On Mon, 2008-03-24 at 06:46 -0700, Kim Garback wrote: > 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.
A few hundred million people seem to disagree. In any case docx is incompatible with older versions of MS Office. Google Docs is making inroads with odf too. In years to come, no doubt some people will still be using MS Office, Wordperfect and probably some typewriters. Choice is good. So if you don't want to change, don't. > 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, No, it sells for more because it has a longer history and stronger brand name. That will change with time. MS prices are falling for a reason. They will continue to fall but probably not to as good value as OOo or Google docs because MS has a fundamentally out-dated business model. > which, now that I think about it, doesn't sell for anything at all. > :( Neither do the apps Google give away, but they are still making money. In fact the internet models that are most successful seem to be moving away from selling software licenses, change just takes time. > 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? Actually, we are generally volunteers with no commercial pressure on us to suck up to idiots :-) Simple really. > I guess this is why Microsoft Office has more clients than > Sun Systems or whoever your product is owned by. Well MS Office has a monopoly and has been around a lot longer. Since I don't need to it them now OOo exists, that's cool. But I don't have any real need for OOo to take over the world either. Sun probably save a big proportion of their costs simply by using OOo rather than MSO internally so we all benefit. You can join in or spend money on equivalent tools when you don't need to, it's up to you. > Lesson learned: don't go > with second-rate products because you get the ease of use you pay for. :) I wouldn't dream of using MSO on Windows. Why use a second rate product that can't even export pdfs and pay for it when I can have something that is better for me for free, minus any viruses or spyware? Happy trolling :-) Ian -- New QCA Accredited IT Qualifications www.theINGOTs.org You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
