And I think your analysis is wrong.
THe key word is "alternative", "option".
What matters is not so much the box you use but the fact that it is able to communicate and share data with other boxes. This is the network paradigm. Now people have the ability to opt MS out of the process necessary to deliver/exchange data.
If you have practical alternatives to render a job as good as you did before there are no rational reasons why you would not use the alternative. And when I write "practical" I mean cost-wise etc.
If OOo did not a job good enough for the mega corps that Sun, IBM and Novell are I doubt it would be adopted there.
Think about the fact that most of the people who process data have no _need_ for a word processor, they need a tool that accesses the format, processes the data and deliver it in the same format. A lot of people also just need to _view_ the result (and print it out) but as far as I know, you can't get a "Word Reader Free" (like Adobe Acrobat Reader).
Right now people have to get the _whole_ package that has functions they will never use (when they just need to display data a la PDF), and that does not include others (XML compliance for data processing).
OOo proposes that for free, and for people who just need to write documents (as complex as they may be) it does the job too.
I finally understood that when, in my job (I am a translator) I realized that I did not even need OOo, I just needed my client to send me OOo files that I would feed to my translation tools and I would then deliver the translated file in OOo format.
Right now, in the MS world you can't do that. Proprietary means that to have access to the data you need to get a whole set of useless functions (Word etc) to just access the data. Open formats allows to get to the data at the core with the proper processing tools. This is the only reason why OOo, but mostly OpenDocument will make it. The three companies you mention have a huge need for data access/transfer/compatibility and they know that because they are major actors of the IT (_Information_ _Technology_) market. XML is the way, and OOo have made XML accessible to the masses.
JC Helary
On 2005/05/19, at 10:57, Chad Smith wrote:
that's not what I said. I didn't say that MS would never use OOo. What I said was the only major companies that *do* use OpenOffice.org are in direct competition with Microsoft. (at least the only ones that people talk about.)
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