Hi Riemer, Thanks for posting, but pls, have a look at how it shows up in my mail. Would you pls be so kind to post again and try to get a decent formatting? That really will help to read and understand what you offer.
Thanks a lot, Cor Riemer Thalen wrote (19-04-11 15:40)
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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