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From: Shadow on 15 Jun 2010 15:53
**65.000.000 downloads OpenOffice v3

Fantastic. I'm surprised people still use Microsoft Office.... must be
either ignorance or because it comes "bundled".

http://marketing.openoffice.org/marketing_bouncer.html

(**Does not include Dloads from other sites and offers in CDRoms etc)
From: VanguardLH on 15 Jun 2010 20:20
Shadow wrote:

> **65.000.000 downloads OpenOffice v3
>
> Fantastic. I'm surprised people still use Microsoft Office.... must be
> either ignorance or because it comes "bundled".
>
> http://marketing.openoffice.org/marketing_bouncer.html
>
> (**Does not include Dloads from other sites and offers in CDRoms etc)

You thought end users were the major consumers of MS Office? The major
revenue comes from corporate customers and there are lots of enterprise-
level features in Office that are NOT available in OpenOffice.

Features in Office that are missing in OpenOffice:
- Outlook and all its PIM & collaboration features. Obviously you can
buy Outlook separately but you lose integration features between Outlook
and the other components (Word vs. Write, Excel vs. Calc, etc).
- Support for document features (which causes problems when converting
to OO), like: AutoShapes, OLE objects, macros (OO has scripting but
nothing like VBA), tables, frames, indexes, multicolumn formatting,
bookmarks, WordArt-based graphics, several chart types, pivot table,
conditional formatting, some functions and formulae, some controls and
form fields, and more.
- Integration or synergy with other programs (not available with OO),
like InfoPath, OneNote, Publisher, Access, and Sharepoint, and even with
Windows.
- Lack of policies enforcement within the company's domains.
- You alienate yourself from your company's helpdesk that expends the
resources to train their support group for specific products. You end
up having to do the support all by yourself and trying to use public
communities to request help.

Features in OpenOffice that are missing in Office:
- Free (or extremely cheap).
- Support for open document standards; however, Office doc format are
*the* standards in corporate environments.

Price isn't the only concern for a customer when deciding on software.
If they have need for some features that aren't available in OpenOffice
then that product is NOT a choice for them. With a huge investment in
documentation that relies on the features in Office components, the
manpower in having to convert them and fix the screwups in that
conversion to go to OO definitely does NOT make OO a free option.

Yeah, for a single (home) or small (tiny) office environment, OO makes
sense because it is free and you don't need all the corporate features
available in Office and the other products that work with Office.
However, the single/SOHO markets are not what affect Microsoft's
revenues of any significance to make they waste even a one-time shudder
that OO is free.

For you at home, sure, OO makes sense because it is free and also if you
don't have a steep UN-learning curve with prior use of Office components
(and you also don't mind some of the obscure workarounds in OO for which
there are easy-to-find manuevers in Office). If you already have Office
then why waste the time with OO? You'd go with OO because you do NOT
already have Office (or you don't want to upgrade but most users are
well-trained in the "newer is better" mantra when their old Office
version already does everything they need). Being free is not the sole
or perhaps not even the primary concern of which suite to employ.

I managed to get a legit copy of Office 2003 Pro at just ~$40. It
allowed me full integration with my workplace (via VPN) and I didn't
have to waste time in a learning curve for yet another office-like
suite. Considering the cost, getting an older version of MS-Office was
cheap (but it took months of waiting for the right sale which NOT based
solely on price). If I never had a copy of Office and I never had to
use a copy of Office so I could make OO both my home and work choice for
a software suite then, yeah, I'd go with OO.

Free is hardly the sole requirement on which to choose your primary
software suite of core components that you will use for years and years.
Hell, I probably use Outlook far more than Word which completely
obviates OO as a choice since they never bothered to develop a PIM
component with e-mail features. Buying Outlook alone would be more
pricey than what I can get at eBay for a "Pro" Office suite but an older
version as long as I'm willing to wait until an auction meets my max
price threshold and the seller communicates quickly and can prove it is
a legitimate non-branded/generic full or OEM version.
From: Shadow on 15 Jun 2010 20:57
On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:20:52 -0500, VanguardLH <V(a)nguard.LH> wrote:

>Shadow wrote:
>
>> **65.000.000 downloads OpenOffice v3
Also does not include OpenOffice that comes with just about
every flavor of linux. I have four different versions on this PC
alone.
>
>You thought end users were the major consumers of MS Office? The major
>revenue comes from corporate customers and there are lots of enterprise-
>level features in Office that are NOT available in OpenOffice.
>
>Features in Office that are missing in OpenOffice:
Sorry mate, you are convincing the wrong guy. Openoffice is an
absolute overkill for me. Probably is for 99% of the office people
around the world, very few people use (or know how to use) all it's
features.
I use it to write letters, do my excel type spreadsheets, and
every year or so update my medical database. If I want to email
someone, I do just that, with an email client. I've never installed
the paint thing or the maths module, way above my head.
Openoffice is NOT allowed to access the internet. I had some
bad experience with it when it belonged to Sun, and tried phoning home
at odd intervals.
BTW :Here in Brazil a full copy of Office can be had for
between two and three months minimum wages. And that is expensive.
[]'s
PS Great price you got on your M$ Office. You could probably
resell it for twice the price. There was however, some talk about
Microsoft licenses not being transferable anymore. Probably does not
apply to your version, as it is fairly old.
From: VanguardLH on 16 Jun 2010 04:06
Shadow wrote:

> Sorry mate, you are convincing the wrong guy.

Look at your original post. You didn't post about YOUR criteria that
was met by OO. You pondered why anyone ELSE would get MS Office. There
are LOTS of reasons to stick with MS Office to continue with upgrades
for it. They just don't happen to be your reasons because your not
considering deployment in an enterprise environment where OO simply
lacks all those demanded corporate features.
From: Craig on 16 Jun 2010 10:11
On 06/16/2010 01:06 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
> There
> are LOTS of reasons to stick with MS Office to continue with upgrades
> for it. They just don't happen to be your reasons because your not
> considering deployment in an enterprise environment where OO simply
> lacks all those demanded corporate features.

It's an interesting topic, no?

I've seen a fair number of corporate setups where there is a lot of
expertise expended to develop really sophisticated MSO documents; these
become key parts of the business' core processes.

I'm thinking /really/ evolved Excel spreadsheets for financial analysts
and Word documents for law firms. But I doubt the majority of employees
have anything to do with that. The most fundamental way I see MSO
integrated into organizations is through their use of Outlook.

That's the killer organizational app, imo.

fwiw,
--
-Craig
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