I am a student at Concordia University in River Forest, Illinois. I am
also a student worker for the IT department.
One major issue with converting an entire campus from Microsoft Office
to OpenOffice would be the amount of confusion and increased support
calls. There are a lot of non-tech savvy people out there who get used
to one product and refuse to switch to something else because they would
be leaving their comfort zone. Many, many people are familiar with
Microsoft Office products whereas even though OOo works just as well, if
not better, people still find it to be a new program to learn and get
used to.
Another issue would be policy and procedure related. For example,
Concordia University is pretty much a complete Microsoft shop. We have
Windows domain servers, Office 2003, Exchange Server, etc. Pretty much
everything that we do is tied into Windows Active Directory. If you're
running Outlook 2003, it will connect to the Exchange Server via a MAPI
connection and download your messages immediately upon arrival. Also,
faculty and staff have access to the "Global Address List", which is a
list of everybody on campus populated through Active Directory entries.
E-mail accounts are tied to their Active Directory user names, Secondary
inboxes and Outlook calendar sharing is based on user permissions as well.
All of this is an integral part of daily functions at the administration
end of the network. Take away Microsoft Office, and you're taking away
Microsoft Outlook. You don't have near the amount of options available
going through Mozilla Thunderbird or Outlook Express as you do with
Outlook 2003. Prior to the upgrade to Office 2003 and the implementation
of the Exchange Server, everyone's e-mail account was IMAP based, which
worked, but it was not nearly as efficient as the MAPI interface. If
something like that were taken away, the IT department would be taking
three huge steps backward.
Don't think that I am trying to be a Microsoft advocate. I most
certainly am not; I run OpenOffice at home and absolutely love it. My
argument comes primarily from the IT standpoint and what it would do to
the integrity of daily functions across the campus.
-Louis Campagna
Daniel Currier wrote:
I am a student at Illinois State University and am trying to get all
the computers switched over to OO but what I have been hearing is that
the school has contracts with Microsoft and can not switch. Is there
any subjection for encouraging this project along?
The school has presently a CD that they hand out to any student or
facility at ISU containing programs like Mozilla products. The web
site can be located at http://www.ilstu.edu/helpdesk/downloads/. Next
year they might put open office on this CD. The below quote is from
the Tec dept. after I suggested it to them:
"Thanks for your suggestion. We actually had a student technology
advisory committee review OpenOffice for use in University Computer
Labs and possible distribution on the itools cd. Unfortunately though
it was decided not to offer OpenOffice on the next release of the
Internet Tools CD or in University labs, due to unknown conflicts with
other programs. We've heard many good things about OpenOffice though
and I'm sure the use of OpenOffice on campus will be revisited next
year after more testing and research has been done with the software.
Please let us know if you have any other suggestions. Thanks."
Is there any way to help them with these "unknown conflicts?"
Also is there any way to upgrade the OO spell checker?
How can I help the two points on you web site:
"Walking post-secondary schools through the process of including
OpenOffice.org in their portfolio of applications
Resolving questions related to using and deploying OpenOffice.org by
faculty, students, and staff”
Thanks, Daniel
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