is the paperless office a pipedream?

[Zyphrexi]

what do you think?

and why don't more businesses use linux?

with linux being as fantastic as it is, I always have a hard time believing companies out there actually use windows (which costs money) instead of linux (which is free)

[beercz]

what do you think?

and why don't more businesses use linux?

with linux being as fantastic as it is, I always have a hard time believing companies out there actually use windows (which costs money) instead of linux (which is free)
Paperless office a myth? Yes

I think that being the IT Director of a construction company makes me suitably qualified to answer the second part of your posting:

Using linux in business on the desktop (I presume you refer to the desktop rather than servers) can be difficult.

My company, for example, uses specialist engineering software, combined with AutoCAD and several add-ons, that are only available in Windows. We also use payroll and account software that is only available in Windows. However, we do use linux servers for file/print/web hosting and email though.

I imagine banks, for example, are in similar situations where they have to use specialist software only available for Windows.

[popch]

is the paperless office a pipedream?

That's a very common mis-quote. The first time I heard that phrase was about 30 years ago in a clip by IBM, and it was 'the paperless office of the future'.

That is a very appropriate description. It is firmly anchored in the future and appears to remain there.



I imagine banks, for example, are in similar situations where they have to use specialist software only available for Windows.

Banks also have been known to order their software made to be used on other platforms. I have seen banks running their applications on OS/2.

OTOH, OS/2 used to be sold as a 'better Windows than Windows'.

[svtfmook]

for legal reasons, businesses have to keep a hard copy of documents (tax and sales related) for a minimum of 3 years.

so no, paperless business is not possible until the legal side of it is changed.

[popch]

for legal reasons, businesses have to keep a hard copy of documents (tax and sales related) for a minimum of 3 years.

so no, paperless business is not possible until the legal side of it is changed.

This objection is true, or at least used to be true in some countries. It accounts for what I think amounts to 2% to 5% of the paper handled in your typical office.

[munkyeetr]

Offices love paper! Even when they don't have to, they print copies out. They print copies of emails to give out instead of just forwarding...

<though, obviously, there are exceptions to the rule!>

[zorocke]

for legal reasons, businesses have to keep a hard copy of documents (tax and sales related) for a minimum of 3 years.

so no, paperless business is not possible until the legal side of it is changed.
I find these laws quite stupid. Hard drives can be just as reliable as paper, and it is easily backed up to external server. Such as a government server to showcase evidence in a legal case.

[TeraDyne]

I find these laws quite stupid. Hard drives can be just as reliable as paper, and it is easily backed up to external server. Such as a government server to showcase evidence in a legal case.

That's a really good idea. That could also help with deterring crooked accountants and higher-ups by making any embezzlement or book-tampering a major federal offense, even if it's a small business.

If we could get something like that, a paperless office COULD be possible. Personally, I'd love to see such a thing.

[wPwLUi3N]

Paperless office is perfect example of integration of technology in human lifes.

It is not a dream, it has alerady turning into reality. My Office is compeletely paperless i must say.

[popch]

.. just as reliable as paper..

i.e. able to demonstrate without reasonable doubt that the document's content is identical to the one received or sent, and that it was signed by the correct people at the appropriate time.

Or just readable after 5 or ten years, given that the application needed to do that was lost and even if available could not be run on any OS obtainable within reasonable time and effort.

[Zyphrexi]

Really I'm completely selfish, I want to stay at home and work online without having to deal with human beings all the time.

most work-at-home deals are all scams, which is annoying.

I can picture a company that exists completely online, doing business online, with no real central office. Something like that would be amazing I think, just imagine how much gas is wasted in the commute. Cut out the middle man, that being father time.

[TeraDyne]

i.e. able to demonstrate without reasonable doubt that the document's content is identical to the one received or sent, and that it was signed by the correct people at the appropriate time.

Or just readable after 5 or ten years, given that the application needed to do that was lost and even if available could not be run on any OS obtainable within reasonable time and effort.

Which is why open source applications and open standards are important. They can help ensure that a file can be opened 10-15 years down the road of time.


Really I'm completely selfish, I want to stay at home and work online without having to deal with human beings all the time.

most work-at-home deals are all scams, which is annoying.

I can picture a company that exists completely online, doing business online, with no real central office. Something like that would be amazing I think, just imagine how much gas is wasted in the commute. Cut out the middle man, that being father time.

Oh, that's my dream job. I'm a loner, prizing the time where I can read and listen to music without any interruptions. If I could do everything online without having to physically meet with people every day, I'd be in heaven.

[pete]

Offices love paper! Even when they don't have to, they print copies out. They print copies of emails to give out instead of just forwarding...

<though, obviously, there are exceptions to the rule!>
The practice of printing out emails makes me crazy. CRAZY, I tell you!!

On the bright side, I've noticed that more and more people in the rather large company I work for have started adding things like "Please consider the environment before printing this email" to their signature files.

Pretty cool idea, I think.

[TeraDyne]

The practice of printing out emails makes me crazy. CRAZY, I tell you!!

On the bright side, I've noticed that more and more people in the rather large company I work for have started adding things like "Please consider the environment before printing this email" to their signature files.

Pretty cool idea, I think.

I think I'll use that in my email signature now. Thanks for sharing that idea.

[regomodo]

Hard drives can be just as reliable as paper, and it is easily backed up to external server.

That's a fairly bold statement. The only thing more archive able than paper used by humankind is stone.

I wonder how long a hard drive is truly reliable for. You can't leave them off and turn them on many years down the road. Assuming the mechanics actually work or no corrosion has occurred, have you got the software available to read the file format (it happens). Sure you could leave them on all the time and RAID them but then that is more expensive and inefficient in the long run. You can't leave magnetic tapes forever in a cabinet, they have a tendency to stick together and tear.

Hard drives used to come with 3-5yr guarantees. You are lucky if you can get a 1yr guarantee these days mainly due to the fact that as data densities are increased the super-paramagnetic limit (relates probability of spontaneous data erasure due to the demagnetisation fields within the magnetic grains in the layer to ambient temperature against grain size) is being reached at which point magnetic recording in current forms are not feasible. There are methods of getting around this such as AFC (anti-ferromagnetic media) which combines layers to create more stable media but the manufacturing methods are too unreliable.

I could go on and on and just regurgitate stuff i vaguely remember (correct or not) from my Masters data storage technology module so i'll finish here.

Paperless offices are a pipe dream.

[TeraDyne]

That's a fairly bold statement. The only thing more archive able than paper used by humankind is stone.

It's not really bold, but it's true.

Paper archives can VERY easily be burned or destoried, stone can be chipped away or erode over time, and metal can be melted or bent. Everything has at least one major problem. I mean, do you really realize how easy it is to destroy anything that is created?

Paperless offices aren't a pipe dream. They can become a reality under the proper circumstances, just like anything else.

[Zyphrexi]

I suppose a better conjecture would not be that the paperless office should exist, but that I hope that digital workplace technology should become more commercially viable and accepted.

While It is true that paperless offices will (most likely) never exist, at least in any reasonable span of time. Simply having technology does not grant opportunity to the layman, since the bigwigs decide what to do. Mostly what you see are certain areas of business utilizing such technologies, but unfortunately the greatest issue therein is that human beings are inherently tech-stupid and fear change, and so you see very little change in areas that desperately need it.

EDIT: also human error fscks stuff up

[Lord Illidan]

With regard to paper/parchment..the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered after how many hundreds of years? In a less than perfect environment?

In contrast, most of my floppy disks don't work.

Also, if we don't use open formats, who knows whether in ten years time we'd be able to open the documents we're creating?

[aaaantoine]

Oh, that's my dream job. I'm a loner, prizing the time where I can read and listen to music without any interruptions. If I could do everything online without having to physically meet with people every day, I'd be in heaven.

Telecommuting is overrated. Don't get me wrong; it's nice. But, it has drawbacks.

As for the thread at hand:

Paperless office? Possible. A RAID 1 file server with off-site backup is the best way to guarantee your data never disappears. A 3.5" HDD takes up less physical space than the great number of file cabinets worth of documents that could be stored within it.

Why don't more offices use Linux? Vendor lock-in. That's why. I'm using desktop Linux and regularly interact with a Microsoft web server. Everyone else in the office is on a Windows machine of some sort -- most are on XP, but a few are on 2000. Everyone uses MS Office when I use OO.o. Some of our administrative web apps require IE.

It is sometimes a challenge to continue using Linux in my current environment. If not for VirtualBox, I'd have no choice but to still dual-boot into Windows. If my office mates all switched to Ubuntu tomorrow, first off, I'd be the only one who knows enough to provide support, which would distract me from my development tasks. Second, everyone in the office would have to deal with the same hurdles as I do. Will that OpenOffice Writer document look presentable in Word? And so forth.

[beercz]

It is not a dream, it has alerady turning into reality. My Office is compeletely paperless i must say.It is the complete reverse in my office - there is piles of the stuff!! (although none of it is mine I must say).


Offices love paper! Even when they don't have to, they print copies out. They print copies of emails to give out instead of just forwarding...I have to agree - one of my biggest bug bears is people printing emails 'for the file'!

One of my colleagues, received and email, printed it, hand wrote comments on the print out, gave it to his secretary to type up and forward on!!

Another colleague, printed a PDF, scanned in the pages again and pasted the scans into a Word document!!! Why didn't the colleague simply copy from the PDF document straight into Word?

And I have to support these people!!

Madness, utter madness.

[beercz]

My boss (who happens to be the Company Chairman) once asked me how can we achieve a paperless office.

I told him to get rid of all the printers, including his. That was 3 years ago, and we still use printers, including his.

The paperless office is never going to happen!

In fact, I have noticed that with the increased use of computers in the work place, there has been an increase use of paper (and increased waste of course).

Therefore, combined with all the crap information one receives by email etc. I can only assume (in fact I know) that we are all suffering with increasing information overload.

Therefore I can only surmise that to reduce the amount of paper we use (and the amount of email we receive) is to reduce the amount of information we "need".

Now where did I bury that pen?

[mr.propre]

Yes and no. I already survive more than 5 years without a printer, but I print most of my documents at my GF house.

Paperless is indeed a myth, but you can try to reduce it by thinking twice before you print.

[aeiah]

i do drawings and a bit of IT for an asbestos consultancy. the only paper we use internally is what the surveyors write on that the data entry people input into the database, and the drawings that they've scribbled on that i make look professional. we're moving the surveyors to UMPCs and a stripped down version of the data entry software we use, so the only paper will be the drawings.

of course, we probably print about 2000 pages per day or more because almost every company we deal with wants a printed version of the report, even though it costs them less and is quicker to email them a pdf version of it. so we have 6 or so large printers churning out all day as well as some little ones for printing letters and stuff people want faxing (faxing? who the hell wants a fax nowadays?)

so yea. internally, we dont use much, but a lot of what we send out is on paper. hopefully this wil change eventually.

as for linux, it just isnt worth the time and money. we already have the AutoCAD licenses, and although there are a very small number of acceptable CAD programs for linux, when the company has already spent £8000 on software they arent really interested in saving £80 next time they buy a new computer by buying it without windows.

[deepti ahuja]

There has been a steady decrease in the use of "cut paper" (printer paper) of one to two percent a year. Not a precipitous drop, but a drop nonetheless. We can say it is the beginning in this direction. In April 2010, Apple launched what must surely be the ultimate paper killer: the iPad. Along with smartphones, e-readers and other tablet computers, there are suddenly plenty of reasons to avoid paper. Recently, I saw this page on facebook ‘clip to click’ where a vision of moving towards a paperless world through various strategies were discussed.

[HermanAB]

Howdy,

At this stage of the battle it is hard to completely eliminate paper, but one can reduce paper use a lot by
a) Give everybody two large screens, so that they do not need to print big documents just to read them.
b) Use a networked fax machine integrated with the email system.
c) Put the printers in very inconvenient places, far, far away from the users (E.g. down in the second toilet in the basement with no ladder), and ensure that you only stock unbleached brown, eco friendly paper.
d) Give everybody PDF edit and print programs, so that they can print to a PDF, or stick a scanned signature onto a PDF without having to jump through hoops (ensure that users scan in a different signature at say 100x60 pixels - not the one they use for banking).

[TNT1]

Therefore I can only surmise that to reduce the amount of paper we use (and the amount of email we receive) is to reduce the amount of information we "need".



Good point. The problem I have is that I know what info I need, and yet we still have to deal with people that hit reply to all for no apparent reason. Probably the same ones that print things needlessly.