On 10/12/2007 11:44 AM, Edward Buck wrote: > > The only reason why Firefox doesn't suffer from this problem is that the > alternative is free too, e.g. IE.
Not necessarily. It also depends heavily on what is installed by default with the OS. For example, in a DesktopLinux.com survey/poll of August 2007 (http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey.cgi?view=archive&id=0813200712407) you'll see that 3. Which web browsers do you frequently use on your Linux desktop(s)? Firefox (aka Iceweasel) 59.6 % and 4. Which email clients do you frequently use on your Linux desktop(s)? Thunderbird (aka Icedove) 29.6 % The primary reason that the Mozilla products are tops are that they are included in the linux default installations (just as MSIE/OE are included in the Windows default installs. Note: Thunderbird is not included in many (Ubuntu for example) default installations, but is often added in later by users because Novell's Evolution is often a heavy cumbersome application regarding email, so it often ends up as a calendar/PIM application instead. Were the same poll conducted asking "Which office application you frequently use on your Linux desktops?" OOo would (my guess) most likely lead the pack by miles even over StarOffice. This is because of the recent move by OOo to have the linux distros include OOo in their initial distribution. Heck, even Knoppix, which often is considered to be a linux utility more than a fixed distro includes a working OOo. That said, the largest stumbling block to OOo's lack of market share isn't price, file compatibility, or other issues raised in the article. Instead it's the continued lack of a proper support staff and ease of upgrades/updates. I spend a considerable amount of time answering questions over on the users list (should be *mandatory* for all OOo marketers to subscribe to this list), and a very large percentage of the time spent is answering simple questions such as: "will this work on Vista", "I just spent 10 hours downloading via dialup, and I get this install error", "I want to upgrade to 2.x, do I have to download this again?", etc., etc. If I want to update/upgrade MS Office all I need to do is turn my automatic updates on. With OOo it's like pulling teeth with snow mittens on your hands in the middle of the Gobi. Free is fun for awhile, but after the initial 'gee whiz' it gets pretty frustrating when you find that you can't update your version with a simple upgrade. College users and book authors in particular get very pissed off when they find that they have faithfully used the Autorecovery and lose power only to find that the default Autorecovery sets to their /tmp directory that gets cleared after a reboot on a power outage etc. Then of course you have the linux users that find that their particular distro version has features that OOo proper does not (e.g., Solver in Calc, MS Works filters), etc. But that's for another thread... In my opinion, the primary reasons why college kids don't use OOo instead of MS Office are: 1) They've used it all of their school lives and it's generally installed already on their computer, 2) the school only supports MS & doesn't want to deal with OOo because MS is what their techs know, 3) when they do use OOo there is no formal tech support (even with StarOffice this is a problem) and the website is mind-boggling in trying to find help even for experienced users. Hence they may resort to the users mail list who's responses are from other users & a few steady user volunteers like myself, 4) they simply don't have time, nor wish to deal with alternatives. They may try it once or twice, but the bottom line is if an 18-21 year old in college is working on something, they simply don't want to deal with an alternative, be it free or otherwise. They want something that is the norm, that their school & professors require, that they don't have to send an email to a users mail list to get help if the install craps out, and just works. Afterall, many of them were sent off to college with a new laptop in the last minute 'send the kid to school' rush, and in most cases that laptop included MS Office. If not they can get the student version for about $59 USD from MS. So why bother? *So why bother?* Perhaps OOo should revive the education & library projects that seem to have been dropped by the wayside. Anyone here visited the Libraries and Public Administrations Project lately? http://marketing.openoffice.org/pa/ or how about: http://marketing.openoffice.org/education/schools/ or http://marketing.openoffice.org/education/schools/univs/index.html how about: http://education.openoffice.org/ Can anyone make sense of any of those web pages (other than they are basically stale and serve no purpose any longer?)? Here, try this: http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=libraries If OOo want to fix the Marketshare issue mentioned in the article, then OOo marketing need to forgo the silly 'give a OOo t-shirt to a poor kid' thought and go back into mainstream library and education markets. If kids grow up with OOo in the classroom they *will* use it into their college years. Ironically, Sun with StarOffice has made *no* dent in the education/library markets despite the fact that SO is basically *free* to students and educational institutions. I find it more disturbing that the Marketshare article doesn't even mention Sun's StarOffice. SO is free for students, staff, educational institutions. Furthermore, for a very limited fee, Sun also provides support at reasonable fee to educational installs. So why no response/rebuttle from Sun and SO? It's pretty common knowledge that OOo is the alpha/beta testing ground for StarOffice, where is Sun's response in all of this? Why must the responses fall on the OOo community? --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
