"The city estimated it costs about $100 a year per employee to use its current roster of ­Microsoft products." $100 per year is such an insignificant cost for

"The city estimated it costs about $100 a year per employee to use its current roster of ­Microsoft products." $100 per year is such an insignificant cost for something as vital to their productivity as their software. If the employees lose any time at all to learning to operate in the new environment it is all but wiped out. While saving $280,000/year sounds pretty significant, with 20,000 staff as the article suggests you only have to make a difference of 14 dollars per year to realize those savings. 14 dollars per year is maybe 0.03% of an city employee's salary. I don't have a concern if they wanted to move for technical reasons, or if it was because it was more efficient, or if they just thought it was better software. But to save 14 dollars per employee per year and only recover the cost of migration after 3 years. That's dumb. But it's definitely worth it for google.