Ontario Schools License StarOffice

An anonymous reader writes "Sun Microsystems has signed a contract with the Ontario Ministry of Education in one of the biggest deals yet for its StarOffice software. It covers 72 public and parochial school boards in Ontario. All will be licensed to use StarOffice 7 on all school-owned PCs. Financial details weren't disclosed but Ontario school officials said the cost is 'minimal.'" Reader Apostata adds that the move "will see the application suite used by 2.5 million students. No word on whether it ships with 'Canadian English' pack ;)"

About damn time

[asit+ler]

It's about time some major organization, even a non-profit, started using StarOffice, or OOo.

Re:Licensed...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not get support for very little money. Sun has such a low cost per seat that there would have been no point to using OOo instead of SO. Perhaps you would like to see development in OOo slow down, because if SO does not make Sun money, that's exactly what will happen.

Re:Fools!

[AmNotAScript]

But they want the SUPPORT that comes with StarOffice.

Re:Hosers

[momerath2003]

Oh my that's funny. And so original.

Yes, just like everything else on Slashdot. I have a carefully targeted audience. /bows

No chance

[lavalyn]

Corel had a huge deal with the Ontario Board of Education a few years back, to get WordPerfect onto every computer. They got it installed... but nobody used it. The Microsoft hold was too strong by then. And this was like 2000. I don't think this had changed...

I recall talking to the "computer" teacher/sysadmin at the time, suggesting WordPerfect or StarDivison's Staroffice on the additional Word licenses the school held. His answer was basically "but nobody will use it." Educators after all aren't accountable for costs like private businesses would be.

Re:Hosers

[Mr. Flibble]

As a Canadian, I was going to make this very joke, but I was beat to the punch.

However, I would like to know from those Americans on Slashdot: Where the heck does "aboot" come from? I have never met anyone in Canada that pronounces "about" as "aboot". Do any of you know where this originates?

(PS: "Zed" not "Zee" ;)

Re:Cost?

[Zeebs]

Well it is somewhere, the problem is that no one cares to look for it unless the money is declared missing by the opposition party. I believe on a whole we trust our government a slight bit more, until that it is it's brought to our attention. Good thing there is a federal election here on June 28th, god willing a minority liberal government will be in control.

PS for Canadian Slashdot'ers: Voting is as easy as ABC, Anybody But Conservative

Re:Backstory

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunatly the problem (at least in California) is the teachers union. What percentage of increase in spending actually to directly educating the children, I.E new equipment, new texts, new schools. Hardly 25%. Most goes to Teachers salaries, administration salaries et al. Now there is no problem with paying teachers and administrators more money, but don't you think they should do a better job to earn it?

Flamebait or no, time and time again socialism and liberalism is proven to be the most inefficient form of government.

spelling and grammer errors brought to you by California's finest public education.

Need OO.o to MS filters

[bstadil]

I agree. We need openoffice to MS Office filters though. I am tired of sending .sxw or .sxc files to people and having to later point to OO.c for them to read it. (Sending .doc files is not an option, as it plays to MS)

I would be much better if you could suggest a filter that they could use within MS Office to read and write OO.o files directly.

Once OO.o reaches a 15%-20% marketshare, the battle is won as you can then demand they read your files not that they need to be "translated"

Before everyone starts complaining...

[Granos]

Before everyone starts complaining about why they didn't use a free alternative like OOo, look at the Star Office 7 link in the summary. It IS free for educational use:
Education No license fees; cost of media and shipping
It was probably cheaper than trying to burn and distrubute thousands and thousands of OOo CDs, since most schools don't have CD burners available that would be able to produce a quantity like that. They bulk of the 'minimal' amount of money probably went to a support contract.

Microsoft will retaliate

[tisme]

Microsoft is not going to let this happen, and I think I know what they will do. First, drastic price cuts will be implemented followed by the creation of additional tools and resources for schools and teachers.

The reason Microsoft will refuse to give in, even if it means that they might lose a load of money in the short run, is because they understand that if they can get students hooked while they are young, they can keep perpetuating a monopoly. My younger siblings want Microsoft Word/Powerpoint/Excel on their computer/laptop simply because they know it from school.

It will be a tough fight if larger inroads are made, because Microsoft will certainly retaliate. Another problem is schools are still able to opt for Microsoft Office instead, which many of them will certainly do.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Hosers

[lvdrproject]

Actually, America didn't have the chance to 'hold over' the use of -'ise' in verbs. When America was still a colony (colonies, if you prefer), the British actually used -'ize', which was the original form. It wasn't until the 1800s, when they decided to emulate spelling changes in the language of their neighbours across the channel, that they changed to -'ise'. The Americans, of course, had already mostly established their language (and their country), and didn't have the influence of the French like the British did, so they left theirs -'ize'.

Coincidentally, even some British schools of grammar continue to use -'ize'. (Oxford, for example -- the traitors.)

Is this such a great idea...?

[Anonymous Coward]

... Training students with a suite of programs that (unfortunately) aren't used by most of the corporate world?

Yes, it's good for StarOffice to gain a foothold in the next generation. But being proficient in it won't get you a job.

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[1u3hr]

I agree. We need openoffice to MS Office filters though. I am tired of sending .sxw or .sxc files to people

• plain text
• HTML
• PDF
• RTF

Re:Fools!

[jm91509]

And who would you have look after re-training required?

Its for schools. They havn't been trained at all yet.

Get em while they're young :)

Re:Backstory

[monkeyneck]

"spelling and grammer errors brought to you by California's finest public education" Make that: spelling and grammar errors brought to you by someone who'd rather blame the system than learn some shit on his/her own.

Re:Backstory

[neilcSD]

It doesn't matter what the motivation is. They could have switched from Microsoft because little green men from Mars made them. The bottom line is, the sooner we can de-indoctrinate (is that a word?) people from Microsoft products, and in greater amounts, the sooner they will go away.

CD's?

[phorm]

Our school district uses OO, and we don't burn CD's. That's what network shares are for. For unconnected machines, sure - you can use a CD - we techs have them. A user could burn a copy if needed.

It's easier to network-install 3-5 copies rather than popping CD's in and out anyhow, and I'd imagine most PC's are not standalone these days.

Re:And the point is

[hawkeyeMI]

Much of an MS-hater as I am (and oh, I am), just try that on a resume or other such application that requires MS or other closed formats.

I mean, maybe you don't want to work for a company with such policies anyway, but often HR is quite separate from where you'll actually be working... if you get the job.

Not that I have real world experience, being a professional student at this point. I'm just pessimistic and cynical when it comes to cracking the MS stranglehold.

Windows free since 2000

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[1u3hr]

I am aware of this. The point was to just send native OO.o files. Not some old or half asses fileformat developed for a different purpose.

Those formats were all designed for interchange. Both doc and oo.o files were designed primarily to be used with their respective Wordprocessors. It's following MS's paradigm to send wordprocessing files when a much simpler format does the job without a special plugin.

Logo Computer

[hey]

Anybody remeber the "Logo" computer that was developed by the Ontario Ministry of Education. In the eary PC days. (No, I don't mean the Logo language.)

Those damn teachers

[phliar]

Yeah, why should teachers be paid more than plumbers? They only take care of our children, not toilets, which everyone knows are more important.

Re:Hosers

[0racle]

Talk to some Maritimer then. especially someone with a thick Newfie accent.

Re:Those damn teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

You give fucking teachers more money and it reduces the status of status of <subliminal>scumsucking parasites</subliminal> important people who engage in <subliminal>corporate masturbation</subliminal> wealth creation.

We know whats right and who's important and it's certainly not children attending public schools or their parents.

Somehow the Republican party has managed the greatest PR stunt of all time, becoming a populist movement. A non-rich Republican is like a submissive lapping up their master's piss, but talk radio and helpless anger have taught those assholes to love the whip and so they do.

Re:No chance

[CoolGuySteve]

I was in school around that time. The problem wasn't so much that Office was good but rather that Word Perfect sucked. It was unstable, would present artifacts on the screen at times, was ugly, and was generally slow to load. Office was fast and relatively nice even though dealing with its autoformatting was a huge pain in the ass.

The NT4 systems just tended to rot away after a while and need reghosting. Maybe the rotting took a heavier toll on WP.

That being said, both word processors had little quirks that made them weird to use for students. To find the word count in Word Perfect, you have to go to File->Properties and click a tab, none which is immediately obvious. In Office, to doublespace a document, you had to go to Format->Paragraph and set line spacing to 2.0. You'd figure both companies would have gotten their acts together enough to make their products appeal to those who would ultimately choose one for a good part of their life.

And as an aside, another argument used against WP was that Office was what was used in business and for some students, high school would be the only access to any kind of computer training in their lifetime, especially if they didn't have a computer at home. Not everyone goes on to post-secondary education.

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[Ckwop]

Once OO.o reaches a 15%-20% marketshare, the battle is won as you can then demand they read your files not that they need to be "translated"

Yeah.. Microsoft are going to give over that easily. Sure, they'll allow you to read the text in your Open Office document no problem but it wont look right. The font might be slightly different, or the margins might be annoyingly out, or that image you placed in the document might be a little off centre.

Then a few months later you hear the board screaming about these faulty .sxw files. "Why don't those files load properly in Microsoft Office.. open office is a pack of shit" - It doesn't matter what you say in response they've already made up their mind..

Remember, large companies are part of the battle but the real Microsoft heartland is the SME. In a typical UK SME, the IT provision usually falls under the control of the Finance director and in general they have no real desire to know the details of the IT industry. This makes justifying anything that isn't directly related to an impact on bottom line rather difficult.

As a key example.. our main company database doesn't even meet first normal form. It's clear to everyone here that such a database is so deeply flawed that it has to be replaced. However, trying to convince them that the move into a normalised solution a whole host better is like trying to square the circle. It's not that they don't agree the proposed solution is better they simply don't see it as important enough to warrent change. It's very odd.

Simon

Re:Backstory

[NanoGator]

"The bottom line is, the sooner we can de-indoctrinate (is that a word?) people from Microsoft products, and in greater amounts, the sooner they will go away."

Oh brother. So your motivation is "destroy Microsoft"? You just hate them, so be gone with them? +5 Insightful?

Look, I'm not exactly in love with Microsoft here, but the reason that they're in this monopoly in the first place is they have made a VERY useful app. Spare me the "Oh they made a monopoly out of nothing and then put a gun to millions of people's heads" theories, as long as people are complaining that the alternatives are missing features then the Microsoft 'doctrine' is going to remain quite strong.

It's cool that somebody took a leap and started using Open Office, but man, don't turn this into a "ding dong MS is dead" pitchfork party.

Re:Backstory

[Florian Weimer]

They still have too much too much money if they license StarOffice, instead of just installing OpenOffice for free.

Re:Those damn teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about that carefully. You'll take a lousy teacher over a lousy plumber any day of the week and you know it. Plumbers get paid more because they fix the immediate concern. Your child won't show the effect of lousy teachers until years later. But you saved a few bucks in the meantime and your toilet didn't overflow. And thats whats really important. Screw the children if you can't keep a female from running out of the house screaming.

Re:Backstory

[wolftone]

I'd love to say an anti-socialist system works any better. Here in the public schools of Seattle, teachers are paid peanuts, textbooks still refer to the Soviet Union as current politics, the buildings are poorly maintained (in favor of a current rebuilding/remodelling phase which was thirty years overdue), the boys' bathrooms don't have paper towels or doors to the stalls, but (almost) every classroom has at least one nice and shiny Dell with WinXP.

Now there is no problem with paying teachers and administrators more money, but don't you think they should do a better job to earn it?

Sure. But cut their classes in half (from an average of thirty students to an average of fifteen) before judging their teaching ability.

only StarOffice?

[latroM]

I wonder if they have same kind of a setup than in my school where both M$ Office and StarOffice are installed. Microsoft provides very cheap school agreements so there isn't a big incentive to choose only StarOffice. And guess which one of the office suites is used primarily in my school.

Re:Backstory

[1u3hr]

but the reason that they're in this monopoly in the first place is they have made a VERY useful app.

Many, myself among them, would say that it's more to do with bundling and intimidation of OEMs who offered alternatives. Certainly MS Office does the job, but given an hour to get used to it, WordPerfect's suite, IBM's SmartSuite, or several other lesser-known ones would satisfy the vast majority of users. If you've ever been in a real office and watched people using it, most never stray from: enter text, style by clicking on the formatting bar, print/save/send.

Re:Backstory

[16K Ram Pack]

I don't support the "destroy Microsoft" line, but creating a genuine choice based on open standards would be a very good thing.

The problem I can see for Microsoft is that once something like Open/Star Office reaches a certain point (say 20%), Microsoft could get into deep trouble. At that point, everyone will know someone who uses Star/Open Office.

The biggest challenge for Open Office isn't quality of product. It's awareness and confidence.

Re:Backstory

[kubrick]

. Spare me the "Oh they made a monopoly out of nothing and then put a gun to millions of people's heads" theories

don't turn this into a "ding dong MS is dead" pitchfork party

I didn't see either of these statements in the post you were replying to. Nice collection of strawmen you have there -- are they made from official astroturf?

Re:Backstory

[Trent05]

Why should Windows users be "cured". It's an operating system that is easy to use, is widely supported and easy to support. I have a Red Hat 9 box that runs like a champ but can be a pain in the butt sometimes and I'd hate like hell to support it over the phone to family. I haven't had a virus since ?Elvira? back in 94 or 95, and that's though using various Windows boxes from 88' to present.
I'd LOVE to see Linux become mainstream, but it still ain't there yet. It's a differnt OS for a different purpose/user.
Just my .02

Re:Backstory

[christophersaul]

StarOffice comes out in regular, supported editions, much easier than managing a large deployment of various OpenOffice versions with noone to fall back on for advice.

Re:Backstory

[kiwaiti]

In many cases, MS Office is bought because users are assumed to be more familiar with it than with alternatives, not because it has any cool features alternatives would lack.

Give millions of students a chance to take their first steps in Open/Star Office, and alternatives to MS may seem more viable as a choice for large office environments, where user confusion is a major cost threat.

Kiwaiti

This could be huge one day

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only does Ontario have a multitude of high schools...they also have several world-class Universities. University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, Queens, and McMaster are just naming a few. I myself go to U of Waterloo and I know that in our engineering labs we're given the choice of using either OpenOffice or MS Office (forced to use OpenOffice in some of the lower budget labs). Now who attends Ontario Universities? Ontario students! If these students develop a preference for Star/OpenOffice, it's likely that you'll start to see MS Word disappear from our institutions of higher learning. Once you have everyone familiar with StarOffice and Netscape 7.x (it's offered as an alternative to IE on all school machines, despite the fact it's clunky as sin), a full switch to a Linux-based environment is just a hop, skip and a jump away. Now if only some of the more specializing companies made linux ports of their software.

Re:Backstory

[Herschel Cohen]

RE "...can't access documents created by the other 98% of the world?"

if formats were open it would not be an issue. The closed formats are to retain a monopoly. Moreover, if a competing office software gained even 20% share you might see those <b><i>glorious</i></b> documents in other formats.

Re:Our situation - been there...

[Chordonblue]

Been there and done that my friend. Here's the reasons I put forth:

1) Take a look through history - that's the 'real world'. Has it ALWAYS been MS Windows Office? I'll bet not. In fact, I'll bet it's been Wordperfect for DOS and Windows, Xywrite, Word for DOS and Windows, etc. The fact is that computer software evolves quickly, and your principal needs to get over it.

First and foremost, educational facilities shouldn't be pushing a particular brand 'X' software either, particularly from a company convicted of monopolistic practices. Most of what needs to be done in OOo is completely translatable to Word or Wordperfect with minimal effort.

2) Everyone DOES NOT have MS Office at home. That's a crock. What versions might they have - it matters. Do you realize that many people buying a Dell now are getting Wordperfect as a default office suite? What about older, incompatible versions of MS Office? .DOC is hardly a 'standard' just ask anyone whose tried to convert old 'Works' documents.

3) Win over the STAFF and get it in their homes. Let the staff see OOo in operation. Find out what their objections are (there will be some). Eliminate the unrealistic ones. Point out the advantages (they get a free copy, PDF/Flash support, etc.)

4) OOo or StarOffice is great and has been terrific for us because of standardization. Every student, teacher, and staff member uses it and guess what? Everything just works. No document incompatibilities because one document was formatted for someone else's printer. No issues with international characters. No licensing issues.

5) Which staff member was willing to take a pay cut to help finance Microsoft? That's the question I posed and what it was coming down to at the time. We were really in serious straights three years ago financially and things were tight. Money ended up being a prime motivator, but the software has proven itself over time.

Feel free to shoot me an email if you'd like to discuss this further. I'm also the tech coordinator of a small all-girls private school here in PA. We converted to StarOffice/OOo three years ago and haven't looked back.

Re:Backstory

[kiwaiti]

Schools don't care what their students are used to, nor should they. They're there to learn, after all.

I was talking about the companies these students will one day be working for. Imagine you are to buy something to allow basic word processing. If 80% of your workforce know MSWord, while 20% have never really used a computer at all, it's obviously easier in terms of training to buy what most know than to retrain them all. That's what people accuse Star Office of - not being MS.

If students familiarize themselves with Star Office rather than MS Office, not choosing MS Office will make more business sense in a few years.

Kiwaiti

Where's the Insentive

[Psymunn]

Why become a teacher if you don't get payed well? Up here, in vancouver, thanks to unions, you can get payed just as much to be the shcool janitor AND you save yourself 5 years in college. This of course is two sperate problems rolled into one (skilled workers getting payed to little, unskilled workers getting payed to much) but it essentially means that, you are better off not getting a degree and working as a care aid or janitor, OR getting a degree in a trade or business. So why would you teach? The only people who go into teaching now are idealists who want to make the world a better place and it isn't long before they become jaded by the school system.
We need to give teachers a salary proportional to the work and skill that was required to get the job not just to keep them happy but to attract a wider range of candidates

Re:Backstory

[Leon_Trotsky]

Whoa! Looks like someone voted for Harris...

Holy sheit dude. I'd like to see you survive 5 minutes in a room full of homicidal/suicidal/hormonal maniacs.

I know I couldn't do it, but if I did - I would want to be damn well paid for it!!!

Re:Backstory

[Darlock]

Obviously you are angry at the benefits teachers get because you don't think they deserve them.

A couple things to consider.

1) Teachers are part of a UNION. My father was in a union at a lumber mill and they were payed more than they were worth and the benefits were phenominal. The same goes for teachers. It is the way unions work.

2) Teachers have a quick burn-out rate. You think babysitting your bitchy kid is easy day in and day out? No, it isn't. Now add 30 more bitchy kids to the list.

3) Teachers are in high demand. High demand = more money/benefits.

So? What's you point?

[brunes69]

You realize there are more than two parties you know.

I am pissed off at the Liberals too, but I am defiantly not going to help voting in a homo-phobic, anti-abortion right-wing wacko. I am voting NDP. And I would strongly urge any Canadian who values civil rights to do the same.

Re:Backstory

[NanoGator]

"i should i have clarified for the peanuts gallery that "they" are monopolistic organizations that conspire to limit choice, forcing people to use their overpriced (and in this case, unstable) products."

I agree, you should spend more time making yourself clear. Now I know my statement was true.

As for 'forcing people', sorry bub, the market forced that. Microsoft tried (is trying?) to help it along, no denying that, but the the simple fact of the matter is that Microsoft could not possibly create a monopoly without a MASSIVE amount of people saying "we want this." It's funny what you'll observe when you push aside the "I hate the popular company to hate" feelings and just LOOK at what happened.

"does that make you feel better?"

Yes it does, thank you. :)

"better grab a kleenex and wipe that snot out of your nose."

I've heard a lot of impressive insults on Slashdot. That wasn't one of them. Heh. I'm sorry I made an obseration about how you are coming across. I should have used my telepathy to read what you didn't say.