Scottish police pick Windows in software line-up

[Renew Deal]

Central Scotland Police is moving away from StarOffice productivity suite

By James Niccolai, IDG News Service
August 11, 2005

The Central Scotland Police is removing Sun Microsystems (Profile, Products, Articles) Inc.'s StarOffice productivity software from about 400 PCs and switching to Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles) Corp.'s Office System, citing lower maintenance costs and the need to interoperate more smoothly with other departments running Windows.

It is the latest anecdote in a wider tussle for business between Microsoft and open-source software in Europe. Several organizations, particularly public bodies, have been adopting or experimenting with Linux (Overview, Articles, Company) and other open-source products, but the move by the Scottish police shows the migrations are not all one-way.

"It's not really based on any ideological argument about open-source software, it's based on pure business needs," David Stirling, head of IT for Central Scotland Police, said of the decision to switch.

The agency is one of eight police jurisdictions in Scotland and employs about 1,000 officers and support staff. It adopted StarOffice in 2000 when it was short of cash after paying out for a new crime reporting application, Stirling said. It retained Windows on its desktop PCs but ran the StarOffice applications from a central Sun Unix system and 30 Linux servers installed at branch offices.
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http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/08/11/HNscottishpolice_1.html?source=NLC-TB2005-08-11

[Nomad559]

1. Companies Snub Linux Desktops

http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=168600617

Linux desktops, which seemed to hold some promise a few years ago, apparently have failed to capture the hearts or pocketbooks of corporations, according to a market research firm.

Linux desktops, which seemed to hold some promise a few years ago, have failed to capture the hearts or pocketbooks of corporations, a market research firm said Wednesday.
Based on a survey of corporate buyers in the fourth quarter of 2004, just over 1 percent were running Linux desktops and open-source office products in their companies, Gartner Inc. said. The survey was taken at Gartner conferences in Florida and France.

In a separate study, Gartner estimates that only 3.2 percent of non-consumer computer users will run Linux and open-source office products by 2008.

"If you had asked me three years ago what the numbers would be, I would have thought they'd be much higher by now," Gartner analyst Michael Silver said.

[Renew Deal]

2. You can't run your applications on Linux.

That, and administrators aren't suicidal. They aren't going to try to train a whole company on Linux.

[fedsron2us]

3. Its so much easier for lazy public sector IT managers

to get the public to spend a fortune forking out for Windows operating system and Office licenses than to get their open source counterparts working properly. I know that Microsoft have been making a HUGE effort in the UK to persuade the British government to continue using its products rather than opt for cheaper alternatives. Even allowing or bulk discounts you can be sure that they are paying hundreds of dollars per desk top. Given that the majority users will only use the product for basic word processing and simple spreadsheets this is a massive waste of public money. Quite why people are prepared to keep paying over the top prices for office software where the bulk of the intellectual cost of development was redeemed years ago is quite beyond me. By the way the article implies that the Linux desk top and Star or Open office are somehow related when in fact they are quite distinct. There is nothing to stop the Scottish police from running Open Office on a Windows desk top if they so chose as the product supports multiple platforms.