Lodahl's blog: Danish report on OpenOffice.org in the central administration

29 August 2006

Danish report on OpenOffice.org in the central administration

Yesterday Rambøll Management released a report ordered by "The Danish Open Source Business Association" (www.osl.dk).

This is an unofficial translation of the conclusion (Thanks to Kristen Thiesen)
Based on the prerequisites which Rambøll Management operates with and the present price of e.g. Microsoft Office licenses the main figures for five years are:
  1. Cost of transition to Office Open XML-document standard in existing Microsoft Office versions will amount to approximately 105 million Danish kroner. Assuming that the central administration follows its usual praxis and performs a transition from present Microsoft Office licenses (predominantly Microsoft Office XP and 2003) to the new version 2007 the overall cost will amount to 380 million Danish kroner.
  2. Cost of implementing the ODF-standard in conjunction with a transition to OpenOffice.org is estimated at around 255 million Danish kroner.
  3. Cost of implementing the ODF-standard in Microsoft Office is estimated marginally higher than the cost of the first scenario primarily because of larger cost of converting and support. It is important to underline that the very high cost are not only due to the implementation of the two formats Office Open XML and ODF. The cost is also due to the expense caused by existing deals and the costs generally accompanying an upgrade or change to a new version. The reasonable implementation of one or the other office pack in the central administration should be the result of a business case, which contains expected pro and cons including economical effects of the implementation.

No comments: