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GeekLord wrote: > Robin Cornelius wrote: >> On Nov 5, 2007 10:48 AM, james kilty <james@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >>> On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 10:23 +0000, Robin Cornelius wrote: >>> >>> >>>> I started off enquirys in this kind of area 12 months ago >>>> >>> What did you come up with? >>> >>>> I wouldn't focus on just "medium" that has a specific meaning in >>>> general you should look at SMEs (small to medium size enterprises). >>>> Small is 0-49, Medium is 50-249. Typical Business link type >>>> definitions. >>>> >>> Fair enough. I mean small. It's a question of who might be most >>> interested and the numbers of businesses - how best to make inroads. >>> >>> >> I mentioned this cause if you speak to organizations like Business >> Link these numbers will have been firmly drummed into their heads and >> associated with those definitions. >> >> Also most seminar type things they run are aimed at SME's so i would >> recommend SME's as a general target. >> >> >>>> What do you want to actually show? Would it not be better to have >>>> presentations of case studies from people who have deployed such >>>> systems. This is the kind of thing i have seen at Business Link >>>> Seminars in the past. >>>> >>> How have they been received? >>> >> A few i have been to have shown useful information. With the >> presenters avaiable for general questions and networking/discussions >> afterwards. They can be good things to go to. >> >> The other thing is Business link have a large reach to most SME >> businesses and there role is provide information to the SME community, >> they often run seminars that are free to attend so I think trying to >> get in communications with some of the local area PBAs and saying you >> want to run a seminar/series of seminars would be a *very* good move. >> >> >>>> No reason why live servers etc could not be >>>> demonstrated but to Joe Business Owner, a pile of servers is not >>>> interesting at all. They want to know what it does(and in some cases >>>> they don't care about this either) and how it benefits them. >>>> >>> Fair enough. I don't know what Joe needs. I just had this one need and >>> thought a private show would help him along - he does actually want to >>> get his organisation to migrate and I thought the server might be a good >>> place to start. (Some staff do use OOo and the Gimp). He recognises a >>> need to learn and it would all have to be worked so things did not crash >>> all about him first time. Then there's resistance to change and file >>> compatibility in a dual system. >>> >> Yea as long as you highlight possible benefits and empower them to >> make a rational and informed decision you have done your job :-) >> getting a server to linux is probably a good start and using OOo and >> Gimp etc are also a great transition too. This is the route i have >> followed, but i just don't see a route at present to go to linux >> desktops in my place, i would love to. Prehpase we could switch some >> desktops particulay of the admin workers who only need email/office >> etc but on other systems we have various ties that make it very >> difficult. One of our ties is a classic lock in situation where out >> data files can ONLY be read by one program that is protected with a >> dongle that is no longer available and not supported, if the dongle >> goes wrong we are screwed. >> >> >> Robin >> >> > Keith Menadue wrote: > > In this case I could be Joe . > The Linux OS is a minor issue as Joe I don't worry about using Linux ... > I'm like a lot of SME's, the easy bit is Open Office 2.0 or 2.3, Firefox > and Modzilla Thunderbird and Servers. > I'm worried about an equivalent Linux offering for Sage Line 50 > accounts software. > The closest I could find was 'My books Professional' I'm not sure its > going to be OK for us. This is the Force Major thats holding me back not > the OS. > > The accountancy problem is that which stifles Linux in SME business,especially if UK VAT registered. I use QuickBooks Pro (old edition 2004)on MS Windows and this is the real barrier to going to only Linux, as there is over 6 years of data to transfer, and no UK Version with VAT capability for Linux... http://www.linux.com/articles/41026 This was 2004 however in 2007 QuickBooks USA and Canada is now available for Linux due 'market pressure'. Check http://www.intuit.com/about_intuit/press_room/press_release/2007/06-13.jhtml So USA Open Source Linux community can get a proprietary accounts that fits Gnu/Linux at a price "The software starts as low as $3,000, ..." Also USA centric is > http://www.sql-ledger.org/ (Microsoft! do a free (as yet) USA set of books, it is good - they will be attaching the accountancy folk next) UK I see nothing as yet. Regards Eion MacDonald -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html