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The MS Alternative: Re-Visited

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by tomsal 1 view

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This is a constantly repeating topic throughout the IT world I know...but its been a while since I continued looking for Microsoft Alternatives that are actually VIABLE in *PRODUCTION* environments NOW, for little cost.

In case you wonder, what made me spark this interest again -- we recently looked at the costs to upgrade our server, office suite apps and network services (ie. DNS, WINS, Index server, etc.). Well just to shed some light on things we have been in a slow revenue period for the last 2 quarters now, and our quote for just server upgrades (to Windows 2k3) and office apps (btw, I am fighting this one -- I don't feel we need to change office apps but the higher ups want me to research it anyway) come to nearly six figures.

AND that doesn't include us upgrading Exchange nor buying a brand new server for exchange.

I looked into OpenOffice in the past (which is to say within the last 18 months) but the one thing I was disappointed with is no "Outlook"-like alternative mail client. The thing that MS came closest to gettting it "right" with regards to the MS office suite was Outlook. It is the one product that we actually like (I'm talking POST Office 97 versions, 97 is a headache).

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by jimhm

My company did a 3 month financial and technical evaluation of MS Office Upgrade or Pull and install Star Office.

Costs and technical won for Star Office - interesting. We are in the midist of planning the rollout and training sessions for the new product. Will let everyone know how it goes.

But we are pulling away quickly from MS and more to the Open environment - next step - Linux.

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