The French Culture and Communication Ministry has almost finished replacing Microsoft Office 97 with the Open Source alternative OpenOffice.
Over the next few months the ministry will complete installing the most recent version of OpenOffice on all 2500 computers of its services in the Paris region office buildings. Some 2300 PCs in other offices, departments and overseas departments will undertake the transition next year. Of the 26 regional departments for Cultural Affairs that are independent from the ministry, 18 have also decided to switch.
The decision to migrate to the Open Source suite of office applications was taken after two rounds of successful tests that began in 2005. Replacing Microsoft Office is part of the government's policy to offer its administrations well-performing, efficient, open and long lasting software applications, say Patrick Chaussat, chief of the IT department that assists users at the Cultural Ministry. "The free OpenOffice suite meets all of these requirements and helps us to reduce costs."
This IT policy also prompted the ministry to use the Open Source operating system GNU/Linux for several of its servers and the Open Source Mozilla Thunderbird for e-mail.
The ministry was forced to find a replacement for its suite of office software, Microsoft Office, as the '97 version was no longer being supported by Microsoft. According to Chaussat, OpenOffice compares very well with all the other office applications.
The ministry compiled a long list of all the benefits it found in OpenOffice.
There are a number of advantages for the users, adds Chaussat. OpenOffice offers them an interface that closely resembles Microsoft Office, allowing the users to find their way easily. It works equally well on PCs running Windows or GNU/Linux and can be installed on Mac OS X. "The Open Source software allows installation by the Ministry's staff on their personal computers, which should help harmonise work and private computing environments."
The suite can also store documents in internationally approved formats, such as PDF (Portable Document Format) and ODF (Open Document Format). The IT department next expects to reduce storage needs, as OpenOffice is better in compressing documents than other applications.
Lastly, OpenOffice offers equivalent functionality to alternative applications and is able to handle most documents made with these. OpenOffice creates documents using XML (Extensible Markup Language), a flexible mark-up language defined by public technical specifications. "This guarantees that our files will remain compatible with other applications and will always be accessible."
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