__/ [ Geico Caveman ] on Monday 20 March 2006 00:33 \__
> Lobo wrote:
>
>> http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT8171250759.html
>> by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (Mar. 6, 2006)
>> ...
>> In an interview with Australian online technology newspaper IT Wire, Alan
>> Yates, general manager of business strategy for Microsoft's information
>> worker group, said that OpenOffice.org is about where MS-Office was 10
>> years ago. That is to say, Microsoft seems to think OpenOffice.org is only
>> good for single-desktop users.
>>
>> And, that's a problem because...?
>>
>> I don't get it.
>> ...
>
>
> Nonsense. OpenOffice has been ahead of mso from day one. It has always been
> able to directly export PDFs, something mso12 will be the first version of
> mso to be able to do.
PDF export is probably not the 'killer feature'. An important trait is that
formats are well-understood and the files inter-operably accessible. PDF
export is a side effect of that.
> In things that matter, oo is eons ahead, and costs nothing. 10-15 of my
> coworkers are choosing not to upgrade from mso 2000 and will retain their
> licensed copies of mso just to be able to use endnote. As soon as oo starts
> working with endnote, mso is going to get ditched entirely, at least here.
> Ever since oo2, I have been unable to find any formatting problems that
> older versions (like 1.3) used to throw up.
Formatting issues and interactivity with Microsoft Office are (should be)
irrelevant, at least for judgment of the package. Lockins are a crime, which
should be treated in isolation. OpenOffice on its own is a powerful and Open
applications suite.
> No one in their right mind forks over $150-300 from ever shrinking budgets
> to pay for stuff that can be had for free. In a version or two, mso is
> doomed. Its a good thing for microsoft that xbox is doing well, because
> they are about to lose their old reliable cash cow over the next 2-3 years.
As regards cost, the French argued that OpenOffice would be 150 times cheaper
than Microsoft Office. We are talking about deployment and licensing costs
here. My write-up on this matter got trackbacked by an OpenOffice site this
morning. It's clear that more governmental bodies and business drop their
reluctant to migrate to OpenOffice. They see others do it. It starts a
'cattle effect'. This time, for a change, cattle effect drives more and more
people to Open Source. They envy the cost savings and reliability that the
rivals get from FOSS.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Reversi for Linux/Win32: http://othellomaster.com
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