Large-scale OpenOffice.org Migrations in Thailand present at OpenOffice.org Conference 2010 Budapest, Hungary

1. Large-Scale OpenOffice.org
Migrations in Thailand
Samphan Raruenrom
Thai Native Language Project Lead
samphan@osdev.co.th
Open Source Development Co., Ltd.
www.osdev.co.th
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

2. Contents
● Timeline of local OOo development and adoption
● Thai-enabling the non-i18n OpenOffice.org 1.0
● Large-scale OpenOffice.org migrations
●
Observations on OOo adoption in Thailand
● Migration process
● The communities
04/09/10 2

3. 1
Backgrounds
3

4. About me
● 2005-Now: Osdev
●
MD of the OOo migration consulting company
● 1999-2004: NECTEC, a gov. agency on IT
●
Project manager of the "OSS Initiative"
• to increase OSS adoption in Thailand
● Made a Thai-enabled OpenOffice.org 1.x
● 1997-1998: Mozilla Thai-enabling project
● 1992-1994: ISOFAC, a local ISV
● Made a Thai GUI word processor for Windows 3.1
4

5. About Thailand
Where?
5

6. About Thailand
Famous Stuffs
● “Siam”, before 1950 ● Travel & Leisure
●
Siamese twin Magazine 2010 World’s
● Thai food Best City
●
Tom Yum Goong
● #1 Bangkok
● Started the 1997
● #2 Chieng Mai
financial crisis in Asia
● Pattaya, Phuket
●
Tom Yum Goong
●
"The Beach"
Crisis ● Thai boxing
6

7. About Thailand
Facts
● An emerging economy, ● Population: 66 mil.
a newly industrialized ● Number of PC: 3 mil.
country ● PC Penetration: 4%
● Export rice, textiles, ● Official language: Thai
electronic parts, cars ●
Write using Thai script
●
2nd largest economy in ● A complex text layout
Southeast Asia (CTL)
● Parliamentary
democracy and
constitutional monarchy
7

8. 2
Thai-enabling
the non-i18n
OpenOffice.org 1.0
8

9. World Scripts
● There are 3 groups of all scripts in the world
●
Western – small number of glyphs
● CJK – large number of glyphs
● CTL – small number of glyphs, but
• Need context-sensitive glyph shaping
• Some need context-sensitive line-breaking
• Some are LTR, some are bi-directional
● Fortunately, Thai script is the simplest CTL
● LTR, simple glyph shaping, no glyph reordering
●
Exception: context-sensitive line-breaking
9

10. CTL Complexity
● CTL breaks many non-18n code assumptions
●
A (user) character may has more than 1 code point
• ป+ี+ี →ป
● A character may change its shape, position, width or
reordered depend on the surrounding characters
•บ บ ป ป – ญ+ี → ญ
● Some CTL has no space between words
• Thai:ฉนรกซอฟตแวรเสร
• → ฉนรกซอฟตแวรเสร
• Imagine:i love free software → ilovefreesoftware
• → ilovefreesoftware 10

11. Thai-enabling
Requirements
● Shaping
●
glyph shaping
● character width/height depend on context
● Line breaking
● Thai require context-sensitive line breaking
● Clustering
● cluster is a unique concept in CTL – user character
• contain 1 or more code points
●
insertion point must be at cluster boundary
● most operation must be on clusters
11

12. Thai-enabling OOo 1.x –
CTL Issues
● Shaping – display and print
● Cluster-based caret movement & mouse hit test
● Delete ≠ backspace – delete whole cluster,
backspace one code-point
● Thai dictionary-based line breaking
● Word-wise caret movement & mouse selection
● Automatic sequence correction (Thai-specific)
●
ป+ี+ี >> ป+ี+ี → ป
● Text searching must also check cluster boundary
●
Search for ป don't match ป 12

13. Thai-enabling OOo 1.x –
Other Issues
● Appropriate default font/size
● Support Thai native number system
●
๐๑๒๓๔๕๖๗๘๙
● Not used in real life, only in public document!
● Support Thai date system and Buddhist calendar
●
1 มกราคม 2553 = 1 January 2010
● Support Thai collation order
● Need reordering, as defined in UCA
● Spelling check is complex
● Interoperability with Thai features in MS Office
13

14. TL of Local Development –
Two Thai OpenOffice.org
Oct 2000
● StarOffice open-sourced as OpenOffice.org
May 2001
● NECTEC added Thai line-breaking to OOo build 633
Dec 2001
● Sun (Thailand) hired Algorithms to make Pladao
Mar 2002
● Pladao 1.0 from OOo build 683C
Jun 2002
● OfficeTLE beta from OOo 1.0 by NECTEC
14

15. TL of Local Development –
Single OpenOffice.org
2002-2005 – Several releases of Pladao and OfficeTLE
Oct 2005
● SIPA hired Sun (Germany) to enhance Thai support
● SIPA, NECTEC, Sun (Thailand) agreed on single OOo
Aug 2005
● SIPA released Chantra 1.0, OSS for Windows CD
● OSS promotion then shift to OSS on Windows
Jan 2006
● OpenOffice.org 2.0.1 works out-of-the-box for Thai
Sep 2010
15
● NECTEC to hire Osdev to fix Thai-dependent bugs

16. 3
OpenOffice.org Adoption
in Thailand
16

17. OpenOffice.org Adoption –
Factors in Thailand
● Being an emerging economy
●
Business is growing. User-base is growing.
● Software spending is not growing equally.
● Thai culture
● Intellectual asset is an unfamiliar concept
● Software industry
● High software piracy rate, according to BSA
●
BSA is a positive factor for OSS adoption
• Both buying licenses and adopting OSS reduce piracy
• BSA actions effectively make business decide between
buying license or adopting OSS
17

18. TL of OOo Adoption –
The First Wave
1994 – Thai copyright law explicitly cover software
2001
● BSA put pressures to enforce the law
● Big national news, a lot of legal actions
2002
● Thai-enabled OSS became popular
● Pladao/OfficeTLE – two Thai OOo derivatives
● LinuxTLE – a Thai RedHat derivatives
2003
● the famous “People's PC” project
18

19. 3.1
The “People's PC” Project
19

20. The “People's PC” Project
● The 1st gov-sponsored low-cost PC of its kind
● 250$ for Linux PC
● LinuxTLE with Thai Mozilla and OfficeTLE
● 40$ option for Windows + Office Home Edition
● The price dropped from nearly $600
●
A 85% price cut
● Shipped 120,000 PCs and 20,000 Notebooks
● Inspired many low-cost PC projects worldwide
● Microsoft later make the low-cost edition permanent
● called "Starter Edition"
20

21. The Key Enabler is
Thai-enabled OSS
● Thailand already manufacture and export PCs
●
The missing part for the PC to be usable is software
● LinuxTLE make the PCs usable w/o license cost
● LinuxTLE increase bargaining power of the project
● So we got the Windows+Office option at 40$
●
Very few people buy the option anyway
21

22. Effects of the First Wave
OOo Popularity
● Pladao and the People's PC introduced the term
“Open Source” to Thai users
● However, most think it is the same as freeware
●
Many people had the chance to try OpenOffice.org
(Pladao/OfficeTLE) and Linux Desktop (LinuxTLE)
● BSA and Pladao make a phenomenon
● Many SMEs tried to migrate to Pladao
● Only a small number succeed, however
22

23. Why Pladao/OfficeTLE
Migrations Failed?
● The software is not ready yet, esp. for Thai
●
For Westerner, migration to OOo 1.0 is more feasible
● The MS Office filters are not good enough
●
Conversion error much worse for Thai documents
● No migration process, no change management
● Uninstall & replace all MS Office at once
● Some succeed because of good preparation
● Thai Life Insurance - #1 life insurance company
● Digiland (Thailand) - technology products distributor
● DHA Siamwalla - stationary products manufacturer
23

24. TL of OOo Adoption –
The Second Wave #1
2004
● After OSS success, BSA actions became low-profile
2005
●
BSA double-up anti-piracy reward to ฿500,000
● EGAT migrated to OOo, began a domino effect
2006
● S&P Syndicate PCL. migrated to OOo
●
700 seats, 5,000 employees
2007
● 3,000 people attended Thailand OSSFest 2007
24
● A 1x,xxx-seats bank started pilot project on OOo

25. TL of OOo Adoption –
The Second Wave #2
2008
● National Housing Agency migrated to OOo
● Global financial crisis accelerated OOo adoption
● Financial industry begin to look at OOo seriously
● The bank migrated all branches to OOo
2009
● The bank migrated its headquarter to OOo
● A few 2,xxx-seats midsize business migrated to OOo
●
An agroindustrial group, a financial company group
2010
25
● Several midsize business are migrating to OOo

26. 3.2
EGAT
The First OpenOffice.org
Success Story
26

27. EGAT
● Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand
●
A government enterprise
• 12,000 seats, 24,000 employees
• Several offices and plants nationwide
● In 2005, EGAT was about to enter an IPO
● IT governance is critical for a public company
●
EGAT will have to invest ฿200m to buy all the
required licenses before going to the IPO
● They seek for alternatives and decided to replace
many proprietary software with OSS
● The goal is to reach and maintain the ratio
OOo:MSO at 70:30 27

28. EGAT
License Cost Saving
MS Office license cost
before & after migrate to OpenOffice.org
Mil Baht After migrate to
OpenOffice.org
If use only
MS Office
fice
Of
yMS
onl
License cost saving
Migration start
se
per year
If u
Duration of the
saving
After migrate to OpenOffice.org
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 ป (พ.ศ.)
2011
28

29. EGAT Case Study
● EGAT already succeed on the server side
nd
●
This is EGAT 2 try on OpenOffice.org
● The first tried was with Pladao and OfficeTLE
●
The lesson learn make success of the 2nd try
● Success factors
● Top-down – management buy-in, policy from CEO
● A lot of training
● A lot of internal seminars, roadshows
● A lot of promotional and learning materials
●
Good support
29

30. 3.3
Thailand
OpenOffice.org Adoption
Summary
30

31. Thailand OOo Adoption
Government SME Large Enterprise
Adoption Very slow Slow Fast
Piracy Piracy Risk-sensitive
Negative Centralized IT Centralized IT Complex decision
factor Policy enforcement Policy enforcement structure
Big size Big size
Public OSS policy BSA actions IT budget cut
National OSS Simple decision Centralized IT
Positive factor
Center structure Effective policy
Small size enforcement
Motive KPI Legalize licenses Cut cost
Success factor Internal marketing Training & support Change management31

32. Observations on Thai
Culture vs. OOo Adoption
● Thai people can hardly imagine the monetary value
of intellectual property
● Thai has a saying “do everything at will is real Thai”
● You can't just force them, or you'll get big resistance
● To migrate to OOo, make them understand
●
A MS Office license (for you) cost your company a lot
• enough to buy a new PC or a laser printer
● You are helping your company by using OOo
32

33. 4
Migration Process
33

34. Success Factors
● Always top down, management buy-in required
●
Migration initiative usually start from an IT
department
● Policy forcing the use of OOo and ODF and how
documents will be made and exchange
● Assessment to find who can't work w/o MS Office
● Training as much as possible
● Training focus at the migration goal not at features
● ODF as internal standard for office documents
● High first-contact-resolution support
● Well-designed and constant communications 34

35. A Conservative
Migration Process
1. Policy setup 3. Implementation
●
Management buy-in ●
Collect/convert templates
● CEO sign the policy ● Customize OOo installer
2. Assessment for specific needs
● Deploy the installer to
● Data gathering
● Applications that required every PCs
MS Office to work ●
Provide training & support
● User survey result ● Uninstall MS Office from
● Office document analysis those not in the red list
● Result: the red list • may divide into several
● those who can't work if phases
uninstall his/her MS Office
35

36. Further OOo Integration
● To increase OOo:MSO ratio
● Users in the red list still have MS Office because of
● MS Office document with macro
● MS Access document that couldn't use Access Runtime
●
Enterprise applications that require MS Office for some
functions
● Workflows that spread the need for MS Office
● Estimate the effort to fix these integration problems
and how many MS Office licenses could be saved if
decide to fix each of them
36

37. 5
Current State of
the Communities and
the Industry
37

38. Local Communities
● A community website with blogs, faqs, forums
●
Open Office Club - http://openoffice.in.th
●
Plan for a few events this year to celebrate the 10th
OOo birthday
● Local development is back this year
● Fixing Thai-locale-dependent bugs
• Fund by the biggest user - EGAT
● Update and complete the translation
● Develop extensions and templates for local need
• Thousand Separator (35,121 d/l), Fix Thai Date, Remove
All Print Ranges

39. Local Service Providers
● Service providers start to appear
● Several OSS vendors are providing OOo training
● e.g. OpenSource2Day
● Famous IT training centers started to do so
● e.g. NECTEC Academy
● Consultant for midsize to large-scale migration
● Osdev
● Network of OSS vendors
● BOSS – Business for Open Source Society

40. Challenges in Providing
OpenOffice.org Services
● Business who want to migrate to OpenOffice.org
●
Don't know about the available service providers
● Overestimate the obstacles and cancel the intention
• The consultant job is to remove the obstacles!
● Underestimate the obstacles and do it by themselves
• Or just give training to employees
● Professional service even more abstract than licensing
● Some IT pros and managers said “OpenOffice.org is
free, why I still have to pay for the services”
● Lack of official migration partners and certificates
● Clients usually are much bigger than providers. They
need much confidence on the consultant to go with.

41. Future Directions –
We'd Like to See
● Government initiative to push the use of
OpenOffice.org in public sector
● The model used in Malaysia and Singapore
● More SMEs adopt OpenOffice.org
● More business enterprises open their success stories
●
The way Thai Life Insurance and S&P Syndicate did
● Why open?
• Grow the OpenOffice.org communities
• So more resources and community support will be available
• Continue the domino effect to build more OOo friends
• More enterprises will accept your ODF documents
● Why not? 41

42. Conclusion
● OOo adoption in Thailand is different
●
Midsize and large enterprises move first
● SMEs move less aggressively
● Government offices still wait (for policy) and see
● More will migrate to OOo for purely business reason
●
Enterprises move to OOo to save cost
● SMEs move to OOo to legalize their software use
● Lower piracy increase OOo adoption & vice versa
● Thailand still use very little IT so OOo have lots of
chance to grow in the market
42

43. OpenOffice.org
Small Change. Big Different.
43