RE: [school-discuss] ANN: Calendula - fundraising for nonprofits and schools

[Chris Puttick <chris@centralmanclc.com>]

I have 2 sites now using SLOX, who wouldn't be if they couldn't have held
onto their Outlook security blanket. I'm confident that after a year, very
few will be still using Outlook as their method of accessing the services.
To be sure, if I had director equivalent status, the users would have just
been sent on a course to learn SLOX, and Outlook would have been phased out
as SLOX was phased in. Although maybe not in the current UK teacher-employer
relations atmosphere!

OpenOffice.org have an interface that in functionality, look and feel is
similar enough to MS Office to not bother most users, once they have had a
short familiarisation course (half day or less). Even though this is the
case, replacing MS Office in most schools is made difficult by the lack of a
drop-in replacement for Access. Never mind that OOo can do all the functions
used by the pupils in their projects, it doesn't do it in the same way, so
the school staff resist the change strongly. Now if someone can just get
around that one for me, I know 4 or 5 high schools who'd move immediately...

-----Original Message-----
From: Massimiliano Mirra
To: Chris Puttick
Cc: schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net
Sent: 8/1/03 2:22 PM
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] ANN: Calendula - fundraising for nonprofits
and schools

Chris Puttick <chris@centralmanclc.com> writes:

>>> (in addition to an easy-to-setup email program that integrates
>>> and group-shares calendar and webmail). 

>> It seems to me that web based groupware systems
>> already have all that is needed.  Is it just a matter of lulling
users
>> who are used to Outlook?

> Having Outlook support for migration purposes is essential. 

``Essential''?  So either you preserve the user interface or migration
is impossible?  Then OpenOffice.org and many others must be lots of
wasted effort, since there is no option of replacing a server program
while maintaining a client interface.

I see lots of folks running after proprietary software trying to
create replacements, while in the meantime Microsoft can leisurely
target ex novo installations and start building habits into new end
users.  Doesn't seem like a great strategy to me.