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Why You Should Choose MS Office Over OO.org

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the looks-like-a-handy-checklist-to-me dept.

sander writes "As noted on linxfr.org, Microsoft has published a competitive guide on OpenOffice.org 1.1 vs Microsoft Office. Some of the weirder things they claim in it is that by choosing MS Office over OpenOffice.org one is protected from the threat of viruses. But the giant seems to be sweating -- and with a good reason."

44 of 1,393 comments (clear)

  1. Fallacies by FractusMan · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Fascinating use of "facts" and "logic" going on here. Let me start with this one: "...Basic feature functionality that enables content authoring is only one small aspect of what a small business needs. Businesses need to:..."

    Well, that's a great argument. No, it isn't. The opening line was, "Open Office is good enough. I only need basic functionality." And Microsoft's response is, "No, you don't! You need more than that!" Well, thanks. I'm glad you know what we need more than we do.

    Another argument they make is "User support such as training (OpenOffice UI, although similar in many ways to Office, is not the same and users may require 'retraining')."

    Well, that's also swell! I'm glad Microsoft has assumed that we'd need retraining, because obviously everyone was originally trained using MS Office. I'm glad they assume that. That makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. So what about everyone who hasn't had training in either?

    I'll leave the rest of the fallacies to more experienced users than myself.

    1. Re:Fallacies by Ayaress · · Score: 4, Insightful

      After a couple years using WordPerfect, it took me about an hour (during which I still managed to get things done) to get used to MS Works. It was maybe 15 minutes (during which I managed to get work done, again) to get used to MS Office. OO took me a couple hours (and again, I still typed up a term paper in that time).

      Yes, people require retraining to use a word processor they aren't familiar with, but it's not like you have to send them off to boot camp for nine weeks.

    2. Re:Fallacies by mr.capaneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sorry to break it to you, buddy, but MS Office compatibility is not a "basic funcionality". It is a requirement born of Microsoft's monopoly. If MS were to release the Word document specs then other people could write compatible files. As it is, there are plenty of other options (i.e. pdf and rtf) and as soon as MS loses an appreciable amount of market share to any other text editor, it will be a moot point. As consumers we really need to demand an open standard. If we could ever get to that point, life would be much easier for all of us.

    3. Re:Fallacies by peterpi · · Score: 5, Insightful
      "I'm glad Microsoft has assumed that we'd need retraining, because obviously everyone was originally trained using MS Office."

      Well, that the truth isn't it? For every slashdot headline about some school, college or course teaching some 'other' Office suite, there's hundreds teaching MS Office. Even if they had no training at all, Microsoft Office is what most people have had prior expeirence of, so some readjustment will be required.

      I agree that for computer literate users the move would go unnoticed, and so MS' argument is a bit weak, but so much of Office (Word in particular) is learnt parrot fashion. For the person who thinks Word is the computer, retraining would be required.... but not too much! :)

    4. Re:Fallacies by Drishmung · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Do you mean "homogeneous", i.e. "all the same"? Not "heterogeneous", "all different".

      Not trying to be a grammar Nazi, but the words mean totally opposite things.

      I disagree that a homogeneous environment is better, because it's not practical. Do you never exchange documents with other organizations? Unless you can force the whole world (or at least the bits you communicate with) to use the exact same versions, you need to be able to support diversity. If you want everyone in your organization to use the same version, you can't upgrade anyone until you can upgrade everyone. Upgrades will be few and far between; painful, feared and hated.

      --
      Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
    5. Re:Fallacies by EtherMonkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ARGUMENT: License cost is only a small part of the total cost of ownership.

      FACT: License cost is a significant part of the cost at $369-479 per PC (per CDW.com) for MS-Office 2003 Standard/Professional.

      ARGUMENT: Installation and deployment costs

      FACT: Many of the same methods used to deploy MS-Office work equally well, or better with Open Office. There are no software keys or other serial numbers to deal with in Open Office. You do not need to invest time and money into administering software licenses, audit trails and license compliance reports with Open Office. You do not need to worry about entering 25-digit CDKey codes on each PC or performing Microsoft Product Activation. You do not need a Microsoft Passport or the risk of associated unintentional information disclosure to use Open Office.

      ARGUMENT: Existing MS-Office users will need retraining to use Open Office.

      FACT: Like the retraining necessary when MS-Office 95 users were forced to move to MS-Office 97? And again to MS-Office 2000? And again to XP/2002? And, though to a lesser extent, again to 2003?

      What happens when students, either due to school policy or an individual effort to save money, grow up using Open Office instead of Microsoft office? Won't this argument then get turned on its head?

      ARGUMENT: Open Office does not have an email client, so customers may incur cost to get one.

      FACT: Netscape? Mozilla? Pheonix? Eudora? Pegasus Mail? Outlook Express? Need I go on?

      ARGUMENT: Businesses need to exchange documents with other businesses.

      FACT: HTML and PDF are the two most widely used formats for sharing documents with other businesses, and both are natively written and read in Open Office, without the need to spend $200 more on Acrobat Writer. Microsoft's argument exposes their belief that they should and do monopolize the office productivity marketplace, or else how could they argue that MS-Office format files are more portable than PDF or HTML?

      ARGUMENT: Ensure their mission-critical data is protected from virus attack.

      FACT: Like those pesky office macro viruses? Or the dozens of exploits for Outlook? Or the fact that VBScript does not properly implement sandbox security? And since when is Microsoft so concerned about viruses? Hell, they used to include antivirus software at no additional charge with Windows 3.x. We now pay 4x more for Windows and Microsoft REMOVED the antivirus features from the OS!

      ARGUMENT: Microsoft ... providing [support] resources where, when and how you need them. OpenOffice users have to search the web for answers.

      FACT: I see no difference between searching Microsoft's website and newsgroups for answers than searching OpenOffice.org's, except that in Microsoft's case I get anectdotal answers (this worked for me) or (I learned this trick at work), whereas with OpenOffice, there's a chance I can talk to someone who KNOWS THE SOURCE CODE.

      Of course, I can pay Microsoft for support if I really need it. After spending $125 I usually have to wait on hold for over an hour to speak with someone with an accent so bad that I have to get everything spelled to understand the answer.

      ARGUMENT: MS-Office documents may not open properly in Open Office and visa-versa.

      FACT: Isn't this Microsoft's fault? After all, they are the ones that keep changing their applications to make interoperability more and more difficult with each release.

      --
      --- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]
    6. Re:Fallacies by BollocksToThis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      OK, now instead of creating a poxy one table "test document", open MS Word, create a document with actual content, apply liberal and inconsistent formatting, and then use spaces to line things up (you know, just like you are a regular office secretary who doesn't know you can use tab stops or other 'tricky' things like that). Insert a table if you like. Be sure to use bullet points, and add headers and footers.

      Once done, save into Word 97 format. Now get OpenOffice to open that and make it look like it did in Word. It's just about impossible.

      When a document is created in a sane way (by a person who has experience with Word), OpenOffice works like a charm. Unfortunately, most people aren't experienced with Word (and most "training" doesn't tell them what they need to know, like why it keeps changing the font if you move to the last line), and they create crappy documents. As soon as the document looks different in OO, they *hate* the new software, and it often never gets a second chance.

      --
      This sig is part of your complete breakfast.
  2. Hmm, very little is said about features... by coupland · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One of the things I find most interesting about this guide is how much it focuses not on how MS-Office is better but on the many inconveniences you will suffer by switching away from it. They focus on the pains of data migration, macros, and training. And to the question "What if OpenOffice has all the features I need" they don't attempt to refute the claim, they point to all the pain you will feel when MS-Office users start sending their "full-featured" documents to people who only have OpenOffice. MS-Office was feature-complete as of Office 95, everything else is not simply window dressing, it's down-right irritating

    1. Re:Hmm, very little is said about features... by The-Dalai-LLama · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "They focus on the pains of data migration, macros, and training"

      Ah, the trials of a monopoly. Once you've attained complete market saturatation, your only option to is to keep locking in your current users more and more tightly. It's a bitch moving an Access database to another version of Access, let alone another suite entirely.

      The Dalai LLama
      A watched comment never gets modded...

      --
      My sig could be your sig!
  3. Its a beautiful thing! by KingReuben · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Inch by lonely inch, the Open Source Movement/Linux/whateveryouwannacallit matures and grows more powerful.

    And M$ says they won't release a new version for (what was it?) three years? Five?

    Meanwhile the opensource coders and fans continue whittling away in the trenches, refining their dreams and ever more gradually making MS look pretty damned bad and ugly.

    I think of where Linux distros are today compared to 5 years ago -- and I think about where they will be 5 years ahead!!

    It's a beautiful thing!

    --


    --
    om Shanti
  4. Time to check out Open Office by MissP · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hmmm. If Microsoft considers OpenOffice a sufficiently mature product that it warrants a comparison, then I guess it is time for me to compare.

  5. Good by KoopaTroopa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Many of the same people who could possibly be swayed by this probably haven't heard of OpenOffice.org anyway. This is free publicity.

    I can't imagine anyone seriously basing their purchasing decisions off of such a document, although I'm sure someone here has an acquaintance who can disappoint my small amount of faith in humanity.

    --
    Sharpies don't just sniff themselves.
  6. Unresolved bugs. by NeoBeans · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is one of the things that stuck out to me... Given the longstanding bugs in Windows, and the lack of support to end-users when bugs do occur, I'd say this is a case of the pot calling the stainless steel pan black.

    1. Re:Unresolved bugs. by pingveno · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunately, MS doesn't have to use a standard because it has, more or less, a monopoly in this market. Maybe the EU could force Microsoft to use an open standard? And work with competitors to improve filters and interoperability? IMHO, this would be much more damaging to MS's grip on the market than just a fine.

      One the other hand, I'm not sure if the politically liable EU has the guts to do this. ;-)

      --
      "it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
  7. hmmm.... by mrscorpio · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And yet the comparison document is in a format that can't be read by MS Office, but CAN by OpenOffice.org...not a great idea :)

    Chris

  8. Step 3 by FearUncertaintyDoubt · · Score: 5, Insightful
    first, they ignore you
    then, they laugh at you
    then, they fight you <-- you are here
    then you win

    Will step 4 happen? Stay tuned.

  9. Rule one of marketing.. by Sexual+Ass+Gerbil · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. Never mention the name of your competitor.

    Once a company names their competitors in marketing literature, you know the company is losing ground. Or so the marketers say. I'm not sure if I believe it though

    1. Re:Rule one of marketing.. by DR+SoB · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Your are 100% right (MOD PAY ATTENTION TO PARENT!!)

      I work for a software company, when a customer questions a competitor product or asks "Which is really better" kind of question, we always tell them:

      "Install both and you can make a better decision".

      I bet Microsoft would _never_ use that line!

      --
      Mod +5 Drunk
  10. They're admitting to anti-competitive behavior by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Wow, what better argument can you give than that OO.org can't open "full featured" word documents of the most recent word versions?

    Now, why can't OO.org open those documents? It's not because OO.org doesn't want to, or isn't up to date; the reason is because Microsoft keeps the method of opening those documents secret! They drive out the competition by not letting them know how to open the files. This justifies the EU's recent actions even more.

    1. Re:They're admitting to anti-competitive behavior by Frizzle+Fry · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It's not because OO.org doesn't want to, or isn't up to date; the reason is because Microsoft keeps the method of opening those documents secret!

      First, they didn't say that. They just said that you can't read the documents. This is a well-known fact, so I don't see how stating it is "admitting to anti-competitive behavior".

      But anyway, the main point is that if I were running a business, I would not want to use a product that can't read documentst that others send to me. I wouldn't be interested in why I can't read them, so this still sounds like a compelling reason to use MS Office. Whether the software has the features they need (which might include reading Word .doc's) seems like a better basis for a business decision then the reasons why it has or doesn't have those features.
      --
      I'd rather be lucky than good.
  11. Wow, Sales people get it REALLY wrong sometimes by DR+SoB · · Score: 4, Insightful

    After reading this, it looks like they are marketing OO!! I mean, sure it doesn't have Clippy and all (more features) and it doesn't have an email client (umm, do we really need another anyways?), but personally, I _hate_ Clippy.

    Why didn't they put the "System Requirements" of Office? I mean, if it's a comparison shouldn't you put some sort of "comparison" information somewhere? That alone would show that OO is multi-platform, a HUGE benefit for most business..

    The open-source community should be using this paper to hype OO, IMHO it does a great job!

    --
    Mod +5 Drunk
  12. Having an option is bad? by richmaine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I was amused by the claim that OO was inferior because "if bugs [in OO] go unresolved, users have the option to resolve problems by...".

    This apparently contrasts with MS Office, where if bugs go unresolved, users do not have any options.

    Ok. I knew that, but I'm surprised that MS raised it as a point. :-)

  13. Same old FUD as before by daveo0331 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We've already discussed most of what's in this document. For example:

    3. "OpenOffice 1.1 is an open source alternative." OpenOffice does not have a dedicated development or support team. Consequently, if bugs go unresolved, users have the option to resolve problems by scouring through numerous community sites and chat rooms.
    MS has been saying things like this about OSS for years. Of course they don't mention what your options are if a bug in MS Office goes unresolved.

    --
    Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
  14. The number one reason NOT to use MS Office... by Ayaress · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Too expensive, no useful additions in years.

    I'm still using Office 97 on my Windows computer. It cost me about $70 when I got it, and it's functionally identical to the Office 2000 and Office XP that my university and workplace use. The additions in the last several iterations of Office have been of only niche usefullness, and you can usually get something to do that with 97 anyway.

    At least with OO, I'm not asked to pay another $150 every year or two just to get a new font, or a new text overlay effect that I could do with the old one anyway.

  15. Support? by cabingirl · · Score: 5, Insightful
    OpenOffice does not have a dedicated development or support team. Consequently, if bugs go unresolved, users have the option to resolve problems by scouring through numerous community sites and chat rooms.

    I guess they've never tried to resolve an MS issue as a lowly home user, slogging through the MS "knowledge base". I usually end up Googling for answers to my MS Office questions.

    --
    I could kill you, sure, but I could only make you cry with these words
  16. Forgot to include... by (1)down · · Score: 5, Insightful

    WHY open office can't format Office Documents correctly.

    --
    my other sig is a commando
  17. buying e-mail client ??? by S3D · · Score: 4, Insightful
    customer may incur a licensing cost associated with buyng an e-mail application
    Hmm, is Mozilla still free ?
  18. There's only one really good reason to use Office- by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The golden rule...he who has the gold rules.

    If someone is giving you money (employer or client) and they demand that you give them Office files (.doc, .xls, .mdb), you have to be able to provide them. They don't want to hear "well .rtf blah blah conversion blah". They use Office and they're giving you money, so they call the shots. An internal debate between open-source principals and cash is a short one.

    -B

  19. Re:some stuff by Kourino · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Man, you know, the funny thing is that the one thing you pick on them for is true. Yes, even GPL'd software can have unresolved bugs sitting for months. Hell, go to the OO.o bug tracker and you can find entries from 2002 if you look for two minutes.

    This isn't to pick on OO.o - writing bug-free software is manageable, but not necessarily easy, especially for something that big. But no, Microsoft isn't the only one who leaves bugs unresolved for months. If you're going to debunk this, I'd start somewhere else.

  20. Re:some stuff by Leomania · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hell, go to the OO.o bug tracker and you can find entries from 2002 if you look for two minutes.

    Exactly... you can't go and find what unresolved bugs there are for any Microsoft product, can you? No, that's proprietary information, my friend, and you and I are not worthy to view it -- whether we're MS customers or not. What a beautiful example of OSS in action, and a strong alternate point to their argument.

    - Leo

    --
    You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
  21. Re:some stuff by jhoger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > writing bug-free software is manageable

    Oh, you just admitted you aren't a programmer.

    All software of any reasonable complexity has bugs. Period. Process can help but it will never prevent 100% of bugs.

    There are bugs in FOSS. There are bugs in proprietary software.

    Now then, what's the difference? Well, with a proprietary vendor you can spend hours/weeks with tech support trying to move up through 1st, 2nd, till you get to 3rd level where you might be able to convince someone there is a bug. And then do you think that engineer is going roll out the red carpet, whip up a build and send it over to my house? No... I'm just another user with just another problem, and he might give me a workaround, but likely I will be waiting for the next release like everyone else. It's my only choice. Now if I'm a megacorp paying real money for lots of licenses I might be able to get that red carpet. But I'm not.

    Now with FOSS I have options. I can get onto IRC or I can file a public bug report. For bad bugs, these are likely to be fixed right away. If it is decided its invalid for some reason I will get a response from an actual engineer saying why they closed the bug. If I don't get satisfaction well, I have the source. If I have the ability I can fix it myself. Or else I could contract someone else to do it. And then I'll probably give the patch back to the project if they want it.

    There's a huge difference there. It's about power to get done what you need to. FOSS gives that to the user.

  22. So sick of the TCO argument by aduzik · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Is anyone else here tired of MS whipping out the ol' TCO everytime an open source product kicks their product's ass?

    From the article:
    License cost makes up only a small portion of the total cost of ownership

    We all remember Microsoft's skewed Windows .NET Server/Linux comparison and how they creatively invented numbers to show how expensive Linux was in TCO. Funny that they never factored in the billions of dollars companies lose due to security flaws that enable breakins and data theft, macro viruses and exploits of other features they think you can't live without, and lost time/effort/work from programs/OSes that crash. That will raise your TCO, won't it?

    So Microsoft, QUIT IT with the TCO argument. None of us are buying it, and subsequently, none of us are buying your stuff.

    --
    If it's not one thing it's your mother.
  23. lying liars and the lies they tell by victorvodka · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It seems Microsoft is learning from the administration of GW Bush in this regard. When dealing with an opponent, claim that the opponent has your flaws, whether or not this is true. This strategy is tailored to a news media unaccustomed and unprepared to investigate or otherwise do any more than quote sources. It becomes Microsoft's word (excuse the pun) against the diffuse band of evil virus-writing hackers who also happen to write open source software.

    --

    The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg

  24. Re:There's only one really good reason to use Offi by blackmonday · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In OO do a simple "save as" and save it in word format, similar steps for excel and powerpoint.

    By the way I haven't seen anyone mention Sun Microsystems here, we owe a lot of our Open Office success to their team. Cheers.

  25. MS employs extremely efficient foot-shooters. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Insightful


    Yes, but I think everyone will get the point that OO makes PDF files, and Word doesn't. PDF files are MUCH less likely to cause problems, because they can contain the fonts they use. I don't think that is available in Word. In most cases, you don't want the person to whom you send the file to be able to change it, and maybe later forget and think it is his.

    I would LOVE to see someone make a similar two-page brochure, formatted exactly the same way, that would provide all the arguments for using OO. Here's one: Word is quirky; it often does things that you don't expect, like put footers at the head of the next page.

  26. It's not a tangent! It's important. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Insightful


    It's not a tangent! It's important. Chen and Chan and Lu and Li (not their real Chinese names) have been completely unable to answer an important question about Windows XP. The reason? They're in China, and if they don't know the answer, they have to lie, since they have no way to contact anyone at MS who will listen.

    Whenever I ask for MS technical support, I am calling about a difficult question. If it weren't difficult, I would answer it myself. Those are exactly the kind of questions MS technical support can't answer.

    The Psychic Friends Network is sometimes equally as good as Microsoft technical support at understanding bugs in Microsoft software.

  27. Re:This document should not even exist... by Peyna · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If a group of people got together on the internet and designed a car that could be built from parts available from Home Depot, would Ford or GM have to explain to us why their cars are better?

    No, but when Japanese manufacturers started producing more reliable vehicles Ford, GM, and Chrysler all had to resort to intensive marketing strategies until they could develop something that was more competitive. It worked pretty good too.

    They thought they were in control of the automobile world and were proved wrong; the same *might* be happening to Microsoft. For quite a while they had little to no competition; now they are seeing some real threats on the horizon, and they're only doing what anyone else would do in the same position. They simply became too comfortable with having a large piece of the pie, and now are having to fight to keep as much of it as they can.

    --
    What?
  28. MS Office *is* better - right now. by Mephisto_kur · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Putting cost aside, and loyalty to the OSS model aside, MS rules the desktop because of Office. Now, I run OO. I never encounter any problems. When I build a new machine, more often than not, I install OO on it. But good god if you could hear my wife cuss! At work, they use MS Office for everything but email. OO is basolutely NOT able to deal with most of the documents that she gets from work. No matter the version of office, there is *always* some problem. Whether it's a weird formatting thing, or a completely unreadable document, there is always something that isn't right.

    But if she makes something in OO, it rarely has a problem going the other way. She opens it at work with no issues.

    But I would like to throw some points out there:

    1. There *is* a learning curve. OO does thing just differently enough to confuse a long term Office user.
    2. There *are* bugs - and we aren't talking about the obscure ones that MS Office tends to have. An example is superscripting and subscripting. My wife was swearing like a sailer over a math document she was preparing because of these issues - admittedly, I have no idea if 1.1 fixed the issue, snce she hasn't had to do a math document for awhile.
    3. While with OO, you can search Google or the bugtracker for some answers... The MS Support sight is very good for Office. Office is MS's bread and butter. It isn't perfect - no complex software is, but its pretty damn good.
    4. Groan if you want, but what email client do you have with OO? None. All versions of Office come with not just an email software, but one that happens to be a damn good one with an integrated PIM system, and direct server support on the backend. Outlook, altho the largest target for attack, is really nice and full featured. With proper setup, viruses can be very difficult to get - even in Outlook, and with proper user training, it can be almost impossible.

    But on the flip, OO has a huge point on its side - it's free. The second biggest thng OO has going for it is that it is constantly evolving and getting better. OO gets exponentially better at every point release. Unlike MSOffice which has gotten more bloated than anything over the years.

  29. Gems... by seanellis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are over 300 million users of Office worldwide who can seamlessly exchange documents without concerns for loss of data or formatting errors.

    As anyone who has tried to open an Office 2000 document in Office 97, this is blatantly untrue.

    License cost makes up only a small portion of the total cost of ownership.

    Indeed. For MS products, the cost of constant forced upgrades, security problems, antivirus tools, e-mail scanners, etc. represent a serious additional cost.

    OpenOffice UI, although similar in many ways to Office, is not the same and users may require "retraining"

    Indeed, this is true. But at least they had the decency to put "retraining" in quotes. The vast majority of commonly used functions will be at a user's fingertips within minutes of loading OpenOffice. The rest are no more different than from one version of Office to the next. My wife is not at all technical, was trained on MS Office, and hardly noticed the difference when switching to Open Office.

    OpenOffice does not have a dedicated development or support rteam. Consequently, if bugs go unresolved, users have the option to resolve problems by scouring through numerous community sites and chat rooms.

    Note the "if" in that sentence. Note also the number of defects open in MS Office. Note also the excellent reputation of MS support.

    businesses do not operate in a vacuum; basic feature functionality that enables content authoring is only one small aspect of what a small business needs.

    Businesses indeed do not operate in a vacuum. I presume that this is why the document is in PDF format - so everyone can read it. Compare and contrast the ease of creating PDF documents in MS Word and in Open Office.

    I could go on, but my righteous indignation circuits are all burned out. EUR500M? Should have been the full EUR5G.

    --
    Sean Ellis
    Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
  30. CLO (Chief Licensing Officer) sinks TCO by rjamestaylor · · Score: 5, Insightful
    OOo is good. Good enough that I use it myself and install it on executives' PCs instead of MS Office w/ PowerPoint. It isn't as polished as MS Office; this is true. But it isn't "finished" yet, either.

    Anyway, the real killer feature of OOo is lack of concerns over license compliance (for users, I mean, not developers; but that's an interesting distinction to need to make considering that license compliance with MS Office unambiguously refers to end-users). In a reasonably sizeable corporate office software license compliance is enough of a concern to have created a burgeoning market for compliance tracking and auditing tools.

    In fact, I believe you'll soon have a new executive level CxO designation: CLO -- Chief Licensing Officer. This person's job is to oversee the department in charge not of installation, acquisition, maintenance, training, selection of software but merely of adhering to license terms. The impetus will be to avoid draconian (or has it progressed to Machevellian yet?) BSA audits carried out by warrant-holding sherrifs. Think I'm kidding?

    With Open Source there are many benefits. One that cannot be denied is the total elimination of license management and compliance. This is true on both sides of the software equation -- producers and users. Imagine how much better MS Office would be if MSFT didn't have its brightest minds inventing ways to stop the software from working (XP Activation being only the latest incarnation; now you know the great advantage OOo has over MS Office -- it doesn't have to delay waiting for the Activation team to finish its work.) Anyone who's had to track licenses for a large installation knows the headache on the user side.

    Remember, one violation per the BSA's standard (i.e., not just the "license" but the original invoice is also required to establish that you are not a THIEVING PIRATE!) can cost you not only a year's worth of milk money (up to $150,000 or more) but also your freedom (up to 5 years in the federal pokey with Bubba, the federal poker). That's a big price to pay for making an "extra" copy of MS Office for Mr. Jones' take-home laptop, isn't it? With proprietary software it doesn't take much to ruin your day.

    Don't forget to add the potential for fines and/or prison as well as the overhead needed to maintain license compliance records to avoid them into the TCO equation.

    --
    -- @rjamestaylor on Ello
  31. it's funny... by neko9 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    from pdf:

    Office provides innovative security on three levels to protect your business environment, data and intellectual property:

    and one of these levels is

    Data Loss: Auto recovery and application recovery tool

    it's funny that OpenOffice.org 1.1.0 on my machine actually can open corrupted Word documents but M$ Office still can't.

    and

    ...Microsoft has continued to innovate and invest in productivity applications since the '80s, evolving Office from a content authoring tool to a collaborative productivity enhancement platform. With an R&D budget of over $4.8 billion....

    hmmm... what they are researching with all that money for all these years? PowerPoint?

  32. Advantages and Disadvantages by Trillian_Angel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On the whole, when I first read the pdf on the microsoft site, I was actually rather impressed. For the most part, it was civil. Not what we'd all like, but relatively civil.

    It was *almost* truthful for the most part... not entirely, but *almost*... ... and it is probably the best advertising OO.o has had. With this established, there are a few key points I think I would make about this arguement.

    In the #OpenOffice.org channel on IRC, I was asked what I thought about the article, and the impact it has on OpenOffice.org as a whole. All in all, I thought its great for OOo. As long as we don't get into a petty pissing fight with MS Office, that is. Then someone was throwing around the idea that we should have a pointer article tossed back as a response to Microsofts little publication. I only replied "Why bother?" No matter what route we took with a reply, I think it would do more harm than good. The only thing I could think of as a reply would be a nice polite response to some of the false comments in the article.

    There are a few ways where this advertising could hurt OpenOffice.org, but that would realistically only effect the crowds that would never switch even if their existances depended on it. I know a few people like that that live and breath the harddrive space Microsoft uses.

    In cases like that, OpenOffice.org just might not be the better alternative, as they would be very stuck in their ways. I would like to think we would rather have 10 very satisifed users than 20... 10 of which would do nothing but complain about this problem or that problem, and do little if anything to help resolve the issue.

    But, OO.o still has quite a ways to go. While I love it and use it for all of my writing, there are still a few things that need fixed and improved upon. But, I've decided to join the project and help make it happen when I have a little more time.. which should be in about a month when my current projects settle down. But, that is what I find so beautiful about the OO.o project. If I don't like something, I can dig on in and help fix it.

    If MS Office offered that flexibility, I would have been enticed in joining the team. But, as it did not and never will, I'll be stuck in my ways and keep supporting OO.o ;)

    --
    -- RJ
  33. Chained down by MisterBad · · Score: 4, Insightful
    You're never chained down to use non-free software. You just have to figure out what level of effort you're willing to make to break your chains.
    1. Deal with the less-than-perfect conversion of OpenOffice documents into and out of Microsoft Office form. This is, at the moment, pretty darn good -- comparable to if not better than proprietary non-Microsoft office suites.
    2. Talk your professors into accepting open-format documents.
    3. Talk your professors into giving out open-format documents.
    4. Get your department to make a policy allowing open-format documents for any assignment.
    5. Get your department to make a policy requiring open-format documents from professors.
    6. Get your university to do the same.
    7. Transfer to another university.

    OK, that last one is pretty extreme, but it's not like you don't have any choices. The first one is relatively easier, and each successive one makes things easier for more and more other students, too.

    --
    Evan Prodromou | evan@prodromou.name | http://evan.prodromou.name/
  34. Standard? *WHICH* .doc format is standard? by leonbrooks · · Score: 4, Insightful
    There is the question of 'de facto standard' [...] .doc is an extremely widely used format

    You should say "de facto standards" and "widely used formats".

    The dotDOC written by MS Office 97 is different to MS Office 2000 and different in turn to MS Office XP - and of course the corresponding Mac versions of MS Office are all slighly different again. Then you have dotDOCs written by MS Office 2000 purportedly in an earlier dotDOC format (typically 97 or v6) which are different again. Later MS Word versions usually read the earlier dotDOCs OK, including "earler" dotDOCs written out by later MS Words, but will usually not be able to reliably write something that the genuinely earlier MS Word versions can read.

    OpenOffice Writer is separately valuable for being able to take an "MS Office 97" dotDOC written by MS Office 2000, read it in without crashing, and write it out as a genuine MS Office 97 (or version 6) dotDOC that MS Office 97 (etc) can then read without crashing.

    OO in HTML editor mode is also top class. Very good WYSIWYG and gotta love that "@" button.

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing