TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: My New OpenOffice.org tcolumn From:"Mike O." <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 8 Mar 2004 15:00:43 -0500
John Posada wrote:
> Every two weeks, I go online and enter my time allocation in
> an Excel spreadsheet. On save, the data is automatically pulled
> from the spreadsheet and populated into an Access database
> that is used for cost accounting for each product. This isn't
> insignificant data.
>
> IT, HR, Accounting, and ProdMgmt are going to want to
> know that this instance and every similar instance is going to
> behave exactly as previously designed because it affects
> bottom line.
If they want it to behave as previously designed, they need to use the
Microsoft tools. MHO, Excel provides an amazing toolset for accountants and
managers. They are addicted to it the same way secretaries used to be
addicted to WP5.1. It will be difficult to make that switch without
one-for-one functional equivalence.
If they really want to realize ROI from a shift to open-source tools, they
will have to commit to converting across the enterprise. For example, your
timesheet app could be recreated in a PHP/MySQL/Web application without too
much trouble. Or you could use one of the prebuilt solutions using those
same tools.
Sure, if you just drop OpenOffice into a Microsoft shop, there are going to
be lots of problems. But if you make a committment to an enterprise-wide OSS
infrastructure and reskill your support staff accordingly, then the full ROI
potential becomes available to you.
ROBOHELP IS THE INDUSTRY STANDARD IN HELP AUTHORING
New RoboHelp X5 includes all new features such as,
content management, multi-author support, distributed
workforce support, XML and PDF support, and much more!
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
