> True to some extent, but how many folks do 8-10 hours "head - down" into > Word, Excel, etc? I would guess that most users are casual, real-time, > sporadic users who need information formed or transformed for a real > world process versus a database repository.
I agree. I've switched from the MS office set to the Open-office set (v1.1.5) and except for the messages I get when it tries to save or exit, I sometimes forget that I'm not using MS software. Speaking of which, I intend to download v.2, but the "Are you sure you want to use an inferior format" warnings in v.1.1.5 are a little unnerving. It almost says "you're doing something wrong, are you sure you want to?" and I think that from a marketing point, it can hurt the software's success and it might make a good suggestion to the development group to scan the document for actual incompatibilities before throwing that error. > Training is a non-issue. There is enough cross-over knowledge and > enough Help online that it becomes noise. If basic usage of a general > user application can't be taught in less than one day it shouldn't be in > the marketplace. I do a lot of consulting (internet development mostly) to small offices and I'm usually not the only IT consultant working with them. I've seen many instances where another consultant tries to convince an office to switch to open-source software or even just alternative commercial software. "I don't want to have to learn a new program/train my employees in a new program." Or "I'm already used to this other one" is a very common response, but my experience has told me that learning something new is actually not what they're afraid of. They're really just afraid of the switch, which is unfortunately much harder to overcome. I'll be the first to say I don't know how to overcome it, but I think that if you try to counter arguments about training, you may just back people into a corner and build their resistance to the switch. I remember a time trying to convince someone that it was ok to use MySQL in place of MS SQL and they were just using SQL queries, so no difference from their end. They simply wouldn't do it and I pointed out that there would be absolutely no difference from their end and it ended up hurting me case. Just wanted to mention this, hopefully people will find it helpful. > Businesses will do what is in their "best" (read: profit-making) > interest in the long run. All that is needed is to have a single > shareholder ask the CEO how much money they paid to MS in any given > fiscal year at the next stockholders meeting. This would be quickly > followed by a shareholder's lawsuit for fiscal irresponsibility. This is a hard argument to make. I know that when you buy computers from Dell, HP, Gateway, etc. MS office (home or pro, depending on what you're buying) is usually included in the price. I'm sure the manufacturer pays for the OEM license, but they lump it in and I've never known them to ask, "Would you like office or will notepad do?" I've done some scratch-build computer jobs for companies, but they end up paying me for manufacturing any money they save on Office. So I guess that just leads us to the question, how do we actually save businesses money? The obvious (though maybe not easiest) answer is to try to get some manufacturers to offer OpenOffice as an alternative. I can't think of any other particularly good ideas off the top of my head, but maybe some people on the list might have ideas. I hope this helps or at least leads to some good discussion. I wouldn't suggest that any of your points are invalid, but I wanted to play devil's advocate because it's better that I do it than that a prospective user does. -Daniel Lynn --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
