Why Aren't Companies Switching enmass to OpenOffice?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stimpy
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I've seen people buy nice PCs from Big Box stores. The PC come with MS
Office as a 90 day "eval" and I've seen people get invested in it
without realizing that they have to pay, eventually. When the clock
stops, the night before a paper is due they'll pull out the credit
card and pay the MS troll.
Click to expand...

Oh, come on, the trial version tells the user the first time they use
it, that it's a trial. Only the truly ignorant fools don't understand,
but there are a lot of those out there.

People use Office because it's what most people user, business or home,
it's the dominate format for sharing documents. Until OO can import and
give the same presentation format it won't be used except by die hards.
 
Have you actually run the spreadsheet from Open Office and compared it
to MS Excel of Wordperfect Quatropro?

I have, and it is about a tenth as fast as MS and Word perfect. In fact
when working with graphs it just about stops.

I was attracted to the cost, but could not handle the speed issue.

The word processor is acceptable, and could be a substitute for either
MS or Wordperfect.

The open office database, is nearly unusable.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say it's unusable, but there is certainly a speed difference
with OO being slower.
That being said, I find the Windows version to be a huge resource hog on
my laptop.
The machine is noticeably slower after I loaded up OO, which is why I've
removed it.

The Linux version is much speedier fwiw.

For students, people on a budget etc OO is a great deal and certainly
usable but it is certainly no Office.

So I guess it's typical of Linux/Open source applications: price vs
performance.

If you can live without certain things and accept poorer performance and
stability in lieu of price, then for you, it's a good deal.
 
John A. Bailo wrote:

....
2) Why doesn't every white box vendor put Open Office on every Windows
machine they sell and proclaim in their advertising: "Comes complete with
an MS Office compatible suite".
Click to expand...

Probably because MS would have something to say about that, especially as it
contains reference to MS Office - MS simply wouldn't allow them to advertise
it as such; to do so would engender the wrath of MS and so lose any
discounts they may have for Windwos or MS Office, making them uncompetitive
with other [nearby] vendors.
 
With the outrageously high price for Office, what do you expect? I just
priced Office 2003 at the leading department store in Spain and
Professional was going for 600 euros. That's $USD 770!

Alias
Click to expand...


My company is still running Windows 2000 and Office 2000 on all their
computers. In a small company it is too expensive to upgrade, but
they did get us new LCD monitors. If Microsoft cut us a good deal I
might be able to justify the cost.
 
Microsoft Office costs hundreds of dollars.

OpenOffice is free.

So why are people still paying hundreds of dollars to purchase
the latest Microsoft Office?

It just does not make sense.
Click to expand...

Never underestimate the power of marketing (selling ice-creams to eskimos).

Put something in a nice package, advertise it on prime-time and people
will buy it, regardless of what the product is or how good it is.

I use OO instead of word and it is entirely adequate for me (and I expect
95% of other users).

There is one aspect of MSOffice that needs to be considered, however, and
that is the API's and controls that MS have to integrate word into
applications. OO needs to emulate this aspect as well.

OO also needs a marketing organisation,which implies that it won't be
free, but it could be sold at a fraction of the rip-off price of word.
Also, most people don't need a spreadsheet or presentation manager.

I also think that the 'database' supplied by OO is a wate of time.
 
Ian Semmel said:
Never underestimate the power of marketing (selling ice-creams to
eskimos).

Put something in a nice package, advertise it on prime-time and people
will buy it, regardless of what the product is or how good it is.

I use OO instead of word and it is entirely adequate for me (and I expect
95% of other users).

There is one aspect of MSOffice that needs to be considered, however, and
that is the API's and controls that MS have to integrate word into
applications. OO needs to emulate this aspect as well.

OO also needs a marketing organisation,which implies that it won't be
free, but it could be sold at a fraction of the rip-off price of word.
Also, most people don't need a spreadsheet or presentation manager.

I also think that the 'database' supplied by OO is a wate of time.
Click to expand...
As a pensioner I have switched to Open Office as I can no longer afford to
buy Microsoft Office.

I find Open Office writer and the spreadsheet meet my needs to the letter.

Operating both the Writer and the Spreadsheet is very easy if you were
already conversant with word and
Excel

Sure some of the bells and whistles are missing, but these were only
important in a large corporate environment.

For home users and small businesses Open Office is ideal

But What do I know???

Regards ... The Old Duffer
 
flatfish+++ said:
I wouldn't say it's unusable, but there is certainly a speed difference
with OO being slower. That being said, I find the Windows version to be a
huge resource hog on my laptop. The machine is noticeably slower after I
loaded up OO, which is why I've removed it.
Click to expand...

I am using Open Office on an 850 MHz, 512 MB Dell Laptop with Windows 2000.
Machines operates fine when loaded.
The Linux version is much speedier fwiw.

For students, people on a budget etc OO is a great deal and certainly
usable but it is certainly no Office.
Click to expand...

I find Open Office quite adequate. So does the Government of Singapore with
their 20,000 seat installation, Government of Extremadura, Spain's 80,000
seat installation - 14,000 seats Government offices and 66,000 in
education, Munich, Germany's 14,000 seats, Indiana, US Schools' 20,000,
etc.
So I guess it's typical of Linux/Open source applications: price vs
performance.
Click to expand...

Statement above is the troll's punchline, broadly generalising Linux/Open
Source without regard to each application's merit.
If you can live without certain things and accept poorer performance and
stability in lieu of price, then for you, it's a good deal.
Click to expand...

Statement above is also generalisation of Linux/Open Source without regard
to each application's merit.
 
Hello;
For what it's worth. I use and recomend OO for personal and business use.
I really don't find a speed difference. I do find it is as easy or easier to
administer than MS
Office. MS Office is a fine program, but it is just too expensive. MS should
realize this and provide
a cheaper version for the average folk ( NOT a Student Teacher Edition with
it's unreasonable EULA).
 
Have you actually run the spreadsheet from Open Office and compared it
to MS Excel of Wordperfect Quatropro?

I have, and it is about a tenth as fast as MS and Word perfect. In fact
when working with graphs it just about stops.
Click to expand...

Total bullshit.

I have been working with msoffice and staroffice side by
side for years for the simple fact that I like SO's graph controls
a lot better.

This sluggishness you speak of is just mindless slander.


[deletia]
 
I don't know about home users...but for Corporate users...they're
paying for office because they are afraid to use anything else.

I work in IT in the financial industry and most users are horrified if
they have to use or learn anything other than a Microsoft product.

I remember one trader had issues with Outlook being slow. When I
checked, I noticed that Outlook was using Word as the email editor. I
told him if we turned it off, it will makes things faster. He agreed
and it did go faster. However, he was afraid that he wouldn't be able
to view or send rich text email. I kindly explained that he did not
need Word to do this...I even showed him how to create rich text emails
with Outlook's default editor. He called me 10 minutes later and asked
me to re-enable Word as his email editor.

It's pure fear. Corporate users are afraid to leave windows and
office.
 
Microsoft Office costs hundreds of dollars.

OpenOffice is free.

So why are people still paying hundreds of dollars to purchase
the latest Microsoft Office?

It just does not make sense.
Click to expand...

Because OpenOffice isn't 100% compatible with Microsoft Office. Until
everyone uses OpenOffice the comatibility issue will be a major problem in
the business environment.
 
johnny said:
Because OpenOffice isn't 100% compatible with Microsoft Office. Until
everyone uses OpenOffice the comatibility issue will be a major
problem in the business environment.
Click to expand...


"Until everyone uses OpenOffice"

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Stop It! My sides are hurting....
 
Bruce said:
Until OpenOffice offers an identical feature set to Microsoft
Office, it won't be able to compete. While OpenOffice is more than
adequate to meet the needs of most home users, it still can't cut it in
the business world.
Click to expand...

The problem with that algorithm you state above lays out like this:

$microsoft_features = 2;
$openoffice_features = 1;
$business = "";

for ($time = 0; $time < (infinity); $time++) {

if ($microsoft_features > $openoffice_features) $business =
"microsoft"; // always goes here

else $business = "openoffice"; // condition never met

$microsoft_features++;

if ($openoffice_features < $microsoft_features) $openoffice_features++;
// catch-up, but always too late
}

In other words, you've set up a condition in which openoffice must
always trail behind M$'s feature set, and always play catch-up over the
beat of time.

I disagree that it's driven by sheer number of features -- since the
number of features that most people use/need/demand is limited. For my
own part, I regularly lean on only about 50-75 features with a word
processing app. If it has ten times that, it offers no advantage to me
-- or the average person.
 
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