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OpenOffice.org Tries to Woo Dell
Rob writes "OpenOffice.org project members have written to Dell (pdf), hoping to persuade the company to adopt OpenOffice in response to customer demand. John McCreesh, OpenOffice.org marketing project lead, writes 'Let's have a conversation about how we could build an OpenOffice.org supplied by Dell product to give your customers what they are asking for.' Demand for open source products on Dell's IdeaStorm web site prompted the letter. A somewhat obvious question is raised: why isn't OpenOffice already available by default on new PC's and Workstations?"
Hmm top secret ... could it be because everyone uses Office and it's proprietary formats? That's why.
No big conspiracy. People are just afraid of change and lazy. Same old same old. What I don't get is why people think you have to run the preloaded crap anyways. The first thing I did when I got my dell laptop was flash the HD and reinstall an OEM copy of windows. (well in the 2nd partition, Linux came first).
tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
It isn't on there by default, because that would mean people might actually use it...and we can't have people just running around using free software, can we?
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
OOo is free, and therefore Dell gets no cut.
I read the title as "OpenOffice.org tries to Doo Well" and immediately thought it was yet another typo in a submission.
By the way, I've sent Dell a letter about a little time management application I've been working on for a few years. I'm expecting a reply!!!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Because then customers would have less of an incentive to purchase MS Office. This gives MS a huge incentive to pressure Dell, et al, to not offer alternatives on a windows machine.
Seems fairly obvious to me.
I thought it said:
"OpenOffice.org Tries to Doo Well"
Sigs are for Terrorists.
why isn't OpenOffice already available by default on new PC's and Workstations?"
Because your average home user buying an off the shelf PC (regardless of who it's from) has no idea what Open Office is. Even if you provided it as an option, given the choice between a (seemingly) free version of some MS product and Open Office, the average customer would take Open Office. Throw in the bit about most customers expecting to get support from the PC manufacturer for everything that's on there, and you have to talk about training your tech support folks on how to handle Open Office support calls.
Tech savy users and corporate customers are likely to blow the default image away and replace it with something tweaked to their choosing, so you wouldn't be saving them a tremendous amount of time by having it installed anyway.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
I would say for the same (or at least closely related and similar) reason that PC's come with and the majority of people want/keep using Windows over other OS choices which are arguably better and just as easy or easier to use. It's what people are familiar with. I'm pretty confident your average joe on the street has heard of MS Office. That same guy probably has not heard of OpenOffice. People know the name, the use it at work, they are comfortable with it. Given the choice between a computer with OO and a Computer with MS Office, all other things being equal (or at least equal to your average use), they're probably going to take the one with MS Office. Therefore, it makes sense for computers to come with it (most at least come with Word and Excel these days, I believe).
On top of that, it's still not 100% compatible with MS Office... I frequently have to slightly adjust things converting between OO's
Sure, as OO is free, it could be included along with Word/Excel/full MS Office, etc. but I suspect at best it'll go mostly unused and just take up disk space and at worst potentially confuse customers.
OpenOffice came installed on the discount computer I bought from TigerDirect (advertised as having a complete MS-compatible office suite pre-installed), so did Firefox. They even offer PCLinuxOS on desktops. If this discount vendor can do it, I don't see why Dell can't.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
It's not about customer value -- anyone asking for OpenOffice already knows about it and can easily install it. Dell's strategy is to make the cheapest PC's around to bring in customers, then make it as easy as possible to spend more than that. They are not the Wal-Mart of computing. A 30 day Office trial pays Dell. Even so, they want you to buy Office -- they get more money that way. OO.o has no such financial arrangement, and it would be tricky for Dell to attempt to charge customers for it.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Am I the only one who read that and saw "OpenOffice.org Tries to Do Well"?
May I sew you to your sheets?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
It's simple. Dell computers already come bundled with a more polished suite for free. It may not be as powerful or feature complete but there it is.
"Microsoft Works 8. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD [Included in Price]"
I keep forgetting my place. Jesus is for losers. Why do I still play to the crowd?
Because Microsoft will give less license discount if they did.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
If Dell charged for OpenOffice, open-source advocates would scream bloody murder (OMG it's supposed to be free, why does choosing OpenOffice add $50 to the price of a PC?) On the other hand, customers expect whatever comes with their computer to be supported, which costs money. There's also the opportunity cost from OpenOffice cannibalizing sales of the much more profitable MS-Office. Also, they would hurt their relationship with Microsoft. So they can either give it away and lose money, or sell it for whatever it costs them to offer, but continue to take lots of flak for it not being free. I would expect them to avoid the issue unless a competitor manages to eat into sales by offering systems with OpenOffice.
Dell is in the business of low-end, commodity PC sales. Their largest supplier is Microsoft. There is no simple alternative to Microsoft's operating system.
Installing Open Office out of the box will royally piss off Microsoft.
Why would Dell want to piss off their largest supplier?
oh wait, I forgot the guys in charge dont like Apple either.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
If Dell goes through with this, there's one thing they should do: Make the default blank document (as in File->New) EXACTLY like MS Word's. It bugs the hell out of me that OO uses wonky non-standard margins by default.
A somewhat obvious question is raised: why isn't OpenOffice already available by default on new PC's and Workstations?
Obvious? What's obvious is that Dell can make a profit from MS Office. Frankly, if I were a business I would look to the profit aspect first.
Also consider tech support. I would think that Dell is going to get more support from MS than the OO people when it comes down to wide spread issues involving their product. Tech support is doubtlessly a large chunk of Dell's overhead. The better support from their software vendors the less that overhead will be. That's a big plus and anyone who's taken business-101 type classes can tell you this.
Not to mention that free software still has a stigma about it. This isn't likely to go away anytime soon.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
That will go over with Dell like a pregnant woman doing a pole vault... No percentage (that they would get with any other commercial office product) means no profit...
It would have made since for PC builders to supply OO on new computers last year. It would have given the user added value for free. It's a great suite of tools. Even though I have Office at work, there's I still use OO for certain applications.
.docx by default in 2007. This creates a huge compatibility void until someone creates an open source DTD for OO to open and render .docx files. No matter how good OO gets, Office is THE standard. If it can't keep up with Office compatibility (and I'm sure it eventually will catch up), it's about as useful as WordPerfect (i.e., it's fine as long as you don't have to use anybody elses files).
The problem with OO right now is that, even though OO is a great substitute and can use Office files...it CANT use Office 2007 files. People are going to be saving files with
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
They are trying to woo who?
Have you read my journal today?
Not only are all the financial and business reasons offered by readers here probably completely true, I'd bet they also don't want the support calls. It doesn't matter what you tell people about what you will or won't support -- I would imagine Dell gets hundreds of calls a day about something not working right in the pre-installed copy of Word someone bought with their Dell machine. I wouldn't think it would be worth it to either train support staff to provide basic support for OpenOffice or even to spend the time telling each confused caller that they have to go somewhere else for help.
Which just brought me to a related thought -- OOo online documentation is, in spots, quite skitchy. Dell and other manufacturers may have set standards for what they consider to be a product worthy of inclusion, and those standards may be partially dependent upon level of documentation.
But this is all Reason Three at best -- I'm sure marking up the OEM version AND getting a better volume discount from Microsoft weigh more heavily than this.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Didn't Novell anounce the release of a shiny new docx import filter a week or two ago?
Sounds like the lead in to one of those unspeakable folk songs where every other line is "hey, nonny,nonny oh".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If I was a support provider (and I am within my organisation), I wouldn't want to provide OO either. Try opening something simple like a word document with an inserted image in it with OO, and then supporting illiterate users.
Charge $5-10 for an install fee and tell the reporter to bugger off. You still make money, look good to open source, charge a reasonable fee to handle your overhead and get to tell some reporter idiot (I know they're idiots, I worked in TeeVee for 8 years as a photog) to get lost. Geeze not a difficult business decision here. Whether they have the cojones to go against M$ is another argument.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Maybe because Microsoft Office is a superior product. They don't offer beta versions of MS Office either. If customers want to use OpenOffice they can download. In most cases, it's got critical deficiencies that will confuse most customers. I've tried the ol' OpenOffice switcheroo on non-open-source-enthusiasts before. They were basically confused and frustrated with OpenOffice and why it didn't do the same things.
Microsoft Office is a lot more intelligent than people give it credit for.
Yawn. Nobody cares about OOO, and Dell isn't going to make any money pushing their crapware onto computers. What would be their incentive? They get bulk discounts from MS, and probably even make money from selling MS Office.
Not only that, but customers aren't even demanding OOO: I would guess only 1-2% of customers have even heard of it. And why should they? If it breaks, is Lunis Tugballs going to come fix it? No? Didn't think so.
This is just a rehash of the Browser Wars, and nobody cared about that. The only winner was the consumer, becuase Netscape and their buggy POS brower were finally killed by a stable... and free!... and clearly superior alternative. Your web browser longs to be free, and that wasn't going to happen under Netscape.
The company I work for always adds OpenOffice to every new PC sold by default, because getting OEM Office drives the price up by almost $200 (and our price is already higher than Office Depot, Office Max, Best Buy and Walmart on comparable PCs of the main brands). I find, however, that people who are comfortable using MS Office don't like OpenOffice, just like people who are comfortable with Corel WordPerfect typically don't like MS Word. You like the program you are most familiar with, even if other programs do the same task better. Nobody likes having to learn to do the same thing in a different manner. I still tie my shoes the same way I taught myself to as a child, even though the normal way to tie one's shoes tends to keep them tied longer than my method.
With that in mind I find it highly amusing that MS Office 2007 requires a substantial learning curve before most users can become efficient with it. Nice job yet again, Microsoft. Justify the massive pricetag of your newest product that is nothing more than a minor upgrade with a facelift by including an interface overhaul.
I have customers that are still using MS Office 97, purchased almost ten years ago. Why? Because for them, it still works just fine.
Draw isn't very useful, except in a few limited cases. Don't try the database app either, its not ready for prime time.
Stick to writer, calc, and impress. Those are the good ones. 80% of people who use MS office just use word, excel, and powerpoint. Not many spring for the deluxe version that would include visio.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Enough about OOO -- Microsoft is a better product, and should be leverage to use an agreed upon standard, but who cares about Open Office. We've all tried it, and there is no sane person who can HONESTLY STATE that it compares to any version of MSO that has ever been released -- going all the way back to MSO 3.
I am open source, and Linux baby!
open office's base ( the database app I just slammed) is getting better all the time. Its not very user friendly, but its the closest app I've seen to access. Soon they'll hit access 2 usability ( which is more than I ever expected of it).
Not that I'll ever use it.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
They should rather try to do well.
It still works fine because, despite what everyone is trying to sell you, methods of creating and dealing with "documents" haven't changed in many years. The feature list wars were over a decade ago, and everybody won.
Unfortunately for you and software vendors, until they get you to buy it by subscription they have to reengineer the whole thing every few years to get you to buy it again or they go out of business. That and engineered incompatibility are the only things driving the MSOffice profit train.
Get off the train to crazytown. Use OO.o already.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I completely disagree with you. At my current job, I frequently use MS Publisher. In an effort to curb software piracy throughout the office, I'm trying to get everyone to switch to open source software. Well, to "practice what I preach," that means I need to do it, too. I've been using Publisher for many years, and I've got to say that my transition to Draw was VERY quick. There are only one or two things I haven't figured out how to do properly in Draw compared to Publisher, but they're insignificant things that I have work-arounds for until I have time to sit down and figure out the real solution.
:P
And who doesn't love a direct "Export to PDF" feature so I can distribute materials to customers via CD if necessary and not have to buy a third-party solution for Publisher to export to PDF?
OO gets the job done and it's free, but Microsoft Office is still a better product.
It could be an easy solution and I'm not saying it's a bad idea to include the open source software on Dell computers, but some people will still prefer Microsoft Office after using OO. The price difference may make take a big chunk off the price tag and that is a big deal, sure.
As long as I have access to MS Office, I'm not using OO. I don't buy Dell, so I don't count. The problem I see is, if I can't stand OO, then the typical user is going to have an even worse opinion of it. Us "gurus" forget what it's like to be clueless and assume everything is easy for everyone else. If something slightly annoys me, it's going to really piss them off.
This new idea of placing open source products on Dell and other computers may eventually hurt open source. I see it coming.
It will just be more stuff to uninstall along with the AOL trial software, etc.
Draw is wonderful for flowcharts and other diagrams.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
Instead of trying to persuade Big Business types, just get permission to place TheOpenCD in Walmart, Kroger, Target, etc.
Microsoft grows more arrogant and decadent every year. Pretty soon they'll want a separate $1,000 license fee every time Word is loaded from each computer's hard disk into the RAM. It's all in their plan, called The Protocols of the Elders of Microsoft.
Dell has a pretty awful reputation now, with their purely monetary thinking, their horrible, out-sourced customer support, and their exploding batteries. Maybe backing free, non-Microsoft software would be a new beginning for them.
I have sent three customers to dell so far this year and in each and every case I have loaded open office and had to uninstall all the crapware....dell make my job easier, it is the least you can do for me sending you new customers.
Got Code?
I've been noodling with it since .94.
.94 and even 1.04 were not up to professional standards folks were used to) that makes people think OO is bad.
I wasn't happy with it until the last release and it won't be everything I need until 2.3.
The one thing we don't want to do is put out a pile of crap (and
As of 2.1, it looks ready to show off to people.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I bet Sun would find a way to get the price pretty low in order to hurt Microsoft Office sales.
Users pay manufacturers to bundle WildTangent spyware crap all over the machine, why wouldn't they pay a nominal "distribution fee" to have OOo???
Was there any attempts in the world to sell computers with preinstalled openoffice? Had they been successful? Any experience with suppoer, etc?
On the other hand, the word processing part seems to work quite well. I don't use any of them myself, but my wife used wordperfect for years
and then work forced her to switch to word, at home I switched her to openoffice and she found it much easier then word.
I'll stick with an editor and TeX, but find word and openoffice about equally annoying in usability.
Considering that Dell already loads the latest version of MSOffice on their Dimensions even when you don't order it, and it takes up disc space and nags you to activate it in trial mode, or buy and put in your key, and causes update hassles with your older, legal version of MSOffice that you transfered from your old machine to you new one, hell yes, Dell could afford to include OO on the hard drive.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"A somewhat obvious question is raised: why isn't OpenOffice already available by default on new PC's and Workstations?"
Obvious questions deserve obvious answers:
Because Microsoft pays Dell to put a "Microsoft Office 30-day trial" on their new systems, and Open Office will pay them nothing.
about a year ago I had to rebuild my dad's computer due to a HD crash. I put open office on there for him. He has a spreadsheet that he uses to track stocks he owns. A few weeks after I gave the computer to him he calls me to say that his spreadsheet doesn't look right.
Well, I do have Excel on my laptop so I went over there and verified that the spreadsheet rendered exactly the same in both OO and Excel. The issue was that there was some Excel feature that he was looking for under some menu. I can't for the life of me remember what it was. But the thing is, a quick google search confirmed that OO had that same feature. So I showed him how to use it.
But he wasn't happy. He just complained so much about having to learn to click a different menu. So I broke down and installed Excel.
Now here is the best part: he just bought a new laptop and guess what's on it - the new version of Office with the funky menus. But he wont complain about having to relearn THAT, because THAT's microsoft.
God that pisses me off.
I bought a quantex. It came with an open source doucment suite - I believe an early version of openoffice.
Wouldn't StarOffice from Sun make a lot more sense in this case? Dell can take a cut of the price, and Sun provides support for the product.
man, that's easy: imagine you run a hardware company; you want to sell you products and maximize your profit; users want windows (for whatever reasons); you get a deal from m$ for windows if it's pre-installed on the hardware you sell; you want that deal, so you try not to piss m$ off, so you don't event think of ooo; m$ is happy, you are happy, but users don't get to learn ooo. that being said, i have tried switching to ooo twice and was disappointed with missing features such as page numbering or an import filter for wp. also, m$ office has become a de facto standard because we all use at work, therefore it would greatly help if ooo user interface was as similar as possible to the m$ office user interface.
When I worked for the people they contracted their call center to a few years back they sold computers with OpenOffice.org pre-installed. No idea if they still do but they use to...
I think we've seen this already --- a bunch of hardware vendors would ship Corel Wordperfect (a brand name product no less) inleu of MS Word... and it did nothing for the mindshare of Wordperfect. It is the network effect that keeps Word going.... which also explains why Wordperfect took so long to die off... a core userbase won't switch.
Meh, I think the letter was intended more for the general public rather than for Dell's eyes. Dell knows about OpenOffice, but it's not clear whether pre-installing OOo would give Dell a competitive edge (by decreasing reliance on MS Works and generating goodwill among certain IT folk) or be an unqualified disaster (via Microsoft's wrath, customer-support hell, etc). The letter sounds like OOo wants journalists, bloggers, curious IT lurkers, and money-conscious PC users to become interested in the issue of Dell supporting and benefiting from open-source software.
The option was always there, but now it's become a slightly more high-profile issue -- if there ever was a time for Joe Power User to start bugging Dell about default software configurations, it's now, in the wake of this IdeaStorm madness.
Personally, I think OOo has huge momentum behind it right now, and the current issue of it sucking a little right now will be resolved during the next year or so. Remember, Mozilla was a disaster for the first few years after Netscape begat it; they built tools like Bugzilla, poked at the remaining components, wept and gnashed their teeth for a couple more years, and then went about creating a framework to make the project feasible for the community to develop. OpenOffice looks to have been in a better shape to begin with, but I see they're going a similar route with UNO and the OpenDocument Toolkit Project -- so OpenOffice 2.x may feel like the bloaty, compatibility-beset Mozilla of yore, but there's a niche for a Firefox equivalent on the horizon.
Sort of. It doesn't really compete with commercial offerings like visio or smart draw. Its too limited in what it does. But if it does what you want, your in luck.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
is that there's a REAL database behind the DB package in OOo.
And you can change it to amother one that you already know, probably.
I think if you were to send an open letter to Dell you would at least check your spelling, perhaps open office doesn't have spell check (joking)? Licenced anyone?
The answer is money. MS, (Symantec, McAfee, AOL, etc), pay for the "real estate" for their software being preloaded on PCs. This is either with the expectation of generating revenues through sign-ups, subscriptions, "Full Version" purchases, or advertising revenue.
Tell me how that will work with OpenOffice.
That question isnt meant to be funny - I'd love to see two things... current OpenOffice on the Mac (heck, OS/2 has it already) and OpenOffice being the de-facto standard on new PCs. But, in order for that to happen, my question needs to be answered (to the PC Makers)... how can OpenOffice provide $$$ to the PC Makers for each copy installed (instead of lets say.... MS Office)? Ad revenue similar to Opera's method perhaps? I dont know.... but if one of the bright minds here on /. (and I think there must be at least 3 or 4... maybe 5 - of which I am not one ;-) )comes up with a working idea, then OpenOffice has a far likelier chance of being pre-installed on consumer PCs (without it negatively impacting the price of the PC).
Give it some thought gang... smart minds like yours may be the ones that comes up with the solution(s).
Robert
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
This comment thread is like finger nails on a chalk board. I bet 85% of the people in here bitching about OO.o not being a good enough office suite to use because it doesn't have feature X or it doesn't look nice have not used OO.o in the last 6 months!
Seriously, go download it and install it RIGHT NOW. It IS well polished and it DOES open M$ Office docs well. I think that the real problem in here is that you folks with diarrhea of the mouth used the BETA version of OO.o and have just assumed that the *now* 2.0 version has not improved on anything. Go try it out. The only part of it that isn't ready for the home or office is the Access replacement, and that's because it is really new.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5... That's the combination on my luggage!
Dell could take the initiative and be the first to sell OOo with their computers including Dell-sponsored value added.
They should get their in-house designer or hire a few on the outside to make a bunch of templates and really useful things to use with OOo. I've tried all the invoices etc. and I did find one out of all the chaos and websites, but for ages I have been searching for templates. It's like when you buy a Mac and make your own DVD and then you realize they have these amazing automatic animated DVD templates you can just drop video and photos and music into, but there's only like 1 or 2 decent templates and they are way too hard to make yourself. I can just see everyone using the same darned template over and over (the white mirror one I guess).
They could even make some good PR and offer the OOo community a Dell sponsored folder of templates and other art. And how about something that uses the database for something useful? OOo has tons of potential and someone like Dell could turn it into an empowering center that ties together your whole computer even. Anyway I'd pay money if they provided some good business templates like fax, invoice, letterhead, impress backgrounds, photo frames, and other art. Maybe hire a good coder and make some cool apps to go along with it!
Other than trying to promote open source software I don't see how this is really in the customers interst. Anybody who wants OpenOffice can download it themselves for free. The choice is already there for anyone who is interested in it. I much rather install it myself then have Dell put it on there. If anything I would like the option of having a machine with the OS and absolutely no additional applications. I think the real motive is OpenOffice users want to advertise the product to the large community of Dell users who normally wouldn't be exposed to it. Dell does not exist to carry out that agenda. If this was a bunch of Dell customers who don't use open office or Linux and they were making this request it would be totally different. But this is coming from an organized effort of people, many of which aren't even customers, telling Dell to put the software they like on Dell machines so others will be exposed to it. I seriously doubt most Linux or OpenOffice users would rather have Dell configure and install the software for them. That almost defeats the purpose, especially if they are charged for it.
I had the same problems back 2 years ago when I was working on my resume (I'm happily employed now). The TAB spacing is slightly off or the font is slightly off (probably both). For most things it seems to work great, but when you are making some sort of presentation/report/CV it can have problems.
Of course, the same thing can happen when you use different versions of Office, if it bothers to open them at all. I always like to joke OO is more compatible with Office than Office is.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
...this be enough to keep them away?
> Maybe because Microsoft Office is a superior product. They don't offer beta versions of MS Office either.
No, they offer MS Works, which is a piece of crap. Or those trial versions of Office which are a pain in the ass.
> In most cases, it's got critical deficiencies that will confuse most customers.
The main trouble I've seen is not being able to understand everything about some of Microsoft's undocumented formats. Yeah, that's a problem, but not really one I blame OO.o for.
Later, you write:
> Although I dislike the general Office interface, I'd have to say that MS Office 2007 is beautiful and extremely intuitive.
Now I know you're trolling. The new interface is a PIECE OF CRAP! Or maybe you LIKE helping all the new users figure out why the File, Edit, ect. menus we've been used to for years now are gone? Yeah, using tabs to give you more buttons is kinda nice, but why did they shift EVERY damn option in the menus to a completely new layout such that we can't find anything any more? It's ironic, given how Microsoft usually cites things like retraining costs when it wants to justify itself as being "cheaper" than *nix in TCO. And what the hell was the idea of making the logo into the file menu!? That USED to be a mostly inactive logo in prior applications. It'd have a few things like minimize and close under it. But now it's the new File menu for some reason, even though it doesn't give you any indication of that.
So go ahead, maybe it is intuitive to you. But it's not intuitive to any of the people I've had to help (all of whom are extremely frustrated with their new Vista systems and all the broken crap they shipped with), so even though I was able to figure out all the new quirks, I can't call it intuitive.
After all, just what the hell does "intuitive" mean if it takes a computer expert to go around and explain all the new crap to people?
> Safari and IE7 are generally decent browsers with solid interfaces, but I think more web companies generally cater to Firefox.
Umm, no, rather Firefox (and Opera) have the best support for web standards. You have to use nasty, ugly, wrong hacks to make things work right in IE. These days, I only see "designed for IE" logos any more, not "designed for Firefox" (unless you want to count the W3C validation labels as "designed for Firefox" but even that's not accurate, because they have a few CSS bugs left).
> Effective office suites need only solid design practices and decent software engineering. Good ideas and usability research are the basis for a solid office suite. These are categories where OSS falls flat. I was certainly not surprised when Microsoft released a brilliant and productive new office interface and system out of nowhere- whereas OpenOffice still struggles to resemble Office 2000.
Yeah, but that's ridiculous. Exactly which usability principle says to make unidentifiable logos into menus? Exactly which usability principle says "throw out ALL the conventions we've established in prior versions, and move all the options to completely different menus"? Perhaps you should actually READ someone who knows what the hell they're talking about in terms of usability? You know, simple design principles like having (and keeping) standard layouts for common functionality. Making different things obviously different, and similar things grouped together. Things like you'd find in, oh, say the Apple UI guidelines?
I'm sorry, but you HAVE to be ignorant and or trolling if you're holding that interface up as an example of good design. They just threw out all of their usability conventions for the sake of a shiny new interface so they'd have some excuse to give people an "upgrade" version even though there aren't any new features that most people will ever use. That breaks practically every single rule of usability! Oh, but it will force everyone to upgrade just so they can open the Office 2007 documents they get sent by other people. That's *so* worth it as a customer, you know.
Captcha: distort
How apropos.
Seriously.. who are they going to point users to when they can't figure out how to attach their open office spreadsheet into an open office word file? (Sorry I've never used open office so I don't know what the program names are.) Companies like the one I work at support employees at work AND at home, but if you're running non-standard crap at home we won't even attempt to help. If you're running, windows, office, and a few other select softwares (adobe & lotus mainly) we will bend over backwards to help out, as long as it's business related (of course we can't verify that).
I know we're not the only company that does this because I've worked at other companies that do this. Imagine now if people started getting open office installed when they got their new dells... who would be there to guide them thru double clicking their open office template or what-have you? Not us, not dell, not microsoft. And as irritated as such users are, I have to admit that without them I wouldn't have had many of the jobs I've had including this one.
You're nothing; like me.
The competition factor with MSO is obviously the biggest one, however one big problem with OOo is upgrading.
In order to upgrade from one version to the next, you have to delete the old version, then install the new one. On top of that, the dictionary settings (if you managed to get them to work) are wiped if you didn't consciously make the effort to back them up.
This means that if Dell were to pre-install OOo on their computers, if a single more recent release has come out, it actually means more hassle for the user than if one weren't installed.
Firefox has set a good example for how to handle upgrades.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
I am fairly certain that OpenOffice would allow, if asked, Dell to become an authorized mirror. Simple. Bandwidth is then at least 'partially' paid for by Dell.
Load it on their machines by default. Load windows or whatever they want on the machine as the OS, but give them a full office suite so that they can do something worthwhile without having to pay for that moronic microsoft works program...or worse...pay $150 or more for something so stupid and basic as a functional word processor.
Really, do you think mom and pop want to spend $150 on word/excel/powerpoint combos? Unfortunately most aren't powerpoint rangers and the simple powerpoint viewer would probably be ok.
OO.org is way better...comes with more features than MSOffice...most will again be unused...but at least it is free and works out of the box.
And oh yes....the obvious...Dell could give the source as a download. Hopefully with a big disclaimer that says:"Regular users do not need this."
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
I cannot understand what is it with all of these people asking how Dell or any hardware maker can make money with OpenOffice.org. Just put a price tag for it. You can do it. Install it and charge for the service of installing it. You can even sell the CD if you want and let the customer do the installation. Or even better, you can add an extra (even optional) fee for the phone support. I am sure most people won't even use the phone support provided by the hardware makers and still they would be happy to pay an extra for it - people do buy insurances but still they don't want to get into accidents.
And don't even start saying that supporting OpenOffice.org is more expensive than supporting Windows, MS Office or whatever.
Obvious questions deserve obvious answers:
Because Microsoft pays Dell to put a "Microsoft Office 30-day trial" on their new systems, and Open Office will pay them nothing.
It's more obvious (or perhaps pervasive) than that. Microsoft's agreements have historically kept sellers/resellers from offering competing products if they want to have Microsoft software installed or available. If Dell installed or offered OpenOffice, Dell would quickly only have Linux to offer as an OS. It comes with dealing with a near-monopoly - Microsoft can pretty much set the rules any way it wants.
Tag lost or not installed.
You are correct that this is a possiblity - BUT - it totally bypasses my question - which is how can Dell or any other manufacturer get OpenOffice as the pre-installed Office Suite on a desktop WITHOUT raising the costs of the PCs to the end users.
People dont want to buy a PC for $10 more because it comes with OpenOffice - especially when they "all" think they need MS Office.
Most of the people who come in the door to CompUSA (where I work - at least for now) dont seem to understand, no matter how many times you explain it, that the copy of MS Office on the machine is a 60 day trial and then they have to pay for it. You have no idea how many.
Put the two together and you have people who come in, see a machine with pretty MS Office icons (for a trial version they cannot understand will stop working), THINK they need it because the media force feeds them that idea (and the resellers are PAID to convince them it as well), and see the EXACT SAME machine sans MS Office Trial with Open Office instead - but $10 more expensive - which do you think will get bought 9 out of 10 times?
Keep in mind, computer saavy users would simply forgo buying MS Office at all (unless some job or project required it) and instead opt to DOWNLOAD OpenOffice themselves - to those people it doesnt matter if MS Office or OpenOffice get pre-installed. For the rest of the computer owning/using populace, it needs to be pre-installed. MS Office's market share is where it is for quite a few reasons - but ONE big reason is in 60 days you cant open all those neat documents that you created in your 60 day trial and THINK you need to buy it (as the stores, the media and the nag screen MS Office displays tell you that you must).
So, any other takers? How do we get OpenOffice installable by an OEM with no extra cost incurred by the end-user?
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
And I couldn't be happier. It beats the heck out of the AppleWorks package that came with it and keeps me fully compatible with OpenOffice on my Linux boxes.
Thanks, OpenOffice!
Is this still a facto for anyone these days? Other than Apple, I guess...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Why would Apple encourage competition for their own office suite? You may as well ask MS to distribute Ubuntu.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!