Office365 or Open Source – the better choice

A recent exchange between an Italian CIO, Stefano Bruscoli,

Municipality of Pesaro, and Microsoft has sparked some conversation

over which productivity software is more cost effective, Office365 or

Open Source.

Microsoft published a report based off of this exchange that states that

Microsoft Office 365 is 80% cheaper than alternative open source

software like OpenOffice. Despite the discovery that this statement is

slanted heavily in bias of Microsoft, what still remains to be discovered

is how much truth does this claim actually have?

What makes this claim biased?

The report that made this 80% cheaper cost claim was based off of the

15 minute loss of productivity “tefa o B us oli’s tea as e pe ie i g due to problems reviewing, formatting, and having software crash

when using OpenOffice.

The catch is, these issues were simply adoption acclimation effects that

tapered off in the long-run. As the employees became more

accustomed to the software, the user count that was previously

experiencing the productivity loss dropped from 350 to a baseline of 50

employees.

Mi osoft’s lai of ei g heape did ot fa to i this tape ed g aph, but instead created a projection of loss that visualized into a straight

li e o e the ou se of fi e ea s. What the o pa ’s a tual losses looked more like this:

As opposed to saving on better or worse software, these numbers

reflect the difficulties that employees encounter when adopting new

software and how long it may take to completely adapt. This can often

take quite a few years because of the amount of companies that

employ vendors rather than open source software.

“o, this egs the uestio , What as Mi osoft thi ki g he the eated this epo t that ade su h a lai ? to hi h the a s e is

simple: Microsoft did not consider things in the long-term when

considering how an employee changes in their interaction with a

software over time.

So, what is the better choice in the end?

With respect to this report and the claims made by Microsoft about

being the more cost effective choice, the best choice for each company

eventually boils down to what the company needs most. But this is not

a simple catch-all to sa it’s up to ou . I stead hat this ea s is that if your company absolutely depends on a software that offers full

compatibility, reliability, and vast feature options, the Office 365

subscription is likely worth the investment.

However, open source software is becoming more and more developed

by the year, with impressive management showing significant

improvements. Cost-wise, open source software can cover the

adoption costs innate in this route quite quickly. Many times this can fit

ight i to a o pa ’s eeds, espe iall if it is a s alle o pa looking to break-even on their startup costs as soon as possible.

In either choice of Microsoft Office 365 or an open source software,

we can support you in your migration. Drop us a message to find out

how to go about doing this.

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/p-158305/?no_redirect

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/is-office-365-really-cheaper-than-going-open-source