Dear James,

Interesting article, which should help to encourage a more open view of the
possibility of using OOo among business users, who tend to be loathe to
experiment. As a home user I am not subject in equal degree to the
productivity constraints and switch-over costs that occupy such people,
while purchase costs perhaps weigh higher in my case. On the grapevine the
most common disadvantages attributed to OOo are that the suite is bloated
and slow. Stability is, if I have understood the matter aright, generally
regarded as good. My question is thus: to the degree that the problems
mentioned above are real, what is being done to address them ? How does, for
example, 2.0.4 compare with its predecessor in these respects ? Does it
require more or less hard disk space or the same ; does operating it require
more or less RAM ? How does it compare in this regard with the Microsoft
Office suite ? These are the pivotal questions - in addition to the still
more basic one of whether tools of this kind should be computer or web-based
- which in my opinion are going to determine the fate of OOo. For my part, I
do hope OOo succeeds ; we all find ourselves very much in need of an
alternative to Redmond's products (and in particular, their marketing
practices) !...

Henri

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