On 4/3/07, Lars D. Noodén <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yes, the disadvantage that MS Office 2007 has an extremely restricted, basically non-existent, choice of platforms also applies to earlier versions. That doesn't make the further reduction any more acceptable or helpful. That is one of the reasons why MSO is no longer suitable for business environments, or for that matter home or school.
Let's examine the facts here, shall we? Your "extremely restricted, basically non-existent, choice of platforms" covers 90% + of all end-user computers in use in the world today. And that is just the Windows platform. Now, does MS Office 2007 run on all of those computers? Of course not. But many of those computers - almost all of them, in fact, have some version of MS Office already installed and running on them. Either MS Office, MS Word, or MS Works (Suite). As far as limiting it to just this latest release... You're still looking at over 75% of the world's business computers, and most of the world's home computers as well. And those businesses that don't have the hardware to run MS Office 2007, then need to upgrade anyway, (or at least that what their IT department will tell them - I don't know many IT guys that will pass up a chance to get new hardware). Look at the system requirements for MS Office 2007 Basic Computer and processor 500 MHz processor Memory 256 MB RAM Hard disk 1.5 GB (part of this can be freed after installation) Drive CD-ROM or DVD drive Display 1024x768 or higher resolution monitor Operating system MS Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, or later Windows OS Now, if you think that the Basic edition is some crappy version no one will use, the "Ultimate" edition of MS Office 2007 has the same requirements, except double the HD space (to 3 GB). http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/ha101668651033.aspx#9 I'd say that well over 80% of the computers in use in offices today meet or beat those systems requirements, with the possible exception of the OS (there are large numbers still running older versions of MS Windows). But the hardware specs are pretty minimal. Compare those to OOo... http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/sys_reqs_20.html No listing of what CPU it needs 128 MB RAM 200 MB available disk space 800 x 600 or higher resolution with at least 256 colours Half the RAM, much less disk space, and lower resolution. But really, how many more business computers does that add? You're giving equal weight to all platforms, regardless of how much they are actually used. I've gone for more than 20 years of using computers, and I've never once booted up a SPARC server. I could care less if any program I've ever used or ever will use will run on a SPARC. I don't care if it runs on a RISC computer either. And most people don't care if it does either. Does it run on *my* computer? Does it run on my company's computer? Does it run, (and I don't think too many care about this one, but some will) on my customer's/family's/friends/client's computer? That's about as far as it goes. And the last one only if they have a need to run the same software. As a Mac user (at home and work - all my company's computers are Apples - except 2 really old Windows computers that we use for one very specific application) I can say that Microsoft has done a tremendously better job with their office program on *MY* platform than OpenOffice.org. (NeoOffice is good, but, hey, that's not an "official" port - so we can't count that.) And more businesses use Macs in there offices than Solaris/SPARC, Debian PPC, OpenBSD on ARM, Fedora on x86-64, or OS/2 Warp ... combined. And, for the record, MS Office 2007 (and 2003 and XP) run just fine on a x86-64 system, as long as it's running Windows. Don't parrot that myth. DOC is not a single format, it's about a dozen
and a half. Regardless, it doesn't matter because the default format for MSO 2007 is DOCX which is *not backwards compatible*.
You don't understand what "backwards compatible" means. My Playstation 2 is "backwards compatible" with my Playstation (1). It can open, run, play, and save games from my Playstation 1. Playstation 2 games, however, do *not* run on my Playstation 1. If they did - that would mean that my Playstation 1 was "forward compatible" - not that my Playstation 2 was "backwards compatible". MS Office 2007 *is* backwards compatible if it can open, edit, read, save, and create files from older versions, which (from my understanding and experience with it) it indeed *can do*. OpenOffice.org 2.0 introduced a new file format as its default. The OpenDocument format. It can still open, create, edit, and save files under the old format. It is backwards compatible. They even came out with a add on for some of the more recent older versions of OpenOffice.org to make them forward compatible. (But I believe it was done by a third party and wasn't an "official" thing until it was adopted by the community.) That's the only way it can be done when adding a new format, btw. You can either just keep it on the new version and expect people to upgrade or not use the new format - *OR* - you can release or adopt a patch for your older versions. It's kind of impossible to go back in time and make all the older versions compatible from the beginning with a format you didn't know was going to exist, much less how to make it, for years after the software was released. So again, just because a liability is present in multiple versions of MS
Office, doesn't make the problem any more acceptable or helpful. That includes lack of OpenDocument (ISO/IEC 23600) support, which is a must- have.
In your opinion it is a must have. There are millions and millions of computer users who do not agree. In the same way, rats are successful. Cockroaches are successful, too.
If by success you mean market share, then you're quite right.
Fire up any random 100 computers in the world and 80 or more of them will have some version of MS Office - or some compatible program - on it. Those programs include AbiWord, KOffice, and OpenOffice.org - all of which can open, create, and save MS Office formatted files. If by
success, you mean the ability to exchange documents between different versions, then you seem to have slept through the last 15 years.
See above. Forced obsolence has been the driving factor in the earlier sales of MS
Office. In otherwords, the new formats, like DOCX, don't work with the old programs. I'm not sure of any way to spin that into a description of interoperability.
See above. MS Office 2007 can create files that other programs can open - are they default? Maybe not - but the user can change that. Kind of like OpenOffice.org's default file format that 90%+ of the office suite/word processors in use today *CAN NOT OPEN*. -- - Chad Smith http://www.chadwsmith.com/
