Lars,
I did not troll anything. I simply said know your audience.
I am well aware of the benefits of an open format. Michael Dell is not, nor
does he care. When convincing a corporation to use your product, (which is
all Dell is going to see OpenOffice.org as - a product, not a community, not
a project, not a philosophy or a instrument of social change - just a
product, like Tide, or Kraft Singles, or WordPerfect), you tell them how it
will benefit *them* in areas that they care about. In Dell, Inc. cared
about file formats - they'd already be using ODF in house. I'm sure if you
showed up in a meeting at Dell HQ, you'd be greeted with a PowerPoint (tm)
presentation, and handed a printout of a Word (tm) document.
Know your audience. Don't sell OpenOffice.org to Dell on why *you* use it.
Sell it to them on why *they* want it.
Basically - it's free, it works, it's better than MS Works, it's better than
WordPerfect, you don't have to worry about licensing issues, you can slap
your name all over it and put it on every system you sell - even those you
bundle with MS Office 2007 Ultimate Edition.
I'm not - at all - in any way - trying to discredit open formats.
I'm not - at all - in any way - even suggesting that open formats won't
benefit Dell itself.
I'm merely saying that trying to sell Dell on OpenOffice.org is different
than trying to sell them on ODF. There are many, many, many other benefits
to OpenOffice.org than just the file format, and those other benefits are
the ones that matter to the opinion of Dell.
It's like this, if you are worried about a friend of yours that has a weight
problem, and you want them to eat healthier. (I am overweight, by a lot,
myself, so I'm not making fun of fat people. I am one.) You don't start by
saying "This stuff is really low in calories, no carbs, no trans-fat, and no
sodium! Heck, there's even evidence it lowers bad cholestoral in some
studies. You should eat this, because, you know, you're fat." No. You
tell them about how much you like it, and how good it tastes, and then,
maybe, you mention it's healthy, and leave it at that. You sell them on
what you know they are interested in. Fat people (like me) generally care
about taste more than health. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't be in the
condition we are in. So, knowing that - you talk about taste more than
substance. The whole time, your goal is substance over taste.
It's called targeted marketing. Know your audience. Tell them what they
want to know, not what you want to tell them.
On 3/9/07, Lars D. Noodén <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I thought you'd left the list to troll elsewhere, Chad. I'm sad to find
myself mistaken on that account.
The proprietary formats are doing no favors to use, our users, Dell, or
Dell's customers. Not one of those proprietary MS formats is properly
documents and there's a whole slew of variants for each class of
application, making compatibility a nightmare.
Users gain a lot by upgrading to an open format, which OpenDocument the
default format is. The undocumented, nonstandard, proprietary
formats are still an option, just not the default. Changing the default
format to any of the undocumented undocumented, nonstandard, proprietary
formats is just heaping more misery onto the end user.
/Lars
Lars Noodén ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Ensure access to your data now and in the future
http://opendocumentfellowship.org/about_us/contribute
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- Chad Smith
http://www.chadwsmith.com/
