Re: [tlug] City of Munich switches from Linux to Windows

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull.stephen.fw@example.com>]

Raymond Wan writes:

 > The second link implies that 1/3 of the 30,000 users are already using
 > Windows (i.e., presumably that means they never switched off of
 > Windows during the last 15 years).  I guess if you have two sides
 > fighting it out, it's only a matter of time for one side to "win".  If
 > they receive documents from other cities in Microsoft Office format,
 > then you can't blame them for keeping some Windows systems.

In this case, though, I don't think there was a real need for anybody
to "win", except for the budgetary implications of paying MS license
fees and maintaining staff to keep up the local software.

Specifically, I've had far less trouble with interoperability of
anybody's .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx files with LibreOffice (AnyOS) than
with Microsoft Office Windows <-> Mac.  Of course it's possible that
German tickles issues that Japanese doesn't, or (more likely) that
some German cities use MS Office features that nobody I know
(including the Ichitaro->Word translator in Kasumigaseki) uses.

I would imagine that the biggest problem was getting busy people to
switch to the slightly different UIs of non-Microsoft programs.  (IMO
Word and Excel are a clear second place to LibreOffice in the toplevel
toolbars and menus, but it's quite the reverse when I drill down into
the submenus and configuration options stuff.)