Anyone ditched MS Office yet?

[cheesypete]

Just to go off at a slight angle, MS have announced that Office 14 will be available either as a series of advert funded web apps (free?) or via a subscription model

 

Obviously competing with Google Apps but may mean that folk stick with Microsoft

[User3204]

We've been installing OOo alongside MS Office, Now that I see that ADm for OOo we can control it better.

 

We only install Outlook for certain users, usually, when they need to have two logons to the email server (reception staff: their own, and the general one). We always found that Outlook never quite coped with running on wireless laptops, it went offline, and never came back. The Mdaemon server we have has a "lookout" theme that looks very much like outlook, so keeps them happy.

 

 

OOo is also missing a publisher clone... or even something that would open .pub files.

 

I still have to pop back into excel, when I need to do any importing, but this is because I don't know it well enough. I am being subtly subversive, OOo is installed everywhere now, and so I personally create files with it, and when people ask, that's what they get the odt, file, not the .doc equivalent.

[redsnappa]

I've opened some of my word documents in Open Office writer and some documents especially if they contain a lot of pictures lose their formatting so open office just is not viable for me.

 

I

[Netman]

Along with OO.org, has anyone looked at Google Apps as a possible replacement?

 

Trialling Google Apps at the moment - I think a combination of Apps externally and MS Orifice internally might be our best option. This would at least get around the MS external licensing nightmare and also get rid of our Exchange server

 

I would love to move away from Office to OOo but there are just too many issues to resolve: staff retraining, compatibility with sharepoint, features etc. etc.

 

This issue is part of a whole wider dilemma for me - to open source or not to open source? I'd love to, but my instinct is it's not quite there yet....

[SimpleSi]

I installed OO in all my schools when I first started working in them many moons ago.

 

Out of 12 - only 1 said they didn't want it and preferred to pay for MS Office and 1 other "reverted" after 2 years when 2 new teachers turned up and said they couldn't work with it

 

I install it on all pupil machines and give the teachers MS office.

 

regards

 

Simon

[linuxgirlie]

We use Openoffice here on it's own for about 3 years now. It was slowly phased in and now it is the only office software installed on all but the admin computers (about 10 out of 400).

 

We did move to Serco CMIS though, which means that all the reports and registration etc can be done online, and the offline stuff is done with pdf's so we don't need office for that either.

 

We do OCR National Level 2 for GCSE and Level 3 for A-Level, and the Business Studies students do BACS GCSE along side their normal BS one. So it is used for both coursework and exams.

 

For those who need to change the default save, you can do this under 'Options' you can then change what file type it will save as including MS format. It also reads 2007 files, and to my joy the other day, now MS Works as well

 

Can't think of anything else? I would be happy to answer any questions.

 

Jo

[Ric_]

OOo is also missing a publisher clone... or even something that would open .pub files.

 

Our tech department were the last to stop using Publisher... they now use OOo Draw instead. Apparantly it's a lot easier to use, makes smarter looking documents and creates files less than a billion megabytes!

 

@ZH: I see your argument with Outlook and Exchange push email. Yes, the push email is relatively expensive on Zimbra but, realistically, how many users of it do you have? You would simply run two instances, one open source for kids and 'normal' people and one for 'power users'. Anyway, I digress... you should know better than to hijack a thread - stick to OOo-v-Office rather than Exchange-v-Zimbra!

[featured_spectre]

We have moved a room from MS Office to Open Office with no problems that we have seen.

 

The kids adapted like ducks to water. So far its just the staff that are having issues with it but they got told by the SMT if you dont like it, tough. To which I laughed inside.

[dave.81]

It is something i am thinking about for next september when our licensing is up for renewal. MS Access is the only major pain but just discussing it with the Head of ICT she can see a work around as there shouldn't be anyone working on a database at the time of switch over.

 

Outlook could be our only main problem as i know some of our admin staff cant live without it, even though they dont use any of the main functions as we dont use exchange.

 

I'm going to put installing it on every pc over the next month and the ICT teachers are going to start introducing it too so we'll see how it's taken next term.

[actech]

I'm doing something similar to dave.81. OO will be installed on all the machines next year as well as MS Office 2007. I know that there will be some staff that we refuse to use it including one of the IT teachers who only like MS 2007 because "that's all we have tutorial books for" WTF???

 

As for the admin staff, I am still having battles with the Principals secretary because she refuses to give up using WordPerfect. Think I should just go off and find a brick wall to connect my head with a few times.

[Guest richard_s]

All refurbished machines and new machines built by the firm I work for have Open Office installed on them as standard Unless the customer pays for a Microsoft Office licence for them.

[tmcd35]

We are a mixed shop here. Mostly Office 2000 with some Office XP and 2003 installs around. OpenOffice 2 is on quite a few machines and OpenOffice 3 is now being installed.

 

I'm starting an argument for site-wide standardisation around OpenOffice 3. I am arguing for Office2003 in the 2 ICT suites until a good replacement for Access can be found and people are more used to OpenOffice.

 

Would need to find a good Outlook replace for the Admin staff thou.

 

We have OOo set to dave in M$ 2000/XP formats and have the '07 compatibility pack installed.

[kingswood]

Connected to the subject:

 

Becta Schools - Learning and Teaching - Introduction - Microsoft software licensing

 

Paul