Sunday, March 19th, 2006, 7:28 pm
OpenOffice 150 Times Cheaper than Microsoft Office?
According to the French, OpenOffice is far more affordable than Microsoft Office. Although the figures do not account for running costs, at least on the face of it, they provide an initial estimate of TCO.
The French tax agency claims that upgrading its 80,000 desktops to Office XP would cost €29.5m, but switching to OpenOffice.org only €200,000
In other news, France will invest plenty of money in Open Source projects. The story’s original source states:
Capgemini, LINAGORA and Bull recently won the largest Open Source support, maintenance and solution development project in the country, as part of the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry’s COPERNIC program. The deal is worth a minimum of €15 million and a maximum of €40 million over three years.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Hi, could you correct my trackback? Mistyped the number as 250, not 150, which is kind of embarrassing. ;>
Great to hear about this. The whole Microsoft line that open source is more expensive is just ludicrous.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
OpenOffice 150 Times Cheaper Than Microsoft Office?
Yep, that’s the statement from the French. OpenOffice.org is 150 times cheaper than Microsoft Office. And this is the French tax office that’s switching, so you’ve got to think they’ve got the numbers right. The French tax agency claims that
March 20th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Thanks for citing this, Solveig.
Microsoft’s FUD campaigns are intended to spread whatever lies serve their purpose. They also contradict IBM’s analysis, which says Linux 45% cheaper to setup and maintain than counterparts. Their deep pockets allow them to make some big noise with their lies too (e.g. Google ‘linux’ and find microsoft.com at the top).