Bangkok--18 May--ICT for All Club
From the ICT for All-Symposium 2011 on “Success Factors of Migration to OpenOffice.orgin Organizations” April 22, 2011, at Meeting Room, The Walailak University, Bangkokcampus, 979/42-46 , SM Tower, Floor 19, Phahonyothin road, Phayathai district, BangkokMetro, Kingdom of Thailand, organized by the Information and Communication Technologyfor All Club (ICT for All Club—www.ictforall.org). The goal of this focus group discussion isto bring together interested academics from all sides to share their knowledge and exchange theirexperiences of migrating to OpenOffice.org and to discuss topics related to the area ofOpenOffice.org adoption. The key success factor of migrating to OpenOffice.org fororganizations is that it is open source and free software. The migration to OpenOffice.org willenable the reduction of software piracy and expenditure on enterprise software, which directlyprovides good images of the organizations and increases their global competitiveness in theworld.
Santi Sura-rat, deputy director of research and technology development and acting director of
the National Software Industry Promotion Agency (SIPA, a public organization) under theMinistry of Information & Communication Technology of Thailand, said “Strategies for usingOpen Source Software in Thailand: To reduce the piracy rate in Software Business inThailand (which still has a high piracy rate of 75% in 2009), to save our foreign money formaking the Thai economy stronger, to help the Thai software industry to have moresolutions for their customers, and they do not start from zero. That led to sustainable OpenSource Software development in Thailand as well as abroad.”
According to Valve Corporation, 14.63% of Steam users have OpenOffice.org installed on their
machines as of July 2010. A market-share analysis conducted by a web analytics service in 2010,
based on over 200,000 internet users, showed a wide range of adoption in different countries:from 0.2% in China, 9% in the US and the UK to more than 20% in Poland, the Czech Republicand Germany. Countries in ASEAN using the software: Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore.Although Microsoft Office retained 72% of the general market in 2010, OpenOffice.org hadsecured 21.5% of the market1. The OpenOffice.org web site reported more than 98 milliondownloads as of September 2007.
OpenOffice.org 3.x reached one hundred million downloads,just over a year since its release.
In Thailand, the developer community has been working with OpenOffice.org since the source
was released in 2000. At the same time, National Electronics and Computer Technology Center
(NECTEC), a government agency, started to work on the development and promotion of OSS in
Thailand. OpenOffice.org was promoted long before it supported complex text languages (CTL)
so it was necessary to modify the source code to add features such as character clustering and
context-dependent word-breaking. In 2001, the two Thai-enabled OpenOffice.org derivatives,
OfficeTLE and Pladao, drew much attention from the public. Many SMEs and somecorporations tried to migrate to the two OpenOffice.org derivatives during that period but only afew succeeded due to the lack of good migration planning.
The first large-scale migration showed up in 2006. Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand
(EGAT),a 10,000-seat state enterprise, successfully migrated 70% of their PCs to OpenOffice.org
with some help from NECTEC. That first success case led to another migration at S&PSyndicate, a public company. However, OpenOffice.org adoption was still slow until supportingbusinesses such as migration consultants and training providers started to appear. Since 2008,Thailand has achieved migration to OpenOffice.org in a few state enterprises, two banks, and oneagro-industrial group. One observation is that, while OpenOffice.org tends to be popular amongSMEs and government agencies in many countries, in Thailand only large enterprises withthousands of seats care about OpenOffice.org migration. Due to a 75% piracy ratio, Thai SMEs and government agencies are rarely interested in OpenOffice.org.
The ICT for All Symposium 2011 reached a roadmap to develop Open Source Software (OSS) in
Thailand, to be strong as well as aboard. The Government must seriously promote Open Source
Software in all parts of the country, from individuals to enterprises, starting with an OSS officesuite like OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice. It should also encourage students to study this softwarefrom childhood, so that children can grow in the context of OSS, which would make adoption ofOSS easier in countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, etc.
Organizations (government and commercial) migrating to OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice musthave a good migration plan, which must be regarded as the organization(s) change and is notonly the mission of the IT division because it affects all users in organizations. For this reason, asignificant key success factor of migrating to OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice is a good processingof communications and the participation of all sides in the organization(s).
In addition, the symposium also has recommendations on OSS development in Thailand:
- To improve Thai national fonts (13 fonts) to effectively support OpenOffice.org orLibreOffice and the fonts should be free to use or develop, without permission from thecopyright owner (SIPA and the Department of Intellectual Property of Thailand).
- To educate the trainer about effective teaching methods in using OpenOffice.org orLibreOffice. This differs from the training in the use of Microsoft Office, which most users haveused previously.
- To facilitate all Enterprise Resource Planning Software (ERP licensed software) users or organizations to set up the company or organization to negotiate with the vendor(s) to unlockERP software, it must import data from the OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice’s file(s) format. Theproblem in current ERP software which has been locked cannot be associated withOpenOffice.org or LibreOffice (except in the newer version of ERP Software). If the problemcan be solved, 100% of the organizations’ computer users can use OpenOffice.org (withoutproprietary software).
- In promoting an OpenDocument Format and 100% migration to OpenOffice.org orLibreOffice in government agencies, the programme will save these agencies millions of Bahtper year in their software budgets.
- Thailand should promote LibreOffice which is an extension of OpenOffice.org (byDocument Foundation) after Oracle announced it is handing out the support and development ofOpenOffice.org (OpenOffice.org will be handed to the community).
The most important success factor in the adoption of OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice is toget all computer users started. From a small beginning, it will lead tothe overall success of the country.
Free download at www.openoffice.org or www.libreoffice.org
Special thank to Alan Key for kindly reviewing this article.
List of participants of ICT for All Symposium 2011
No. Name Position Organization
1 Santi Sura-rat Deputy director of research and technology development, acting director of the SIPA National Software Industry Promotion Agency (Public Organization) (SIPA), Thailand
2 Virat Puengsara Manager of open source division National Software Industry Promotion Agency (Public Organization) (SIPA), Thailand
3 Pakpoom Lamchitkusol Open-source officer National Software Industry Promotion Agency (Public Organization) (SIPA), Thailand
4 Samphan Raruenrom Managing Director Open Source Development Co., Ltd.
5 Danupol Siamwalla Senior Executive Director Technology Division DHA Siamwalla Ltd.
6 M.L. Luesak Chakrabandhu Deputy Vice President - IT Center S&P Syndicate Public Company Limited
Deputy Vice President - Business Development
7 Oranuj Soongswang, Ph.D. Asst. Prof. Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, Chulalongkorn University
8 Kanchana Rugsritong Head, OpenSource Software Technical Section OpenSource Software Technical Section,
Information Technology Planning and Technical Support Department,
Information Technology Planning Division,
Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT)
9 Sunida Chaokasem Engineer Level 7 OpenSource Software Technical Section,
Information Technology Planning and Technical Support Department, Information Technology Planning Division, EGAT
10 Boonlert Aroonpiboon Acting Head of content development and digital media services, Science and Technology Knowledge Services (STKS), National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) Thailand
Support of scientific knowledge and technology
11 Aekasitthi Somsanguan Officer National Housing Authority of Thailand
12 Prawat Maksoong Officer National Housing Authority of Thailand
13 Phanupon Phasuchaisakul Chief Editor OpenSource2day Magazine
14 Suwimol Chuachanwong Independent scholar ICT for All Club
15 Pannarai Kantaghit Former Secretary-General National Economic and Social Advisory Council, Thailand
16 Supaporn Khaosume-ang Independent scholar Former head of Professor Derek Chai-Nam Library, Thammasat University
17 Thossaphol NORATUS Coordinator ICT for All Club
18 Atita Phasuchaisakul Editor publisher OpenSource 2Day Magazine
19 Tatat Thana-kranok Officer Open Source Development Co., Ltd.
20 Chirawadee Hanrittha Independent scholar