Greenville County and Open Office, Beginning Stages... Currently - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Greenville County and Open Office, Beginning Stages... Currently Running Microsoft Office 2003 on all County PC's. Began preparing for Office 2010 upgrade. Review of Budget prompted search for even more ways to cut costs. Soon
Currently Running Microsoft Office 2003 on all County PC's. Began preparing for Office 2010 upgrade. Review of Budget prompted search for even more ways to cut costs. Soon learned that many employee positions within the County
Left us with the question, “what cost cutting alternatives do we consider without sacrificing quality?”
Open Source vs. Proprietary
OpenOffice source code is open and available for the public to view, change and customize.
Purchase Cost
OpenOffice – FREE!
Future Upgrade Costs
OpenOffice – FREE!
Trained IS Help Desk and Project leaders on Open Office
During our pilot program, both MS Office and OpenOffice
Changed the default program for opening all Office
Changed the default file format for saving documents to
Used MS Exchange Outlook Web Access for email,
educational, private, or public.
Microsoft files, as well as save OpenOffice documents with Microsoft compatible file extensions.
version 11.
purchasing Adobe writer software.
Although, most preferred the overall “look” of Microsoft.
Outlook.
MS Office OpenOffice Used for Word (.doc) Writer (.odt) Word processing Excel (.xls) Calc (.ods) Spreadsheets PowerPoint (.ppt) Impress (.odp) Presentations Access (.mdb) Base (.odb) Databases Visio (.vsd) Draw (.odg) Diagrams
Auditor's Office
Register of Deeds
EMS Administration
Paramedics
Detention Center Property and Evidence
Greenville Workforce Development, WIA Office
Family Court, Land Development, Tax Office
Cons
Learning curve No email, calendaring or contact management program. Some MS Office formatting such as colors and drawings may be lost in OpenOffice. Software packages not always written to be compatible with Open Office ie. State Court Package. Some users don't like the “look” of the program (cosmetic appeal). Open Office Base is not a suitable alternative to Microsoft Access
Pros
Cost (Free Programs). Ability to create PDF documents with no additional software. Works with Crystal Reports. Interface similar to Office 2003. Can open, modify and save documents created in MS Office. Graphs, calculations, and images, all convert correctly from Microsoft to OpenOffice. Upgrades and release notes available on Public Wiki.
“Open office allows us to edit and save various maps, property layout, and
Office on every response vehicle to allow paramedics the ability to view these documents [pdf's created in Open Office] containing important information on patients' addresses. By using Open Office we are able to accomplish our mission without investing a fortune in the software.”
Benefits:
Using Webmail prevents from having to purchase any Microsoft Office product for the client. An Exchange server and user license is still required. Includes, Calendar, Contacts List, Tasks, Out of Office, Spell Check, Junk Mail Filter, Date & Time Formatting, Text formatting, Reminders, External Address Book, Search feature, and Archives. Good for departments who use Email sparingly. Interfaces with My Vault to allow for multiple personal folders and email storage.
Limitations:
No real time sync - User must click on send/receive to check email or will refresh every 10 minutes or so. Does not have ability to access additional or shared calendars. No auto-fill for external or internal email addresses. Must add external contacts to address book and either type full email address or choose from contacts. Does not support PST folders.
Open Office will be included as part of standard
The full license version of Microsoft Office will be
Webmail is being considered for departments that
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