Migrating to Open Source: by Mercian Labels

In our “Case Studies” links is a solitary connection to the blog of a UK based label printing company Mercian Labels.

Since March this year (2007) their MD, Adrian Steele, has thoughtfully covered many topics including the:

  • reasons,
  • processes,
  • selection of software & suppliers,
  • general observations
  • and some of the problems & difficulties,

of migrating his company from a Microsoft based IT infrastructure to a fully Open Source alternative. His most recent post is a real milestone for him and for his business – he has finally gone “Redmond Free“. Totally.

Its a great feeling to be free (in a very small individual user way) of the restrictive, slow, unreliable xp/outlook configuration I USED to use!

There are still other users to migrate and work to be done, but it is a fascinating read and many other small to medium businesses can learn a great deal from the experiences that have been so well recorded.

Why not drop by and pay their site a visit, read his blog (as with most blogs it is in chronological order so start at the bottom to read the whole story) and, if you need any labels printed, I can strongly recommend a company that relies on Open Source software to do it. 😉

I would love to have more case studies of this kind included here. The shared learning and experiences of many is a very powerful tool for all so if there are any other businesses that are migrating to Open Source (in part or in whole) and want to share the experience in an “Open” fashion, drop me a line so I can add your company to our list.

Disclaimer: I personally have had no connection to Mercian Labels and our training and consulting business (The Open Learning Centre) has had nothing to do with their migration whatsoever. This is Open Source after all; it’s all about shared experiences, and the freedom to learn with and from others.

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