[mdlug] IBM plants Linux on the desktop

[Aaron Kulkis]

Robert Adkins wrote:
> Michael Corral wrote:
>> Ingles, Raymond a ecrit:
>>   
>>> Well, my wife is tired of OpenOffice and wants to go back to MS Office.
>>> She uses office stuff a lot more than me and has been doing it for a few
>>> months now, but she's done with the learning curve.
>>>
>>> Any advice?
>>>     
>> Clearly you need to upgrade to Wife 2.0. ;)
>>
>> Is she using OpenOffice at work, or just at home?
>> If it's at home, then obviously there is no *requirement* to use it,
>> which makes it easier for her to demand to go back to MS Office.
>> And she's right; this is just for home use and in her home she should
>> be able to use whatever she feels the most comfortable with. If that
>> happens to be MS Office then fine. Nothing wrong with that, it's her
>> preference.
>>
>> If this is at work, then that's a different matter. At work you have to
>> use what you're supposed to use, period. I'm forced to use Windows at
>> work, which is clearly not my preference. But I value my job and my
>> livelihood so I use it. I don't whine about it (while I'm at work:),
>> that's just a waste of time. I just accept it and get on with what I
>> have to do. But I do push Linux when the situation is appropriate.
>>
>> Michael
>>   
>     At work you have a large number of users who will balk, whine, 
> complain and slowdown if not outright stop being productive while they 
> "fight" to return to the "old way".
> 
>     In an effort to cut costs, I have always had a policy of only 
> buying/installing software that is required to do the job. On a handful 
> of workstations I have installed OpenOffice.org 2.0. At one time, there 
> was an employee who raised an endless shit storm over having to use 
> OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Excel to open and view (Not edit or 
> create, that wasn't something he ever did) Excel documents. He was in an 
> "important" position so, the boss told me to buy and install MS Office 
> onto that PC.
> 
>     He rarely ever used it, his bitching stopped.
> 
>     This is what cost savings can and will do to a company. You will 
> have some people go with the flow and others bitch up a storm hoping to 
> get their way.

Part of "change management" is managing the change...

such as .. putting out the message:

Change is coming.

The changes WILL happen -- those who are paid to make
this decision have already made the decision.

Those who change with it, will continue to work here.
Those who cannot change with the business should plan on
going to lots of job interviews at other employers, while
we, at the same time, will be conducting interviews of
potential new employees.

Those who actively resist or sabotage the change will
find that their grace period is significantly shorter
than they might wish.  Mr. (or Ms.) [name of whiner here],
I suggest you might want to look for a few cardboard
boxes for your personnel posessions within a couple
of days.

Those of you who remain will reap the benefits of
lower overhead costs ($xxxx/desktop) and fewer
employees for the same company income.

When you get SPECIFIC about the consequences of
stepping out of line, vs. the rewards of WORKING
things out, you will see a better response.

> 
>     Rob
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