example,
it examines in plain English the costs of migration in the areas of:
- Decision Making Processes
- Project Management
- Communications
- Training – Technical and User
- Deployment and System Testing
- Desktop Computer Hardware Upgrades
- Document Conversion and System Integration – including databases and macros
- Implementation Support
- Productivity Gains or Losses
- Functionality Gains or Losses

The main Cases for Change they outline are:
- Cost reduction
 - Simplified and cheaper purchasing, licence and budget management
 - Easier data sharing within the Council and with external organisations
 - Easier support and deployment through managed software installation and upgrades
 - Improved productivity through targeted training and common knowledge
- Improved functionality, such as better integration with business systems
- Open standards, including file formats that enable open access to and re-use of data

LINKS:
1. http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/02/23/bristol_migration.html
2. http://opensourceacademy.gov.uk/osa/folder.2005-09-28.8524679420/folder.2005-09-28.7241574634/businesscase/