"The school didn't want to lose functionality and decided Windows just wouldn't cut the mustard," Zymaris said. "It is now running Novell SuSE 8 for core applications including payroll. The school had worked with Novell so the migration was relatively painless and was done overnight."

Zymaris said a big plus for Chisholm was the ability to standardize hardware suppliers as the existing system's maintenance was "quite substantial" at $360,000 for three years ."The new cost is $17,000 over three years so the ROI was nine months," he said.