
Linux brings over €10 million savings for Munich - mtgx
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Linux-brings-over-EUR10-million-savings-for-Munich-1755802.html
======
trimbo
I love Linux, and love Windows too (especially for games). It does make me
happy to hear about Linux deployments like this.

That said: _Everyone who switches one way or the other claims savings_. Their
breakdown of savings raises questions. They have 15,000 machines and TFA says
they'd be paying €280 a seat for Office upgrades and €173 a seat for Windows
upgrades. I have worked for Windows companies with less seats, in the
commercial space, that paid less.

I also want to know what the workers think. I've tried OpenOffice but find the
spreadsheet unusable compared to Excel. My low productivity in OpenOffice
makes Office a bargain.

~~~
mdda
Power Excel users use the keys (rather than the mouse). The new Office button
bar forces you to loose all spacial understanding of where obscure menu items
lie - fortunately, Microsoft retained key-compatibility with previous versions
(even though those keystrokes no longer make any sense w.r.t. the visual
interface).

The debate that Microsoft has on cost per seat is dwarfed by retraining costs
- which may actually be lower for LibreOffice than the transition onto the
ButtonBar in Office 2010. Of course, Windows is going to move to Windows 8,
and Linux desktops will be more familiar than ever...

Personally, I've moved over to LibreOffice, writing a Python addin to get
Bloomberg compatibility. My users are on LibreOffice for word-processing
(practically no-one has noticed), for spreadsheets I'll let them flip back to
Microsoft Excel if they have 'power user' problems/mindsets - but often find
that they are taken aback by the button strip anyway.

~~~
eisa01
I didnt't seriously start using Excel until the 2007 version, but I must say
that the Ribbon is much better than the old system. The discoverability of
keyboard shortcuts are much higher when you only have to press the alt key to
reveal them.

Of course I also use some other shortcuts that are not on the ribbon, but
that's just a bonus.

~~~
antidoh
They aren't shortcuts, they're replacements for mouse clicks, and you have to
do the same number of key presses as mouse clicks.

I don't have Windows open in front of me (still the holiday weekend). In Word,
to paste text from the clipboard, unformatted, into the document by "pressing
the alt key to reveal" the so-called shortcuts go something like this:

\- alt

\- H (I think, to further reveal or expose the Home "shortcuts")

\- V (to expose the paste functions)

\- S (because we want to paste Special)

\- U (unformatted)

\- and maybe U again to get the other flavor of Unformatted.

That's five or six keystrokes, and that's not a shortcut. It feels like
passive aggressiveness on Microsoft's part: "Oh, you don't like clicking? ...
There, I fixed it."

~~~
Lozzer

        CTRL + V
        CTRL
        T

~~~
antidoh
Yes, _those_ are shortcuts, but the thing you enable with the alt key are not.

------
holri
Business economics vs. national economics

a purely business economic point of view does not make sense in public
spendind. No highway is econimical for itself. One must consider the national
economic benefits. With free software, it is clearly higher than for
proprietary. The license fees fund the stakeholders of an American monopoly.
Expenditure on migration, training, adaptations benefits local companies and
people, improves and promotes the local know-how and the common good free
software.

~~~
mseebach
No, a million times no.

This is the kind of thinking that makes the public sector a quagmire of
inefficiency. The IT department of the city of Munich has exactly one mission
and that is to enable the employees of the city to service the citizens of
Munich in the most efficient manner - not playing politics on behalf of the
free software movement (or Microsoft, for that matter).

By the same yardstick, the city of Seattle should stick with Microsoft
everything to protect local jobs, in spite of evidence of superior
alternatives.

~~~
holri
"The IT department of the city of Munich has exactly one mission and that is
to enable the employees of the city to service the citizens of Munich in the
most efficient manner"

Exactly. It is more efficient for Munich as a City to support local business
than to transfer money to american sharehoulders, if they think faresighted
instead of shoresighted. Because part of the money comes back as taxes.

National economy is not a profit business but a money circuit. Therefore the
efficienty laws are different. The goal max. efficiency is the same, but the
ways to accomplish this are totallly different, because the economic systems
are different.

~~~
mseebach
The city shouldn't maximise for profit, that's clear. But in this case they
might be optimizing for a vague political goal at the cost of quality of
service. Stuff like, a planning permission taking longer to process, but, hey,
we benefited the local open source community.

I'm not saying that's what happened, I'm saying that's the kind of unintended
consequences you risk running into when you muddle the mission goal.

By the way, any contract of any meaningful size must be tendered EU-wide. It's
illegal for a city to demand that its providers are local.

~~~
holri
The quality of service in Munich is excellent. The goal is not vague but a
very clear strategic one. Be not dependent on a foreign monopoly. Support and
adjucate your own people. That is the constitutional duty of any government.
And Munich excells in this regard with the help of Free Software.

------
perlgeek
I was present in a hearing by the Bundestag (German Parliament) of the
director of LiMux project.

I particularly remember two of his points:

The main goal of the project was to reduce vendor lock-in, not financial
savings. It is unacceptable for a governmental entity to be so dependent on a
single corporation (especially if the majority of that company doesn't fall
under the countrie's control).

The main problem of the migration was that so many third parties insist on
exchanging data through office documents (even though they are often ill
suited for that), instead of providing an API or a simple data file format.

(for those of you who can speak German, here is the protocol:
[http://www.bundestag.de/internetenquete/dokumentation/Intero...](http://www.bundestag.de/internetenquete/dokumentation/Interoperabilitaet_Standards_Freie_Software/PGISF_2012-09-21/PGISF_2012-09-21_Expertengespraech_Interoperabilitaet_Protokoll.pdf)
)

------
Aardwolf
Wow, does every city of that size that uses Windows pay that much to
Microsoft?

------
corporalagumbo
I wonder how the quality of their Linux systems compares to an equivalent
Windows set-up. Do they have more crashes? Is it harder to train people to use
Linux? More problems with program compatibility? Is Linux as easy to use, or
are there inefficiencies? Saving money is one thing, but time = money so if
using Linux wastes time then is it really an advantage?

Maybe I'm just looking for problems. I'm a bit biased; I happen to think it's
a matter of self-respect to spring for quality software instead of just always
using the cheapest option. It's one reason why I would prefer to use MS Office
over OpenOffice, because Office 2010 is a quality app with a polished
interface whereas OpenOffice and its variants look to me pretty much like crap
on a stick. I also like the idea of rewarding quality software and promoting
more of its kind with your money. We should all be happy when smart people
making good products get paychecks.

~~~
kleiba
These questions are worth asking.

However, like you, I'm a bit biased too - except the opposite way. To me, some
of the questions you raise _(Do they have more crashes? [..] More problems
with program compatibility?)_ are points I would traditionally associate with
Windows rather than with Linux.

 _Is it harder to train people to use Linux?_ is an interesting question. I
think if people are already used to working with MS products staying with
these products should provide an advantage it terms of training. However, I
would expect a significant portion of the staff to use only a minimal feature
set available in their setup, typically writing letters, etc. For them, I
wouldn't expect the transition from MS Office to an open source office suite
any harder than, say, the transition from traditional MS Office to the ribbon-
based interface.

 _Is Linux as easy to use, or are there inefficiencies?_ \-- The whole "this
year is the year of Linux on the desktop" joke will probably never get old,
but I think everyone has to admit that Linux has come a long way in the last
15 years. For your average user, I would say there aren't any major
differences between a Linux desktop and that of a commercial vendor, once the
system has been set up. Of course, that still leaves the question whether
Linux systems are _set up_ as efficiently as Windows systems...

I personally think that MS Office at least _looks_ way more polished than any
of the open source alternatives, and I would expect it to be a good deal ahead
of the latters in application as well. But I can't say for sure because I've
used Open-/LibreOffice exclusively for many years now. It's totally fine for
whatever I want to do with it, and I would bet that it is absolutely
sufficient for 90% of the use cases an average admin person has.

So all in all MS products might still be a (good) notch ahead in terms of
product quality, but I think that advantage is somewhat neglectable because
Linux alternatives have certainly matured enough for the particular use case
of a city administration.

------
m_for_monkey
The first item on the list of related articles: Freiburg to switch back to MS
Office (3 days ago)

[http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Freiburg-to-switch-
ba...](http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Freiburg-to-switch-back-to-MS-
Office-1753898.html)

~~~
zdw
Note that they were using OpenOffice, not a more modern fork, and that they
were running it in parallel with MS Office 2000, so using some form of
Windows.

They're in for a rude UI awakening when jumping to MS Office 2007 or later...

~~~
dutchbrit
LibreOffice all the way :)

------
ams6110
The hardware update savings struck me as a bit contrived. Maybe they didn't
technically need to upgrade hardware in connection with OS upgrades, but
hardware needs to be updated periodically regardless. Seems like they are just
disassociating the timing and claiming savings.

~~~
sounds
I'm not sure whether you were aware that almost every major Windows release
has required significant new hardware purchases? Corporate IT usually delays
rolling out each new Windows (preferable, but senior management gets
impatient), but that just spreads the increased TCO over the hardware refresh
cycle.

2006: Vista premium required new hardware because it required WDDM1.0, and the
first cards to support it were the NVidia 8800's [1] [2] and ATI R520 core
[3]. Note the whole "Vista capable" fiasco [1] [5], hence Vista premium is the
relevant point.

Windows 7 hardware requirements were the same as Windows Vista.

2012: Windows 8 requires at least 8 GB of RAM [4] even though Microsoft claims
it has the same requirements as Vista (1 GB RAM). That also means the 32-bit
version of 8 is crippled from the start. UEFI Secure Boot, also "not a
requirement," will increase the hardware TCO for IT departments purchasing
machines meant to have Windows 7 – they first have to disable Secure Boot.

It's understandable that machines from 2006 will not still be around in 2012,
but Microsoft is definitely the cause of the increased hardware TCO.

[1] [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/vista-users-
frustrations...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/vista-users-frustrations-
with-nvidia-come-to-a-head/405)

[2] <http://www.anandtech.com/show/2116>

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R520>

[4] [http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-
sauce/57536-...](http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-
sauce/57536-installing-windows-8-without-secure-boot)

[5]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Windows_Vista#Vist...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Windows_Vista#Vista_capable_lawsuit)

~~~
wycx
Easy there, tiger. I just upgraded a Dell Latitude E6500 with 4Gb of RAM and
an Athlon 5050e desktop also with 4 Gb from XP to Windows 8 Pro. Anecdotally,
both boot faster and run Office 2010 faster than when they were running XP.
This major upgrade has required no new hardware, except for a Logitech
QuickCam Pro for which there is no 64-bit driver. I can probably run the
desktop for another 5 years now.

------
nrnjsir
Companies and public services who use commercial closed software usually pays
someone for creating it - will they now send money upstreams to the different
software projects that makes it possible? GNU, Linux foundation, Document
Foundation, GNOME, KDE and Mozilla?

------
frozenport
I spent the summer working with a lot of old time programmers who were in the
field since the early 70s. To me Linux was a privilege to them it was stingy:
they wanted PowerPoint, Outlook and did their work in Putty.

------
ommunist
Please do promote this, dudes! The more local governments will use Linux, the
better users you shall have for your software or services!

------
biot
I brought this up previously[0] in a discussion where Helsinki didn't go with
LibreOffice as they found it would have been $21M Euros _more_ expensive than
staying with Microsoft. I'm reproducing my bullet points here as I think the
claimed savings in this situation are actually false savings. They supposedly
took training into consideration but I think they ignore loss of productivity
inherent in the switch as well as compatibility issues. Consider the total
costs of all the following:

* How will incompatibilities be handled with their existing documents? Is LibreOffice absolutely 100% feature complete identical to Microsoft Office? If not, what proportion of documents use incompatible features? How much effort is required to determine this incompatibility? How much effort is required to redo these documents to fix the incompatibility? How many employees are required to be on such a conversion team and how long will the conversion take? Can the conversion even be done?

* How is interaction done with external users who send Office documents? What happens when users outside their office send them Office documents which make use of incompatible features? Will this require maintaining an ongoing conversion team? What is the opportunity cost inherent in the delays in getting documents converted?

* How is installation of LibreOffice done? Can it be setup on a centralized WSUS server and automatically deployed to every user as Microsoft Office can, or does it require an army of people manually installing it on thousands of PCs? How are updates for both version upgrades and security patches handled? What is the typical update schedule for LibreOffice (security-related patches, compatibility upgrades, etc.) and will this need to be done manually as well? How many man-hours per year will this take?

* LibreOffice doesn't include an email product. What alternate solution would they use? What is the cost to convert all Outlook email and archives to this new solution? Can the new solution make use of all calendaring and other Exchange-related features that Outlook has? Can the new solution be deployed on WSUS and kept up to date automatically, or does this too require an army of people manually installing and doing updates? Can they maintain the security permissions they currently use, such as restricting the ability for users to forward internal communications outside the office?

* LibreOffice doesn't have a Visio, Project, or OneNote replacements. What are they going to use for these? How do they convert existing documents and interact with external users who send them Office documents? Is it even possible?

[0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4235508>

~~~
mdda
Sorry, but a lot of these points look like Microsoft-playbook FUD. I'm
guessing that you're trying to get more hits via SEO on a hacker-friendly
website.

However, most of the people here are Linux by default on their servers, and
whatever comes natively on their laptop - which for most web developers seems
to be OSX these days.

To address your points (quickly) :

Incompatibilities : DOCX isn't even compatable between Microsoft products, and
we recently noticed that gmail converts it silently to DOC : Making it a
broken format if the documents are ever sent over the web to a client.

Interaction : Not as much of a problem as Microsoft would like. Clients seem
quite ready to accept formatting snafus as Microsoft's problem. For WYSIWYG,
use PDF. For editing, formatting is flexible. Conversion team HA!

Installation : LibreOffice on Linux is a much more scriptable solution that
Windows/Office. Purely because of licensing issues. Difficult to take a
lecture on security...

Email : Selecting a decent email client is pretty easy. Particularly since
Microsoft Outlook's implementation of IMAP is so broken. If you're interested
in restriction employees from forwarding emails, I guess that's something that
could be handled by some sort of corporate email relay - which will probably
run quite nicely on a UNIX system.

Visio, Project, or OneNote : Actually, not everything has to be bought from
Microsoft, does it? This is kind of scraping the barrel, unless your solution
requires all software to be bought from Microsoft.

I'm pretty certain you'll have plausible-sounding rebuttals to all these
points. But (short of downvoting me off the page) my off-the-cuff response
will be linked to your copy-paste effort for everyone to see.

~~~
eropple
_Sorry, but a lot of these points look like Microsoft-playbook FUD. I'm
guessing that you're trying to get more hits via SEO on a hacker-friendly
website._

Your post was great aside from this indulgence of paranoia. (Well, that and
the denial of OneNote, because even though I'm a 100% Mac user at this point I
still miss OneNote; there really is no alternative and I'm still sad about
it.)

And I did downvote you because of it, though IIRC it gets wiped because I
chose to respond to you instead. Accusations of FUD and the "Microsoft
playbook" aren't right.

~~~
mdda
If I was wrong in suggesting Astroturfing, then I apologize. And thanks for
un-downvoting me.

Looking at what developers are choosing (when given a free choice) also makes
me think that Microsoft is losing ground. They used to be able to claim "It's
better" - a much more enticing sales pitch than "You can never leave".

On the enterprise front, going forward, it's going to be easier to get
management interested in web/intranet delivered solutions via the PC (or iPad)
browser. Far fewer worries about roll-out, hardware upgrades, etc.

One of the big arguments that Microsoft (and its partners) has always been
switching/training costs. And with the Office 2010 button bar, coupled with
Windows 8 'tiles', I think they've created a massive own-goal. It's pretty
easy to roll a rock-solid Fedora/XFCE/LibreOffice/Thunderbird/Firefox image,
which will feel very familiar indeed to users.

~~~
AutoCorrect
I wanna know why people use MS Office, anyway: 99% of the communications are:
Please click this link to open this Word doc on a web server.... couldn't we
just post up a HTML page instead? I bang my head at work every time someone
does the above. It's a big waste of time, and money. And don't get me started
on SharePig

