Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray wrote:
I haven't touched upon the hardware part. All I would like to know is actual case reports about small offices that were doing their work earlier in doze and later migrated everything to GNU/Linux.
Rony, you may be pleasantly suprised to know that the West Bengal University of Technology (http://www.wbut.ac.in/) uses Free Software (specifically GNU/Linux) exclusively on their computers. This goes to the extent that the Vice-Chancellor had (atleast the last time I met him a few weeks back) only GNU/Linux on his laptop, and no proprietary operating system is allowed to use the university network.
Very good! :) For institutions and corporate customers, migration is a policy decision as they can afford services of software programmers and can even get custom software written for them. Colleges have the added advantage of their own programming faculty and students. But small offices cannot do that and rely on readily available software, therefore the need for GNU alternatives to professional windows based software.
To know more just drop in the ILUG-Cal.org mailing list (http://list.ilug-cal.org/mailman/listinfo/ilug-cal-discuss) and place a query. Some of the ILUG-Cal.org members have been instrumental in this effort, and they will be happy enough to let you in on their secrets. :-)
Why don't they post a full migration report on the net, detailing all software used before and after along with the data formats and migration process of data.