Dove Electronics sell Sony projectors for around $2000 now (wholesale admittedly)
OpenOffice is free and plays PowerPoint files fine. Regards, Robert Some days you are the bug, some days you are the windscreen. -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Dunford [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:51 a.m. To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Church opensource. Steve Bell wrote: >Just thinking out loud here, but there's a big opportunity for the open >source community within churches. > >Many churches use Powerpoint and a data projecter to project song lyrics for >the congregation. And those who don't already, want to. > >Small churches often have a desire to grow, but a very small budget. They >dream big dreams but can't afford to buy them. Morally, they can't use >pirated software, and $$wise, they can't afford WinXP, and MS Office. > >I'm not sticking my hand up, just having an idea, but if someone invited >local churches to an installfest with the goal of getting a working >"Powerpoint" machine operating for "free"... > > > > > Personally I do not think this is a true representation of the situation. A projector will cost around $3000 minimum of a suitable size / light output. The computer will cost maybe second hand $500. Powerpoint costs a few hundred dollars. The cost of powerpoint in those scenarios is but a small part of the overall cost. And the reason we use powerpoint is because everyone uses it. There's no scope for using some other incompatible system that won't be able to read powerpoint files. You don't need XP to run Powerpoint. Windows 98 is perfectly satisfactory. And you don't need to buy a whole Office package.
