Thanks for everyones responses - there are a lot of great points that I can use in the presentation.
My audience is typically going to be the single person company on a tight budget just starting off, most likely a pretty computer illiterate end user familiar with Windows applications. Obviously the biggest attraction (in this case) to using FLOSS is the cost - this will not be the hard sell. The bigger challenge is in terms of support or lack thereof (perceived) and familiarity with existing applications. From the support perspective I think it is more a comfort level of knowing that there is this large corporation who can provide one with answers if need be (even though I've never known anybody to actually call Microsoft for support). Who does one call for OpenOffice, for example? If I had a problem with Word, I can always call any number of people for help, just because that is the dominant application and hence more people are familiar with it. As I mentioned, I believe this is more of a perceived issue than an actual one. The second challenge is one of familiarity - people do not like change. They have used a particular application, know how to accomplish required tasks with it and are comfortable. By using something new, one is asking them to move out of their comfort zone. This may be OK if one can get help when needed, but then this leads back to the support issue. Combined, I believe these are the biggest hurdles to introducing FLOSS. Thanks once again Martin _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
