Hi, Open Office team. Well, thanks for the educational lesson, but here's the thing: My opportunity cost is too high to take the time to learn all the twists to using your product. Get a clue: if my whole college uses Microsoft Office, they're not going to all download the necessary attachments to be able to read Open Office documents and I'm not going to take the time to study the techniques necessary to use your product.
As for product support, I'm sure Microsoft Office reps would never respond in an immature fashion like this to a customer support email, but then again, that's why Microsoft Office sells for a much higher markup than your product, which, now that I think about it, doesn't sell for anything at all. :( Lol, I just can't believe you sent an email back to a former customer trying to compete with words. Do you make it a point to try to outsmart your customers rather than make your product easier to use with less manipulation? I guess this is why Microsoft Office has more clients than Sun Systems or whoever your product is owned by. Lesson learned: don't go with second-rate products because you get the ease of use you pay for. :) -----Original Message----- From: Michael Adams [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 3:47 AM To: [email protected] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [discuss] Advertising Strategy On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:37:09 -0700 Kim Garback wrote: > Hi, wonderful minds of Open Office. > > Here's an idea about how to market for Open Office: make it compatible > with Microsoft Word. So you would prefer it be a Word look alike. This would mean it could never be better than Word because it would only ever be trying to play catchup - Agreed? > I wasn't happy to begin with because Open Office doesn't have all of > the options Microsoft Word offers for its documents. By golly Microsoft Word does not have all the options of OpenOffice.org either (like the ability to have page styles). > Then I found out that I can't use Open Office documents to send them > to friends and teachers who have Microsoft Word because the file ends > up as "corrupted" and cannot be opened with Microsoft Word. Umm, you really got it wrong here. OpenOffice.org can save files in Word format - You only need to learn how (2 minutes tuition - or 1 polite email to this list). What it does do as default is saves in the International Open ISO standard ODF format[1]. The one being adopted by various governments around the world[2]. Microsoft Word can actually open these files but you have to download a third party extension to do it[3], because Microsoft want to keep all their customers locked in[4] to their format with the secret bits in it that only Word is meant to understand[5]. No corruption here, just a lack of knowledge on your part. OpenOffice.org can even be made to save in .doc format by default. > Doesn't do me any good, so I bought Microsoft Office. > Boy have you got egg on your face now. > Just thought I'd let ya know: your product sucks. Lets see: o You suggest we make it compatible with Microsoft Word - It can Open and Save Word Docs... so it is compatible. tick! o You said the file format was corrupted - Microsoft don't want people to use a format that isn't theirs, so Microsoft dont won't thier program to Open or Save in an Internationally Standards accepted format. Word can't open a perferctly good file that at least nine other programs can[6]. Wheres the corruption there? o You paid really good money for a program that locks you into a system that you have to keep paying for. All because you didn't ask for help when you got it wrong. o And you reckon the free program that can do more than your Store bought Word can, like Opening a simple file format, sucks. Go figure?!? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_adoption [3] http://www.sun.com/software/star/odf_plugin/index.jsp [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in#Microsoft [6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_software_comparison#Word_Processor s -- Michael All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well - Julian of Norwich 1342 - 1416 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
