Links ARCHIVE: NewsForge - Highschool Goes With Open Office

http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/05/18/1944227.shtml?tid=130&tid=93
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SOURCE: NewsForge

Detroit high school opens its desktops


Thursday May 26, 2005 (07:00 PM GMT) By: Kevin Quiggle

n 2003, John Hansknecht, the director of technology at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, had a tough decision to make. The school had about a hundred older computers running Microsoft Office 97 and Windows NT, and some kind of upgrade was clearly required. It would have been an easy decision to simply upgrade to Microsoft Office 2000, but that would have required replacing all the computers with more powerful systems -- a large expenditure which could be better spent on other technology needs. Hansknecht had a better idea: OpenOffice.org.

The previous year Hansknecht had begun evaluating OpenOffice.org with the assistance of Peter Guenther, the computer applications teacher, and Vondra Abbott, the school librarian. Hansknecht thought that if he could meet the school's requirements with an office suite that worked with both Microsoft Windows and Linux, he could eliminate the cost of Microsoft Office and reduce the need for periodic and expensive hardware upgrades.

However, it was not sufficient that OpenOffice.org was free software; it was also essential that the software meet the school's requirements for quality and functionality. As a college preparatory school with almost a thousand students, U of D Jesuit has a strong commitment to academics, including teaching technology. Any office suite chosen for the school would have to meet the requirements of both students and faculty in terms of stability, functions, and features. Hansknecht would also have to convince the school's Faculty Technology Committee, with both facts and a cost analysis, that OpenOffice.org was a good choice.

The essential facts were these: The school had a total of 158 newer PCs running Microsoft Windows XP, and 110 older PCs running Microsoft Windows NT and Microsoft Office 97. Realistically, upgrading the older PCs to Windows XP would require a complete hardware replacement. As an alternative, Hansknecht thought the older PCs could be converted to Linux terminals using software from the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP). Although it would be necessary to purchase Linux servers to support LTSP clients, no PC replacements would be required.

The cost analysis was compelling -- the Linux option could...




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Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Good choices.

I still like MS Office just a tad beter because it looks nicer.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Open Office is, IMO, one of the best open source alternatives available. The only gripes I had were:
1. No support for multiple user accounts. This was a necessity for me since my kids do most of their homework as Word documents. I have them set up with their own user accounts, and if I have to keep loging them into my account so they can do their homework, it pretty much defeats the purpose.
2.MS Excel worksheets opened in OO get "re-aligned" and if opened in Excel again after making changes in OO, the document either can't be opened or the cell formatting was lost.
The user account issue may be fixed in version 2.0, I know that was a known issue.
The OO version of Powerpoint didn't seem quite as polished as MS Office, but I will admit that I'm only going by what my son told when he was trying to put together a PP presentation for a school project. He was having trouble putting it together in OO, and a few days later I installed MS Office 2003, and he said it was much easier.
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
He was having trouble putting it together in OO, and a few days later I installed MS Office 2003, and he said it was much easier.


Yes, Impress is the worst OOo proggy.