Upgrading Microsoft Office

The main reason that many companies do not upgrade is simply that the politics that govern spending in these companies do not allow for such a change. The mentality is "Hey, it's working, why change it?". They fail to recognize that there may be tangible benefits for them to upgrade.

Quite possibly, they many just not be able to justify the expense of the upgrade. They don't need the functionality and they don't have the extra cash. In an organization of 500+ people that is struggling financially, upgrading word processors is hardly on the top of the spending food chain.

Sometimes, the only thing that can drive a company to upgrade is when a key client demands that they be able to communicate through electronic means and share documents.

I hope this helps.

We are a small company that (still) uses a Unix 'mini' and dumb terminals for our main applications. We have some pcs in place, mainly for documentation, quality measurements, and communication with customers and vendors. We're only using Office 97 (instead of a previous version) because a key customer uses Word and Excel and they set the version. Even though I'm aware of the changes/additions in the newer versions, they don't seem to provide enough benefit to be worth the cost (in hardware and software). Similarly, since our pcs are not 'business critical', they are a couple of years short of leading edge technology, too. Since we self-maintain, the only real driving force is reliability and available parts. In other environments, Ican see how this could be different, though.

Whilst I agree with everyone else; my personal experience is that whilst it would be nice to serve one version of MS Office; a company wide roll-out will involve far too many logistics.

Is the software issued by running a batch-file that will mapthe user's b:\ drive during the running of their log-on script, do I send each user a batch file that will accomplish the task via e-mail, or do we plan for a Support Engineer to visit the individual user's desk, (with 5,000 users this is impractical).

The you need to consider, that 80% of a mass software roll-out is successful, with users experiencing problems from the lack of disc-space to a system failure; which then means a visit from the Support Engineer.

If the systems has little HDspace available, you're then looking at a system upgrade - HD / workstation - possibly for the whole user base .. does the user have enough memory to operate this new roll-out.

In reality in a large company, it is better to start with those who really need the software first - as they will become your test users; where you are able to learn the lessons, and adjust the implementation project accordingly

Arthur