Rayagada district administration has resolved to use 'Open office' suite for its computing needs, while dispensing MS office. The decision was taken in a tender committee meeting headed by Collector Rayagada, Dr. Nitin Bhanudas Jawale, IAS, for procuring computers for Gram panchayats. While MS office 2007 costs Rs.13000 ( as was the lowest price qouted, which is nearly equal to market price), Open office is a free download of 148 MB ( latest version 3.2.1) and similar and even better than MS office. The default format for Open office word is ' .odt ' ( in MS office word it is '. doc'), but the word file can be saved in more than 20 different formats including ' .doc" ( MS office 2003 ) and '.docx' ( MS office 2007+). So is the case with Open Office Spreadsheets ( Like MS office excel) and presentation. All MS office applications open in Open office as well. The best part of Open office is that one can directly export document to 'PDF' format. A lot of governmnet money can be saved by dispensing MS office in favour of Open Office.
Also a part of its commitment to FOSS ( Free and Open Source Software) movement, the district adminisatration ( expect DRDA where Govt of India software based on windows are required to run) is using open source operating system, i.e, LINUX.
