On Thu, 2006-08-03 at 13:38 -0400, Pat Elder wrote:
> I see on your web site that OpenOffice elements consists of WRITER, CALC,
> IMPRESS, DRAW, and BASE.   Do you advertise that OpenOffice works on
> Windows?  Do you expect to make any market penetration without an occasional
> advertisement?  What is your e-mail client?  Do you expect to get anywhere
> into corporate America without an e-mail client that can natively
> communicate with Microsoft Exchange?  The UNIX/LINUX world has produces some
> of the best technical minds in the computer industry.  However your business
> acumen is below par!

If you run a business you will know that the quickest way to go out of
business is to spend money you have no way of replacing from an income
stream.

How do you suggest we raise money for an advertising campaign? Where do
you think the resources come from for this type of thing? If we did have
the several million dollars needed for a globally effective advertising
campaign would that be the best method for increasing take up using that
resource? The E-mail client has been discussed at length. Until someone
puts in the resource to do it, its not going to happen but there are
products such as Ximian Evolution that can connect to Exchange Server in
the meantime. Ximian evolution is being ported to Windows so not much
point in diverting coding effort from the main development.

OpenOffice.org relies on volunteers and donations of resources and these
volunteers largely determine the development priorities. He who pays the
piper etc. Sun is a big contributor and recently money was raised for a
one-off advertisement in the New York Metro. You can argue that the
community should be more proactive in generating its own sources of
revenue and get rid of as much dependency on "charity" as possible and
no doubt you would get some support. Until there is a culture and
consensus in the community to do that *and* there are the business ideas
to generate substantial income with the leadership to get this accepted
by the community that sort of change is not going to happen.

Ian
-- 
www.theINGOTS.org
www.schoolforge.org.uk
www.opendocumentfellowship.org

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