OpenOffice a Poor Substitute For MSOffice Admits Munich Mayor.

[Kinglen Wang]

"The Open Document Format that Microsoft plans to include in its new
Office addition will help eliminate many of the formatting issues Munich
city employees experience when converting documents from Office to
OpenOffice.org, according to Hoegner."

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNmunichopensource_1.html
?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/
HNmunichopensource_1.html

http://tinylink.eu/Bfwaw

This has been suspected to be the case for a long time but has
usually been categorically denied by stalwart Linux users who never seem
to have problems with any Linux/oss software for some reason known only to
them.

 

[Guest]

Kinglen Wang (flatfish) nymshifted:

< snip flatfish droppings >

Hi flatfish

 

[Rick]

"The Open Document Format that Microsoft plans to include in its new
Office addition will help eliminate many of the formatting issues Munich
city employees experience when converting documents from Office to
OpenOffice.org, according to Hoegner."

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNmunichopensource_1.html
?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/
HNmunichopensource_1.html

http://tinylink.eu/Bfwaw

This has been suspected to be the case for a long time but has usually
been categorically denied by stalwart Linux users who never seem to have
problems with any Linux/oss software for some reason known only to them.

.... except that OO.o IS NOT a poor substitute for MSOFFICE.

BTW, your trolling sucks.

 

[cc]

... except that OO.o IS NOT a poor substitute for MSOFFICE.

BTW, your trolling sucks.

Maybe it's not a poor substitute, but no one so far is addressing the
point in the quote that they are having trouble converting from Office
to OpenOffice.org. I thought it just worked.

 

[Guest]

Maybe it's not a poor substitute, but no one so far is addressing the
point in the quote that they are having trouble converting from Office
to OpenOffice.org. I thought it just worked.

It does. You need weird formatting and/or VB scripts to throw off the import
of MS Office docs

 

[rwwff]

Maybe it's not a poor substitute, but no one so far is addressing the
point in the quote that they are having trouble converting from Office
to OpenOffice.org. I thought it just worked.

Sheesh. Nothing "just works". Converting from Office 2k to Office
2003 doesn't even "just work".

That said, the complaints now seem to mostly revolve around converting
documents from one to the other and getting something that mostly looks
the same. Not really a question of a "better" or "worse" argument
anymore.

I think what Microsoft fears most about open office is that 95% of its
users can barely manage to use any software, and as long as the
document they get in email is basically readable and printable, they
can't tell whether it was supposed to look one way or another.

This is proven by the large number of office workers who *STILL* use
soft-spaces in an attempt to line up columns of text with proportional
fonts. And given that I have actually swapped the software out on
these folks without them noticing anything different other than the
startup banner, I think there is a good case to be made that for 19 out
of 20 installations, paying for MS Office is about as wise as using
gold thread to stitch up someone's worn out socks.

And even if there were a need for an occassional perfect rendering of
an MS Office document within a small company, thats reason to have ONE
copy of MS Office on the "techiest" person's computer; instead of
having to buy 15 licenses for all the folks that might need to read an
MS Word document.

 

[Rick]

Maybe it's not a poor substitute, but no one so far is addressing the
point in the quote that they are having trouble converting from Office to
OpenOffice.org. I thought it just worked.

Statistically, it does just work. Also, statistically, it never works.
There WILL be SOME conversion/formatting problems, but that would be the
case for any software they switched to.

 

[7]

begin Kinglen Wang wrote on behalf of micoshaft corporation:

"The Open Document Format that Microsoft plans to include in its new
Office addition

Its rumoured micoshaft engineers are trying to implement
a bad non-conformal ODF driver for political reason.

Don't buy it.

Get free Open Office instead.
http://www.openoffice.org

will help eliminate many of the formatting issues Munich
city employees experience when converting documents from Office to
OpenOffice.org, according to Hoegner."

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNmunichopensource_1.html
?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/
HNmunichopensource_1.html

http://tinylink.eu/Bfwaw

This has been suspected to be the case for a long time but has
usually been categorically denied by stalwart Linux users who never seem
to have problems with any Linux/oss software for some reason known only to
them.

A lot of livecds and standard distros
like knoppix, mepis, OpenSuSE, Ubuntu etc contain
Open Office free. Just run up the livecd and try
for yourself.
Hundreds of open source software and distros here...
http://www.livecdlist.com
http://www.distrowatch.com

 

[Linonut]

After takin' a swig o' grog, cc belched out this bit o' wisdom:

Maybe it's not a poor substitute, but no one so far is addressing the
point in the quote that they are having trouble converting from Office
to OpenOffice.org. I thought it just worked.

It should, if you don't need any Microsoft-specific features. Most
people (by far the majority, I feel certain, do not.)

The trouble Munich was having was due to an SAS app written to integrate
only with Word -- a lucky bit of lock-in for Microsoft. Except that SAS
agreed to write a connector for OpenOffice, after all.

Breaking a complex application's lock-in to a complex word processor is
a good thing. Just ask users of Rational's Requisite Pro, which uses a
Word interface. One false move and *poof* there goes your requirements
document.

How about AutoCAD? Write a tech manual, stick in some AutoCAD drawings.
A couple of years later, someone updates the drawings with a new version
of AutoCAD. Oops. Now your steps to import them into a Word document
don't work.

Stallman was right.

 

[Linonut]

After takin' a swig o' grog, (e-mail address removed) belched out this bit o' wisdom:

And even if there were a need for an occassional perfect rendering of
an MS Office document within a small company, thats reason to have ONE
copy of MS Office on the "techiest" person's computer; instead of
having to buy 15 licenses for all the folks that might need to read an
MS Word document.

And OOo will eventually work out all the bugs, unless Microsoft finds a
clever way to tweak its formats.

 

[Bob I]

After takin' a swig o' grog, (e-mail address removed) belched out this bit o' wisdom:




And OOo will eventually work out all the bugs, unless Microsoft finds a
clever way to tweak its formats.

Actually one NEVER works out ALL the bugs in any complex software, a new
version is released LONG before that ever happens.

 

[Ian]

Sheesh. Nothing "just works". Converting from Office 2k to Office
2003 doesn't even "just work".

That said, the complaints now seem to mostly revolve around converting
documents from one to the other and getting something that mostly looks
the same. Not really a question of a "better" or "worse" argument
anymore.

I think what Microsoft fears most about open office is that 95% of its
users can barely manage to use any software, and as long as the
document they get in email is basically readable and printable, they
can't tell whether it was supposed to look one way or another.

This is proven by the large number of office workers who *STILL* use
soft-spaces in an attempt to line up columns of text with proportional
fonts. And given that I have actually swapped the software out on
these folks without them noticing anything different other than the
startup banner, I think there is a good case to be made that for 19 out
of 20 installations, paying for MS Office is about as wise as using
gold thread to stitch up someone's worn out socks.

This is true of all word-processing systems where 95% of the facilities
offered are completely unknown to users. MS Office is a rip-off and the
new version coming out is almost impossible to use. The cost of OO is
about right.

I think as far as productivity goes, it is hard to go past the old DOS
WordPerfect 5.1. Under the control of a competent secretarial type it
could work wonders AND keep up with the typist's speed. Unfortunately,
when WordPerfect went to windows with V6, they stuffed it up completely
(it was slow and didn't work), giving MS the niche just at the right
time. It's better now but they never recovered their momentum.

My only gripe with OO is the lack of templates supplied with the
installation, but they are available on the net.

And even if there were a need for an occassional perfect rendering of
an MS Office document within a small company, thats reason to have ONE
copy of MS Office on the "techiest" person's computer; instead of
having to buy 15 licenses for all the folks that might need to read an
MS Word document.

You can also get Office readers for free.

 

[Rex Ballard]

"The Open Document Format that Microsoft plans to include in its new
Office addition will help eliminate many of the formatting issues Munich
city employees experience when converting documents from Office to
OpenOffice.org, according to Hoegner."

So if you pay Microsoft something like $200 per user to upgrade to
Ultimate Office 2007, you can have documents that MIGHT be compatible
with Open Document format.

Nice to hear.

If I have 200,000 employees,
but I only need 2,000 people to conver MS-Office documents to ODF
documents,
- will I have to buy 200,000 copies at $200 per user anyway?
- Do I also have to sign a 3 year support contract?
- If I want to use LInux, will I have to sign a support contract for
Windows anyway?
- What will the monthly rate be?

From the Vista licenses, and the Office licenses, it looks like Munich

is pretty much at the "point of no return". They can either go with
"No Microsoft" or pay Microsoft "per head" regardless of how many users
actually need Windows.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNmunichopensource_1.html ?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNmunichopensource_1.html
http://tinylink.eu/Bfwaw

This has been suspected to be the case for a long time but has
usually been categorically denied by stalwart Linux users who never seem
to have problems with any Linux/oss software for some reason known only to
them.

The Linux community asks, "Is it worth up to $150/employee per month,
or nearly $5000 per employee over 3 years, to get "Ultimate" licenses
and support? If you have 200,000 employees, is it really worth almost
$10 billion to have MS-Office instead of OpenOffice?

If you make the transition to ODF, are there benefits and productivity
increases that might overcome the cosmetic problems? Would the ability
to index millions of company documents using the same tools used by web
services such as Google or htdig, offset the costs of having one of the
readers doing a "format fix"? Would the ability to arcive versions of
documents and changes using tools like CVS make it easier to stomach
the cost of a less exciting animation? If you really need an animated
presentation, is PowerPoint/Presents really the right tool? Or should
you consider using flash?

Keep in mind that $10 billion in unbudgeted expenses, could mean
cutting the jobs of 10-20,000 workers, as much as 20% of the work
force. Not spending $10 billion means that you can add that many
workers, or use it on other expenses which will improve service,
increase sales, reduce costs, and retain customers.

But watch the WinTrolls argue in favor of Microsoft's licensing and
support schemes.

Should WinTrolls be the first to be cut?

 

[ed]

"The Open Document Format that Microsoft plans to include in its new
Office addition will help eliminate many of the formatting issues
Munich city employees experience when converting documents from Office
to OpenOffice.org, according to Hoegner."

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNmunichopensource_1.html
?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/
HNmunichopensource_1.html

http://tinylink.eu/Bfwaw

This has been suspected to be the case for a long time but has
usually been categorically denied by stalwart Linux users who never
seem to have problems with any Linux/oss software for some reason
known only to them.

wtf, lies.

totally out of context.

the problem is CAUSED by Office.

 

[High Plains Thumper]

"The Open Document Format that Microsoft plans to include in its new
Office addition will help eliminate many of the formatting issues Munich
city employees experience when converting documents from Office to
OpenOffice.org, according to Hoegner."

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNmunichopensource_1.html

(This portion is unnecessary (opens to same page):

?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/
HNmunichopensource_1.html

http://tinylink.eu/Bfwaw

This has been suspected to be the case for a long time but has usually
been categorically denied by stalwart Linux users who never seem to have
problems with any Linux/oss software for some reason known only to them.

Your point along with the link you supplied do not correlate. Following is
quoted from the article:

| For Munich, there's no turning back now. After some delay, the city is
| pushing full-speed ahead with its migration to Linux on the desktop, and
| even mayor Christine Strobl, a newly converted open-source user, likes
| what she sees.

| Last month, Munich began replacing Windows and Office with Linux and
| OpenOffice.org software on around 14,000 desktops, a year later than
| planned and nearly three years since the city announced its move to open
| source.
|
| Delays in the city's LiMux project began with a dispute over patent
| issues, sparked by proposed European Union (E.U.) legislation that some
| critics thought would make it easier to patent software. Because
| open-source software is often created by groups of developers who write
| code that can be easily scrutinized, some critics have said that it may be
| easier for companies to make patent claims against it. But following a
| study by legal experts, Munich decided to take a calculated risk and
| proceed with its project.
|
| The patent dispute was followed by longer-than-expected negotiations with
| companies bidding for the contract to provide system configuration and
| support services. On top of that was a one-year extension of the pilot
| phase.
|
| The city now hopes to compensate with a fast rollout.
|
| "Between now and 2008, we plan to complete the migration and I don't see
| any reason why we shouldn't," said Wilhelm Hoegner, IT director at the
| City of Munich.

Apparently the municipality of Munich, Germany disagrees with you with their
14,000 seat installation. Also, nation city of Singapore with their 20,000
seat installation disagrees with you. I find Open Office a great
alternative to Microsoft Office. It saved me considerable quid on my 850
MHz laptop, complex Excel spreadsheets and Word documents open up fine on
it.

 

[billwg]

Rex Ballard wrote:

The Linux community asks, "Is it worth up to $150/employee per month,
or nearly $5000 per employee over 3 years, to get "Ultimate" licenses
and support? If you have 200,000 employees, is it really worth almost
$10 billion to have MS-Office instead of OpenOffice?

If you make the transition to ODF, are there benefits and productivity
increases that might overcome the cosmetic problems? Would the ability
to index millions of company documents using the same tools used by web
services such as Google or htdig, offset the costs of having one of the
readers doing a "format fix"? Would the ability to arcive versions of
documents and changes using tools like CVS make it easier to stomach
the cost of a less exciting animation? If you really need an animated
presentation, is PowerPoint/Presents really the right tool? Or should
you consider using flash?

Keep in mind that $10 billion in unbudgeted expenses, could mean
cutting the jobs of 10-20,000 workers, as much as 20% of the work
force. Not spending $10 billion means that you can add that many
workers, or use it on other expenses which will improve service,
increase sales, reduce costs, and retain customers.

But watch the WinTrolls argue in favor of Microsoft's licensing and
support schemes.

Well ignore all that, rex, and look at your abysimal arithmetic!
LOL!!!

Now 200,000 times 5,000 is indeed a lot of money, but it is much closer
to 1 Billion than to 10. And that without wondering how many companies
have 200,000 employees using computers that need copies of MS Office
installed. I bet that any such company could get a whomping discount
right up front from Mr. Softee, so they would never have to spend
anywhere near as much.

The other piece of sloppy work is obviously the notion that 10-20,000
workers is some how 20% of 200,000. It is only 5 to 10% if you use a
calculator with fresher batteries, rex.

 

[Rex Ballard]

OOPS - Bill's right, it's $1 billion.

And yes, I used the highest prices quoted in any article, though this
was probably for more than just Windows, more like MSDN for each
corporate workstation, probably Windows, Office, Visio, and Project..

Well ignore all that, rex, and look at your abysimal arithmetic!
LOL!!!

Now 200,000 times 5,000 is indeed a lot of money, but it is much closer
to 1 Billion than to 10.

And that without wondering how many companies
have 200,000 employees using computers that need copies of MS Office
installed.

Prudential, Metlife, Allstate, Bank of America, IBM, General Electric,
Exon, GM, Chevron, Citigroup, AIG, JP Morgan, Verizon, Altria, State
Farm, Boeing, Costco, Target, Morgan Stanley

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/full_list/
(not all of these companies are PC intensive).

Most of those companies

I bet that any such company could get a whomping discount
right up front from Mr. Softee, so they would never have to spend
anywhere near as much.

I'm sure they would. But the real question is how will the payments to
Microsoft for Vista and Office Ultimate and the rest of the Microsoft
support package compare to payments being made in 1997, when they first
began offering the support contracts?

The other piece of sloppy work is obviously the notion that 10-20,000
workers is some how 20% of 200,000. It is only 5 to 10% if you use a
calculator with fresher batteries, rex.

Need to use excel
LOL

 

[alt]

... except that OO.o IS NOT a poor substitute for MSOFFICE.

MSOffice is, however, a poor (and expensive!) substitute for OO.org.

 

[William Poaster]

MSOffice is, however, a poor (and expensive!) substitute for OO.org.

In 2003 the state of Israel booted M$Office out & changed to OOo. They
also suspended all contacts with M$, & Israel's Antitrust Authority
director general, Dror Strum, went as far as declaring M$ a monopoly.
M$ (which sounded remarkably just like the wintrolls in here) reacted
scornfully to the decision,saying: "has selected an immature and unproven
software package and its functionality is at the best close to Office 97"
Oh dear, so M$'s propaganda wouldn't work because Israel had cut
communications, which caused M$ to act like a kid that was told off.

AFAIK, Israel are *still* using OOo. Now if what the trolls say is true,
(about OOo being a poor subsitute) don't you think they'd have changed
back to M$ Office?

As a matter of interest, OOo developed an Arabic version too, both Hebrew
& Arabic local versions were released in January 2004. Israeli & Arab
developers assisted each other in solving common problems in developing
local versions of OOo. So Israelis & Arabs *can* work together!

 

[Erik Funkenbusch]

In 2003 the state of Israel booted M$Office out & changed to OOo. They
also suspended all contacts with M$, & Israel's Antitrust Authority
director general, Dror Strum, went as far as declaring M$ a monopoly.

Actually, that's supended all contRacts with Microsoft, not suspended
contacts.

Funny, I haven't been able to find anything recent about Israel using Open
Office. One would think you could at least find a reference to it
somewhere, or find OO documents on their web sites, or something....

AFAIK, Israel are *still* using OOo. Now if what the trolls say is true,
(about OOo being a poor subsitute) don't you think they'd have changed
back to M$ Office?

How do we know they haven't? As I said, I can't find any references
anywhere that they are using it. Can you?