Migrations
in Japan
Case studies and Movements
Yutaka Kachi (OSRI)
Takamichi Akiyama
Self Introduction
Yutaka Kachi
[email protected]
2007 - Present Planner, investigator and document writer at Open
Source Research Institute, Inc. (OSRI)
Accomplishments: Several guidebooks on various application
software from OpenOffice.org to the desktop one for Japanese
users
Within the OpenOffice.org community, helping users and writing
documents.
Takamichi Akiyama
[email protected]
Software Engineer with 16+ years experience in SunOS and
Solaris
2007 - Present Self employed
- Offering IT solutions with
OpenOffice.org and StarSuite
2005 - 2006 Gooday, Inc.
- OpenOffice.org
1999 - 2003 Sun Microsystems, Japan
- I18n and l10n on OpenOffice.org 1.0
and StarSuite 6
1991 - 1999 Nippon Telegraph and
Telephone Corporation (NTT)
Agenda
The Reasons why migration has just
started in Japan
Three migration cases we helped
A town hall with StarSuite on SunRay Solaris,
OpenOffice.org on Windows servers and Windows PCs
A town hall with Linux PCs
A private company with OOo on Windows PCs
Movements in the government
The reasons why migration has just startedin Japan
The reasons
The reasons
OOo1.x
Functionality
Garbage characters
Crash with Japanese texts
Interoperability
Layout gets broken
Similarity
Different Use interface
OOo2.x
Functionality
Few garbage characters
Less crash
Interoperability
Improved
Similarity
achieved
Case 1Taisho Town Hall
StarSuite on SunRay SolarisOpenOffice.org on Windows servers
Town Taisho
Town Taisho
Location: Western part of Japan
Population: 3,275
With full of the nature
Town Hall
100 officers
Feasibility Test
2004 - Feasibility test
Supported by the local government
System configration
10 SunRay terminals
Sun Java Desktop System on Solaris 9
Evaluation
Working faster than PC
Easy to resume ongoing work by inserting a card
No problem with blackout
Able to remotely administrate the system
Lower costs for license administration
Higher security with a card and a password
Thin Client System
Existing System
SunRay 1g
August in 2005 - Production deployment
System configuration
80 SunRay terminals
Sun Java Desktop System on Solaris 9
StarSuite 7 (same as OpenOffice.org 1.1)
Positive opinions:
Same as the feasibility test
Negative opinions:
Poor Japanese functionality of StarSuite 7
Poor Interoperability with Microsoft Office files
File exchange with other government offices
Excel files with macros
4 months later,
Windows server was additionally installed
Production deployment
Town Shimanto
March in 2006 - Town Shimanto was born
Two towns and one village had joined
Staffs from the Taisho town hall continue to use SunRay
Staffs from the Kubokawa town hall want to use PC
120 PCs were additionally purchased
March in 2007 - the system was upgraded to
StarSuite 8 (same as OpenOffice.org 2.0) and Solaris 10
Present,
StarSuite 8 on SunRay terminals
OpenOffice.org 2.x on Windows PCs
and Terminal servers
Issues from the customer
Fixed: 56669
Enhancement: 53425 58227 67442 67446 70678
Started: 53607 61819
Case 2Ninomiya Town Hall
OpenOffice.org on Linux PCs
Ninomiya Town Hall
Town Ninomiya
Location: 100 km north of Tokyo
Population: 16,592
Major Industry: Agriculture
- Strawberries
Has been facing financial difficulties
Town Hall
Officers: 150
IT costs: 100M JPY (620K EUR) / year
Feasibility test
Feasibility test - January in 2006
Aims at evaluating how usable Linux PCs are
for daily works in a town hall
Sponsored by the IPA, Information-technology Promotion
Agency
For 3 months
Background
FOSS servers have been already installed
by Mr. Ebihara, chief of IT section
Apache, Postfix, XOOPS, BIND. ... on Linux
Most officers do not have high skill in IT
Mr. Ebihara
Migration
Migration
Threw out Windows PCs (98 / Me and Office)
Installed Novell SuSE Desktop Linux PCs
OpenOffice.org 2.0, Firefox, Mozilla mail, and VNC
The number of Linux PCs: 139
A few Windows PCs were remained for some
specific application software.
Excel for macro, Access, Japanese word processor
with traditional Japanese characters, DTP tool, ...
Those were remotely controlled by individual Linux PC via
VNC
Kachi trained all staffs
Training session
Evaluation
Return to WindowsTsu ka e ba na le ru - I will get used to
it
by using it -Comments on Linux PC
Evaluation
Inquiries on Linux PC
Help desk got 500 inquiries for three months
More than half of the inquiries were about OOo
Dropped sharplyInstallation
User support by the community
Ninomiya used Japanese OOo Q&A site
172 questions were submitted within 1 month
Conclusion
Conclusion of the test
Usability is good enough
Productivity is sustained
Mr. Ebihara says
Tsu ka e ba na le ru
- You get used to it if you use it
Case 3K. K. Ashisuto
OpenOffice.org on Windows PCs
K. K. Ashisuto
K. K. Ashisuto
Independent distributor / re-seller
Software packages: Oracle, HP, CA, ...
Offices: 1 headquarters and 7 branches
Staffs: 710
Windows PCs: 1100
http://www.ashisuto.co.jp/english/
To Launch a new business
To launch OpenOffice.org support business
Requirements
Knowledge base
Expertises in supporting OpenOffice.org
Issues and solutions
Lessons from the experiment installation
Issues
Problems with file exchange to / from external customers
Interoperability with existing systems
Use of Access and Excel
Excel macros do not work in the Accounting dep.
Solutions
Use of PDF files and/or Microsoft Office Viewer
Use of Access runtime for free
Rewriting Excel macros into OpenOffice.org Basic
Migration
Migration
Bill Totten, founder and president, commanded
removal of Microsoft Office from employee's PCs
It was executed on the next day of the day [*1]
when Microsoft released Windows Vista
*1: January 30, 2007
700 PCs has been migrated to OpenOffice.org
Collaboration
Collaboration with the community
To make it fast
Utilizes the Japanese OpenOffice.org Q&A web site
Consequently, the web site had some merits:
New bugs were reported
The number of Q&A entries has been constantly increasing
New areas of questions from experienced business users
They have become to answer to other Q&A entries
Asks expertises from the community to help them
Kachi lectured key-persons about OpenOffice.org
Akiyama and some members rewrote Excel files with macros and
Access applications
Summary of the cases
Comparison
Comparison of the cases
Movements in the government
Movements
Movements
IPA promotes IT Including Free Open Source Software (FOSS)
Research
Feasibility tests covering schools, municipalities, government
agencies, ...
Seagull Research Team 2006
Collected requests from Japanese users and
proposed specifications to the development team
Development
SELinux, PostgreSQL, Printing, Ruby,
OpenOffice.org, ...
CEC promotes IT for educational area, schools, ...
Feasibility tests, ...
Movements
Movements (cont'd)
Basic guidelines of government procurement for information
technology system became in effect on July 1st, 2007 saying
procurement specifications based on open standard would be
prioritized.
NHK (public broadcasting) reported "Japanese gov. would not
purchase Microsoft Word and Excel any more."
Microsoft promptly criticized the NHK.
Japan voted 'No with comments' for OOXML
Japan Industrial Standard (JIS) Committee plans to adopt
OpenDocument as its standard
Special sponsor
Thanks to Wiseknot, Inc.
Wiseknot is:
A parent company of OSRI for which Kachi works
OpenSource Solution Company in Japan
Developing document sharing services supporting
ODF, PDF, Microsoft Office, and more...
Thanks for your attention
Q & A
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Migrations in Japan
FunctionalityInteroperabilitySimilarity
2002OOo 1.0 / SS 6
2003OOo 1.1 / SS 7
20042005OOo 2.0 / SS 8
??? ??? (???)2007/09/20, 18:28:00 / Case 1Case 2Case
3TitleTaishoNinomiyaAshisutoEnvironmentSunRayLinuxWindows
+Windows+Windows
# of PCs80139700Office Suite SS 8OOo 2Daily
workWindowsRemainsExcel MacroIgnoredRewritingAccess
IgnoredRuntimeruntime
???Page ??? (???)09/21/2007, 08:02:02Page / 2006/8Research on
OpenOffice.org
10Experimental installation in the Sales Dep.
2007/1Removal of Microsoft Office from andInstallation of
OpenOffice.org to 700 PCs
5Rewriting Excel macros and Access applications
6Starting OpenOffice.org support business
???Page ??? (???)09/21/2007, 08:02:02Page /
700300100OpenOffice.org
For sales and common tasks
For sales and common tasks
For customer support
For general use
