Desktop Revolution: Office Software and Groupware under the TCO-X-ray

The SOREON TCOTCO case studies show: Savings of up to 25% are possible with alternatives to MicrosoftMicrosoft Office. Significant savings potentials for the license and operating costs make Open SourceOpen Source programs, like OpenOffice or StarOffice, an alternative to Microsoft to be reckoned with. Alles zu Microsoft auf CIO.de Alles zu Open Source auf CIO.de Alles zu TCO auf CIO.de

Medium enterprises can enjoy the greatest savings potential with Office. Companies with more than 1,000 office workstations have the greatest savings potential, as they possess a professional IT department and hence can efficiently deploy new Open Source software.

Small enterprises with up to 100 office workstations hardly benefit from savings when switching over to any of the Microsoft alternatives. The re-training of the employees and the additional support expenditure is too costly - even if hard cash can be saved when it comes to the licenses.

Global enterprises and very large organizations can realize savings of up to 20% in Office-Desktop related TCO. The savings potential, however, shrinks relative to the number of clients, as Microsoft increasingly offers licenses to the larger key accounts at very attractive cut prices to beat the competition.

The most important cost drivers for Office systems are support and administration. Support and administration generally account for over 70% of the TCO of a desktop office system. It is therefore of vital importance that a software vendor is also in a position to offer cost-effective support agreements in this area.