__/ [ John Locke ] on Sunday 25 February 2007 04:34 \__
>>> If google apps have managed 100,000 SMEs, how many are using Open
>>> Office, I wonder?
>>
>>Nobody knows. It's open source and it doesn't phone home. All we have are
>>some download counters from last year.
>>
>>100,000,000 OpenOffice.org fans can't be wrong
>>
> If that figure is anywhere close to the actual usage of OpenOffice,
> that is a very significant indeed.
>
> The small company I work for uses OpenOffice on 12 workstations and
> my immediate family has another 10 PCs (two with Ubuntu 6.10)
> with OpenOffice installs. That's 22 installs total in just my small
> world.
>
> There are some minor issues. For instance, Microsoft Excel documents
> don't quite look the same under OpenOffice. There's also a slight
> performance issue with OpenOffice startup. But for the price, I
> can live with it.
The product still matures and it keeps your data in a form that backward- and
maybe even forward- compatible. It adheres to the ISO standard and it's its
future that should drive choice, not just present state. As IBM's Bob Sotur
said, OOXML (Office) is about the past whereas ODF is the future.
In any event, with regards to the numbers, not many people take pride in the
cheaper options. But a few speak out, sometimes employees... some
municipalities and government departments test and then migrate fully to
OpenOffice. Home users who are intimidated by anti-piracy measures seem to
be doing the same. Some appear to have OpenOffice installed a drop-back
option, based on what I've seen.
--
~~ Best wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Roughly 2% of your keyboard is O/S-specific
http://Schestowitz.com | Open Prospects ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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http://iuron.com - knowledge engine, not a search engine
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