Executive Summary Document in Microsoft Word format

10/12/2008

Doddridge County Board
of Education

103 Sistersville Pike

West Union, WV 26456

Distinguished Members
of the Board,

While researching the
cost-effectiveness of different software packages for the students,
faculty, and administration of Doddridge County Schools, I have
become aware of office productivity software with the potential to
save the Board of Education a minimum of $12,000.00, while providing
every computer in the schools software that is comparable to, if not
better than, Microsoft Office 2007. Sun Microsystems OpenOffice
suite consists of six productivity packages which include:

• Base, a database
  management package, for creating queries and reports, and for
  tracking and managing information. Base is very similar in function
  and operating procedure to Microsoft Access.

  
  

• Calc, a
  spreadsheet package used for performing calculations, analyzing
  information, and managing lists. Calc is very similar in function
  and operating procedure to Microsoft Excel.

  
  

• Impress, a
  presentation software package for slide shows, meetings, and
  creating Web pages. Impress is very similar in function and
  operation to Microsoft PowerPoint.

  
  

• Writer, a word
  processing package used to create and edit text and graphics in
  letters, reports, documents and Web pages. Writer is virtually
  identical to Microsoft Word, in function and operation.

  
  

• Draw, a package
  used to create and edit drawings, flowcharts and logos. This is
  unlike any of the basic four packages included in the Microsoft
  Office 2007 suite.

  
  

• Math, a package
  that allows the creation and editing of scientific formulas and
  equations. This, too, is unlike anything in the basic Microsoft
  Office 2007 suite.

  
  

There is virtually no
difference between the four basic packages in the Microsoft Office
2007 suite (Access, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint), and the Base, Calc,
Impress, and Writer packages in the Sun Microsystems OpenOffice
Suite. Documents created in the Microsoft Office 2007 packages are
accessible to the OpenOffice packages, and documents created by the
OpenOffice package can be saved to formats that are accessible to
Microsoft Office 2007 packages.

From an economic
standpoint, OpenOffice has the great advantage over Microsoft Office
2007 in that OpenOffice is available as a free download. This not
only represents a $12,000.00 to $58,000.00
advantage to the Doddridge County Board of Education, but a
considerable savings to parents of students, who can now access
professional quality office productivity software for their homes
which will be compatible to, and hopefully the same as, the software
used in their children's schools. Virtually any student with access
to the Internet will be able to obtain, for free, the same software
that is available at his or her school.

I have enclosed a
spreadsheet showing the cost of three different licensing options for
academic use of Microsoft Office 2007, and a presentation with some
examples of documents created with OpenOffice packages. The
presentation is accessible with Microsoft PowerPoint, and the
spreadsheet is accessible with Microsoft Excel. I appreciate your
time in reviewing this information. If you have any questions,
please feel free to contact me any time.

Sincerely,

Doris Wiseman