Hi all,My name is Riemer Thalen and I am not a programmer. I'm a
marketing guy. For the last couple of years I have been wondering:
how come so many people pay hundreds of dollars for MS Office when
they can have OOo/LibO for free?Apparently, many people feel LibO does
not match MS Office. Maybe
they are missing functions MS Office has, maybe they think LibO
behaves oddly, or maybe... we don't know.And that's a real problem.
Because if we really want LibO to
become the number one office suite in the world, we need to find
out what keeps people form switching to OOo/LibO permanently.I am not an
old hand in the OOo community. Maybe some market
reseach into former users has been done in the past. I searched
the Internet and I could not find any reports.At present, the LibO
developers are guided by community feedback.
But for our purpose, that will not do. It is like asking iPhone
users if they need a keyboard. No, of course they don't. If they
thought a keyboard was neccessary they would not have bought an
iPhone in the first place.The same applies to the OOo / LibO community.
The members are
dedicated LibO users and by definition they are not representative
for former users.As it happens, my daughter who is business student needs
to do a
marketing survey. That's no big deal nowadays. All you have to do
is open an account at a survey site. Then you compose a three
question questionnaire.The questionnaire is posted and tagged on Facebook
and LinkedIn.
"Did you use OpenOffice in the past? Please, help us improve it.
Answer just three questions." If only half of the subscribers to
this mailing list would post the link, we probably will have more
than enough respondents.The questionnaire could read like this:Yes, I
used or
tried OpenOffice.org in the past and I do not use it anymore.1) The
main reason I dropped OOo concerned (tick as many boxes
as are applicable): O Writer,O Calc,O Impress
(presentation)O the whole suite2) What made me drop OOo was the
following. (Just the one big
problem. What was the show stopper for you?)3) What else needs to be
fixed in OOo in your opinion? (Name as
many issues as you like.)Thank you for your feedback!Indeed, this is a
qualitative survey. We need to know how former
users feel about OOo/LibO. In what terms do they describe their
problem? How strongly do they feel about it? That is more
important than the exact percentage thatencountered the issue.
(Of course, the responses will later be categorized and counted,
but this will result in quantative indications only.)Once the results are
in and processed, two importants things can
be done:1. the developers can prioritize issues, fixes, modifications and
new functions2. the marketing group can create a "switchers guide" based
on
real-life feedback. Not all functions in LibO will be and can be
the same as in MS Office. Knowing the differences and how to deal
with them will greatly improve user satisfaction.OK, this is as far as my
proposal goes. I would like to hear from
you guys what you think of it. Personally, I feel it is very
important to get feedback from outside the community. Moreover,
IMHO it is crucial not only for the success of LibO, but also for
the Linux desktop. Without an office suite that is considered
state-of-the-art, Ubuntu, LinuxMint, Fedora and the likes are
fighting an uphill battle...Hope to hear from you soon.Riemer Thalen
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