Hi Folks, It may be odd coming from me, but let me give you some ideas about why Microsoft is probably NOT behind any conspiracy with Barnes and Noble:
o B&N carries lots of other Linux and Open Source books on their shelf o There are few books published that are under Microsoft's control, ergo no real weapon to use against B&N o Amazon and other book vendors are selling Open Office books. I mention Amazon because the average Linux person who wants an Open Office book will think of Amazon first and B&N next (or last). Or they will Google for the book and then just order it over the web....from.....Amazon. o A google for "open office" gets you a lot of books and pamphlets about having no cubicles in your office space. Unfortunately it makes the books hard to find through searching techniques when you do not know the author's name. o There are also "Star Office" books that talk about the same thing as "Open Office" books, but they are a lot easier to find at Amazon because of the "Open Office" concept which has nothing to do with our favorite software, but lots to do with having a wide open office space. Between these two issues, the "search market" is shattered a bit. I will point out that Solveig Haughland also wrote "Star Office 6.0 Office Suite Companion", carried by B&N AND they still list her "Star Office 5.2 Companion" even though it is only available through their Authorized Resellers. o B&N carried (and still carries) the OpenOffice 1.0 Resource Kit by Solveig Haugland. It may be that the book is simply moving too slowly for them to commit to V2.0. o It might be interesting for the publisher of Solveig's book to take shipping statistics to B&N of other major book dealers, like Borders or Amazon. Perhaps B&N is not promoting it enough, or not arranging the books for sale enough. It would probably be un-ethical for the publisher to name the actual stores and their buy rates, but they certainly could state that "several large retail stores purchased this book in these quantities". o While the number of end-users of OO are climbing because the number of Linux workstations is climbing, the number of windows machines being sold on the desktop is still 6-7 times the number of Linux desktop machines. Also search engines work on the considerations about whether or not someone bought the last searched item. More people buying Microsoft Office books, the higher in the search list. Now interestingly enough, when you google for "open office" and "book", you get a pointer to a book on Microsoft Office because there is a page listed that shows "open office document" as a menu item, and somewhere else on that page there must be "book"....but I hardly think that is a tactic by Microsoft. My solution? Just give more business to Amazon. Sooner or later B&N will come around. md -- Jon "maddog" Hall Executive Director Linux International(R) email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 80 Amherst St. Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A. WWW: http://www.li.org Board Member: Uniforum Association Board Member Emeritus: USENIX Association (2000-2006) (R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. (R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis (R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other countries. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
