On Sat, 2006-07-29 at 09:46 +0000, Andrew Brown wrote: > "John McCreesh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: > > > Our "Keep the Car" campaign encourages people to compare OOo with the > > competition. Microsoft don't want to return the compliment: > > > > "There can be no doubt that Microsoft is afraid of the open-source > > movement. Last month, as part of the conditions for allowing us to > > include Office 2007 on the cover disc, Microsoft Corp ... wouldn't > > allow us to put any open-source software onto the same disc ... For > > instance, Microsoft specifically named OpenOffice.org as a program we > > couldn't include on the cover disc." > > > > http://www.pcpro.co.uk/columns/90653/prolog.html > > > > It's not very often that magazines are willing to go public on the > > pressures applied by the master monopolist - they have too much > > advertising revenue at stake. > > > > But in this instance, they were saying that anyone who actually compared > MSO to OOo would far prefer MSO: > > "For instance, Microsoft specifically named OpenOffice.org as a program we > couldn't include on the cover disc. That's an incredibly short-sighted > move. The whole point about Office 2007 is what it offers over and above > OpenOffice.org, that it allows you to create more sophisticated documents > more quickly. If I was on the board of Microsoft Corp, I'd be demanding > that magazines bundled both side by side so that people could make their > own comparisons."
Hm, that would be true if the majority of their user base needed to "create more sophisticated documents more quickly". I think MS realise their profitability is in volume sales and for the vast majority, OOo is at least good enough. How many people would be likely to do comparisons sophisticated enough to show MSO having real value added? I suspect not many. Joe Sixpack is going to whizz through some superficial comparisons and conclude the "Emperor has no clothes". Even if 25% of MS users benefit from these added features, if their user base was eroded to 25% they would have to quadruple the price of MSO to get the same revenue. If MSO was 4 times the price no doubt some would still buy it but I could then see a lot of large corporates deciding it was less expensive to contribute to OOo. What would be nice would be for PCPRO to say last month you got a trial of MSO 2007, now here is a chance to compare it with OOo. With OOo you get free updates too for life ;-) Ian -- www.theINGOTS.org www.schoolforge.org.uk www.opendocumentfellowship.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
