A descriptive study quantifying the short-term effects on employee productivity when migrating organizational desktop computer software to Open Source alternatives. The study introduces the Open Source movement and successful migration scenarios worldwide. It also introduces a re-usable productivity benchmark along with the necessary localized programmatic tools for it to be implemented as and when necessary in the future. This knowledge will assist IT decision-makers of any organization in their evaluation of proprietary software models against Open Source alternatives from the "client computer" perspective. Localization issues for the Arabic region are an integral part of this study as well. Such a study is especially important with the global economic downturn that had started in 2008. Recommendations are therefore included at the end of the study.