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NZ Outfit Dumps Open Office For MS Office

Posted by kdawson on from the pull-of-the-dark-side dept.

(Score.5, Interestin writes "The NZ Automobile Association has just announced that it is dropping Open Office and switching back to MS Office. According to their CIO, 'Microsoft Office is not any cheaper, but it was almost impossible to work out what open-source was actually costing because of issues such as incompatibility and training.' In addition, 'you have no idea where open-source products are going, whereas vendors like Microsoft provide a roadmap for the future.'" About 500 seats are involved. MS conceded to letting Office users run the software at home as well.

95 of 581 comments (clear)

  1. Sniff, sniff... by RiffRafff · · Score: 2, Informative

    Maybe I'm just cynical, but I thought I just caught a whiff of kickback...

    --
    "I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
    1. Re:Sniff, sniff... by PFI_Optix · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why? Because someone couldn't make open source work for them? I think they provided a fair assessment of some of the major obstacles to open source. The school district I work for is clamoring for a switch to MSO from Star Office 8. Why? Because we can't find people to train employees in SO8, which means our training funds from the state are wasted and because we are completely unsupported.

      --
      120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
    2. Re:Sniff, sniff... by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No you are just an OSS Zealot. Blind to the fact that a lot os OSS software is seriously lacking espectially in end-user applications. Microsft isn't always the evil bubling company it appears to be. Sometimes people use their product because it is better or at least on par then the rest.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    3. Re:Sniff, sniff... by RiffRafff · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I dunno...when everything is said and done, it's just a word processor. And one that isn't all that dissimilar to Word. "Training" issues often seem to be overblown, in my experience. Personal likes and dislikes, however, are another story. As is resistance to change, which can be almost insurmountable.

      --
      "I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
    4. Re:Sniff, sniff... by just_another_sean · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why? Because someone couldn't make open source work for them?

      No, because TFA specifically said that MS "conceded" to letting their users run office at home.

      I'm not saying the points for switching back to MSO aren't potentially valid but this story reminds me of a lot of recent trends. Companies/governments only have to mention the word "Linux" or "Open Source" around MS these days and suddenly they are falling over backward to give a better deal, concede on a license issue and in general make people feel like their getting a better deal then the rest of the world. It's a great new procurement strategy:

      1. "Evaluate" open source for next upgrade cycle
      2. Negotiate with MS for lower license fees
      3. Cite training/hidden costs as reason for giving up on Open Source

      Again, not saying that some reasons for sticking with MS aren't valid but some of this is just plain gaming the system.

      --
      Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
    5. Re:Sniff, sniff... by Nibbler999 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Seems likely, seeing as this CIO used to work for Microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com/nz/presscentre/articles/2 004/feb_04_wilson.mspx

    6. Re:Sniff, sniff... by PFI_Optix · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Excel, Access, FrontPage, PowerPoint, and Publisher are all just word processors? What about all the back-end collaboration tools?

      If you think MSO and OO.o are "just word processors", just stick with Wordpad. It came with Windows.

      --
      120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
    7. Re:Sniff, sniff... by Nibbler999 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Also seems to be the very same guy who won a laptop from the website publishing this story only last year. http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/E2D91FD29 42D4382CC25724400106374

    8. Re:Sniff, sniff... by jonnythan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "it's just a word processor"

      So, in other words, you've never worked inside a modern corporate office.

      Users use of the suite of applications that come in Microsoft Office to do complex things, from presentations, to databases, to collaboration, to complex spreadsheets, etc etc. There's a *lot* of functionality present in OO or MS Office and it's not all trivial to use.

    9. Re:Sniff, sniff... by clodney · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When I bought my last car they dealer conceded to selling it for a price lower than what was shown on the sticker.

      How is MS offering a discount/incentive/license concession any different? Some MS sales rep had a potential sale of 500 seats, and had to sweeten the deal to get a sale. Purchasing people are always pushing for a better deal, and threatening to take their business elsewhere if they don't get it.

    10. Re:Sniff, sniff... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The issue as I understand it was largely that 'everyone else (other organisations and outside people) used MS word and the only thing really compatable with MS word is, in fact, MS word.'

      But yes, I do agree; a word processor is a word processor. A spreadsheet is a spreadsheet; if you cannot cope with Open Office instead of MS Word, I wonder if you really understood what you were doing in the first place (in either program!).

    11. Re:Sniff, sniff... by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...just stick with Wordpad. It came with Windows.

      He could... if WordPad, err, wasn't so incompatible with reading default MS Office - generated .doc files...

      /P

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    12. Re:Sniff, sniff... by erroneus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I too have to take issue with the notion that "training" should be even required for processing words, running a spreadsheet or creating a presentation of any kind. If you or anyone else can't figure out how to use Open Office without "training" they've got to be dumb as rocks. And I'm not writing flame-bait here. I dead serious about that.

      There are ample help files in Open Office and the system works quite well. I search the words I seek, find the "how to" on any given topic and go with it. I cannot imagine what aspects of OpenOffice might need "training."

      (To be fair, though, Powerpoint is a lot more powerful than the Open Office presentation stuff... I tried to get it to do some things I and was unsuccessful with it.)

      And while it may be something of a requisite to already know how to use MS Office stuff prior to employment, I'd have to say that such a requisite rather stacks the deck in favor of MS Office wouldn't you say? But even so, for someone to be unable to transport their knowledge and skills with Office to a similar package is a pretty good sign of low IQ.

      But the more I think about "compatibility" the more I think they may be talking about macros and visual basic. Frankly, I'd rather see VBA done away with entirely whether or not MS Office is used in an office environment. If some sort of automated tool or other thing is needed, let that be created as a separate work that can be UNINSTALLED. Integrating application code into an office suite is begging for trouble and it does quite often... I hate the integration of software packages like word and application "X" or worse, application "X" being written in VBA. As a previous administrator for Goldmine in a hyper-extended environment, I know what ridiculous problems arise from such systems and what a pain in the ass it can be.

      But I can appreciate the bigger picture as well: If employee group A can operate more efficiently under MSOffice than they can under OpenOffice, then until the cause for that problem can be resolved, it would make sense to go to MSOffice. But the reasons and the cause have everything to do with it and if the reason is "because my people are stupid and can't figure out OpenOffice" then I think there is a temporary solution (let them use MSOffice) and there's the long-term solution (hire smarter people) -- there will be benefits well beyond that of saving a few bucks on an office suite. Because I've got to state the obvious here: If they are too stupid to figure out OpenOffice, then I must assume their stupidity is more than likely to extend beyond the ability to use office applications effectively.

    13. Re:Sniff, sniff... by jonnythan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "banging together a quick powerpoint presentation" is a subset of "corporate presentations."

      Banging together a quick presentation is pretty easy to port from Powerpoint to Impress or vice versa. However, complex presentations may not be. There's a *lot* of functionality in, say, Powerpoint that isn't going to be easy for most people to transfer directly into Impress with zero training.

      The same goes for Writer, Calc, Base, etc. Expecting to simply drop users who do a lot of in-depth work with these applications directly into OO without training is a recipe for disaster, and no sane IT department would ever ever do it.

    14. Re:Sniff, sniff... by AuMatar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I work inside a modern office. I have at several jobs for 7 years. And office is just a word processor at all of them.

      I have seen a few power point presentations. They were all overblown, and everyone except the sales guys ignored them. Excel was used to make tables. No spreadsheet features used, just as a way to line things up in rows. Other than that, its all using word to write documents. Notepad would fill the same need if it allowed you to insert pictures.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    15. Re:Sniff, sniff... by daenris · · Score: 3, Informative

      Open office training videos.

      Now, I just got that from a Google search, so I'm not sure about the quality of the videos, but it should be enough to get most "typical" users over the superficial differences between Microsoft Office and Open Office.

    16. Re:Sniff, sniff... by dave562 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Since when has banging together a quick powerpoint presentation been challenging?

      It's easy to bang together a quick PowerPoint presentation if you want to put some slides up for a presentation you are doing to your class. It's easy to bang together a presentation if all of the data that you need is stored in a single location, or in a single spreadsheet. On the other hand if you need to draw together data from multiple business units spread across the globe that are stored on servers spread across the globe, you might want some collaboration tools. You might want something like SharePortal and Office 2007. Your board of directors might expect to see things like trend data, and market capitalization, and ROI, and all sorts of other information that people often store in Excel, or Access or SQL, or Oracle, or whatever. You might a tool like Excel that can pull data from multiple data sources and correlate it before you dump it into something like PowerPoint to display it.

      You are right when you think that the individual, specific tasks in and of themselves may not be all that complex. However tying all of those tasks together in an enterprise environment is a completely different story.

    17. Re:Sniff, sniff... by phildo420 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Yeah, just a word processor with interoperability with SQL, Excel, Access, .NET programs...

      You realize you can generate dynamic documents with Word that interact with databases and interfaces pretty easily, correct?
      You know, like writing a base invoice in Word, linking it to Access or SQL server to pull down charges, and using the Excel engine to generate a graph of productivity provided?
      Even if OO does the same stuff, it takes significant time to learn a new library, or even more likely, a whole different language.

      But since you just want a word processor... WordPad is a free word processor. And it's just that, a word processor.

    18. Re:Sniff, sniff... by nullChris · · Score: 2, Informative

      Results 1 - 9 of 9 for "Open office training" <strong>"New Zealand"</strong>. (0.29 seconds)
      Of which, a couple lead to http://the-pc-medic.com/, and if their training is as good as their website... well. Only a couple other links offer directories of different service providers, and none of them appear to actually provide open office training.

      Did you see if any of the 199,000,000 search results you came up with offered in house training in New Zealand? Too lazy or incompetent to wade through it all?
    19. Re:Sniff, sniff... by jmorris42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > If you or anyone else can't figure out how to use Open Office without "training" they've got to be dumb
      > as rocks. And I'm not writing flame-bait here. I dead serious about that.

      By writing that you make it clear that you have never had to deal with 'normals'. Wish I worked where you work, but I don't live on a planet where everyone is computer literate[1], capable of independent learning and posseses above average intelligence and reasoning abilities. Thankfully we never allowed Microsoft in the front door though so we manage to get along with OO.o/FF/etc running on networked Linux workstations. We didn't have to deal with the whinging due an inability to deal with change but do training? What fantasy world are you living in. It can take sometimes take a week to get a new hire to learn that logging in with CAPS LOCK on won't work.

      [1] I define 'computer literate' much the same way as I define 'literacy'. Literacy in the sense of the English Language means one able to read the language, speak it, reason in it and express thoughts in writing using it. Computer literacy means the ability to read and write PROGRAMS, even simple ones, understand the ideas underlying common applications i.e. understand what cut/paste DOES, not memorizing the keystroke. Know the IDEA behind a spreadsheet. Knowing every function isn't required, knowing enough to figure out the help system IS.

      --
      Democrat delenda est
    20. Re:Sniff, sniff... by GoRK · · Score: 2, Informative

      Home use licenses are pretty much standard with all Microsoft products when you purchase Software Assurance, which you generally do with MS Office. Was I the only one who read this and thought it was probably someone who had never actually done a volume license deal with MS making a mountain out of a molehill?

    21. Re:Sniff, sniff... by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      These are the same people who never picked up the old program though. Would these not be the same users who would have no idea what was going on if they were used to Office 2003, and you put them in front of Office 12 (I wish they would stop changing the numbering conventions). Training will always be an issue, especially for the people who aren't "power users".

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    22. Re:Sniff, sniff... by RobertM1968 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I wholeheartedly disagree...

      "The first, with Open Office, is compatibility -- sharing information with Microsoft products, both within the organisation and with external parties."

      Which it does pretty decently. Compatibility with the next release of MS Office is a moot point (as I also touch on in the third section below) especially when no one knows when the next release will be out. This same compatibility is an issue with every new release of MS Office - so how is that any different? Go open an Office 2007 document in Office 2000 or Word 98 or any previous version. Sure, you can save the document in Office 2007 using an older format - but the same capabilities exist in OO. Thus, moot point.

      "A dual world is complicated and, whether people like it or not, Microsoft is a standard."

      MS is NOT a standard. A standard does not change every release. MS creates a new "standard" to drive their upgrade market with each release. That's not a standard - that's driving a market upgrade cycle. There is a big difference.

      "Second, you have no idea where open-source products are going, whereas vendors like Microsoft provide a roadmap for the future."

      Microsoft has NEVER provided a roadmap for ANYTHING. They have provided sometimes vague promises, sometimes very detailed promises that they continually break. Their broken promises include every area of software expectations from functionality (like Vista and its lack of many promised features) to delivery dates (like virtually every MS product in the last 10 years). That is NOT a roadmap. That's announcing vapourware. The Open-Source community is a lot more likely (and a lot more apt to) live up to the roadmaps they outline for future software development of most major products, most especially including OpenOffice.

      So, the person quoted is basing his decision off promises that will in all probability be broken both in terms of functionality, interoperability, release schedule, compatibility and the need for re-training. All of which are much lesser issues for OO.

      "It's about futures, planning and integration."

      See above.

      Wilson says Microsoft Office is not any cheaper, but that it was almost impossible to work out what open-source was actually costing because of issues such as incompatibility and training.

      I've already touched on the "incompatibility" issues... so, lets dive into the training one. Anyone with any training experience (ie: anyone who should be in a position at a company to train employees on software) should easily be able to "learn" and train people on OpenOffice. When a new version comes out, the learning curve for that trainer should be minimal to allow that trainer to disseminate that information to the other employees. Please tell me how the massive changes to Office 2007 are easier in terms of training? And what added benefit offsets that? The added cost of the software? The incompatibility with older versions - that now have to be upgraded as well?

      Any "trainer" who has the ability to learn the differences, and thus train people on them, for going from an earlier version of Office to Office 2007 should easily be able to take up the task of training someone on OpenOffice - current, past and future versions.

      I tend to agree with the GP poster that some sort of kickback was offered. One was already indicated in the article (the allowance of copies of Office to be run dual location at no additional cost). I'd speculate there were others. This seems more like a publicity piece for MS showing that open-source software isnt worth it - all based off erroneous and downright idiotic claims (of compatibility, delivery roadmaps, functionality roadmaps, availability of people to train, and training costs).

      --
      StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
    23. Re:Sniff, sniff... by OldeTimeGeek · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I can see your point if everybody had used at least one word processing program before, but how about if they haven't? If you don't know the basic concepts of word processors work, how are you going to know what to look for in the help system?

      My company hires a lot of people who have little to no prior experience using computers, let alone extensive experience in Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice Writer or anything else. Which means that not only do we have to bring them up to speed on the tools that they'll need to work here, but also on the forms, macros and other things that are specific to how they will be doing it.

      It's much more cost effective for us to schedule a short class for everyone than have the people who don't know what they're doing flailing around for the first couple of days trying to figure out how to use things. Sure, it annoys the people who have used the software before, but at the very least we know that all of our people have a common starting point.

    24. Re:Sniff, sniff... by MightyMait · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So, you're saying Sun Microsystems is a bunch of amateurs and/or hobbyists?

      --
      Nothing interesting to say...MUST...NOT...REPLY...ohtheheckwithit.
    25. Re:Sniff, sniff... by VertigoAce · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They aren't going to keep it from everyone else, since they've included the Home Use Program in Software Assurance for years. See the SA site for more details. Among the other benefits that most people don't know about are things like the fact that companies with 1500+ licenses can access the Windows source at no cost for use in troubleshooting, debugging, and analyzing security.

    26. Re:Sniff, sniff... by MightyMait · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sun maintains OpenOffice.org and StarOffice according to posters in this thread.

      My question to you is then: how can you say that OpenOffice.org is maintained by amateurs and hobbyists?

      In fact, I disagree with your entire premise. Who is more likely to do a good job--someone who is doing what they do because they *enjoy* doing it (amateurs and hobbyists) or somebody that is trying to get by at work without getting fired so that they get the paycheck and can maintain their Red Bull addiction?

      --
      Nothing interesting to say...MUST...NOT...REPLY...ohtheheckwithit.
    27. Re:Sniff, sniff... by vux984 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Excellent points except the change mentioned in the comment to which you're replying is from StarOffice to Microsoft Office and they do want to change.

      Not quite. They are still whining about the 'change' to StarOffice from what they are used to elsewhere (be it at home, a former job, or whatever...).

      If you put these same people on a Mac with Microsoft Office, how many of them do you think would still complain?

      But saddest of all, is if you put a lot of these people onto the Office Suite they are whining for most of the whining STILL won't stop. Even the latest versions of Office still continually mangle formatting and do annoying things with indentation, autocorrect, borders, object anchors, etc when you try an edit non-trivial documents.

      When you've got staroffice, though, people blame it on staroffice and say "gee this wouldn't be an issue if I had Microsoft Office", but if you actually give them MS Office, these people still have the same sort of problems, except they just blame it on their 'computer', or the person who wrote the document if it wasn't them.

      Your apparent perception that there's no significant difference in quality between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice/StarOffice is somewhere between wishful thinking and delusion.

      There are significant differences, but I'm not sure 'quality' is the right benchmark. MS Office IS generally somewhat better at working with its own document formats most of the time, and it boasts a lot of advanced enterprise features that very very very few enterprises use, and almost no small business / department ever touches.

    28. Re:Sniff, sniff... by sumdumass · · Score: 2, Informative

      His point wasn't that they didn't get a deal or that they got a discount. His point was that they never intended to use the stuff to begin with. The trend he is talking about is the same as when you acted like you would walk if you didn't get the deal you were expecting, So the car dealership gave you the deal. However, you never intended to go somewhere else to buy a car.

      And from this point, We can see how many other places have done similar things with similar results. So it is now like you telling your friends to act like you won't buy it until they give you the deal you want. They don't intent to go elsewhere either, they just intend on getting a deal.

    29. Re:Sniff, sniff... by Petrushka · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Feel free to contact the magazine's editor so they can fill in this gap in the article (specifically, in the third paragraph).

    30. Re:Sniff, sniff... by ClosedSource · · Score: 2, Funny

      OO.o and what version of MS Office are supposed to have less issues than Office 2003 and 2007?

    31. Re:Sniff, sniff... by thethibs · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I do *NOT* consider myself to be anything "above average" in any capacity

      I'm going to have to beg to differ. A clearly written post with four-syllable words, no spelling errors, complete sentences, and (except for unusual use of ellipses) excellent punctuation, make it clear that you are above average for Slashdot at least. Although it's not always evident from the postings here, that means you are way above the general average.

      It's not politically correct to say so, but half of the population suffers below-average intelligence. How desperate that condition is is demonstrated by the number of above-average people whose first reaction is to reject that statement. They aren't particularly stupid. It's just that you are particularly smart but haven't been put in a position to really comprehend the vast gulf between a 130 and a 100 IQ.

      I've been involved with word processors since they were called memory typewriters and 'text processors' before that. I trained and designed training on a lot of products. What I found is that, independent of the product, the typical non-technical office worker (above-average intelligence required) needs five days of training to be able to produce and edit non-trivial documents. If they don't get it in a controlled environment, they will pick it up the hard way (reading help, consulting "power users") and use more of their time and that of others than you could possibly save by skipping or shortening the training. They will also tend to produce documents that are a pain to edit.

      --
      I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
    32. Re:Sniff, sniff... by iminplaya · · Score: 2, Funny

      All that fancy stuff...Makes me wonder who we all survived the last century and before. All that fancy stuff and the world is still at war. I suppose it all just makes the wars that much more profitable when we know exactly how much ammunition and armor to dole out to the troops. Gotta cut back on the waste somewhere. I don't believe all that collaboration is helping a hell of a lot of people. But a penny saved...

      --
      What?
    33. Re:Sniff, sniff... by uradu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > What about all the back-end collaboration tools?

      Oh, really? Do go on about those back-end collaboration tools and the ten people in the world that use them. Unless you strictly mean Exchange, there's only a handful of people that even know what Sharepoint or any of the other even more obscure Backoffice components do. In my experience Microsoft Office primarily consists of Word and either Excel or PowerPoint (or both) for most people, with Access, FrontPage and Publisher barely registering on anyone's radar. All I can say about OO is that the spreadsheet and presentation components are not as strong or user friendly as the MS Office parts, but the word processor is definitely up there.

    34. Re:Sniff, sniff... by Simon+Garlick · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wordpad has never ever been able to read .doc files, troll.

      You are wrong.

      All of Windows 95/98's READMEs were in .doc format, because Wordpad -- included with Windows 95/98 -- could read them. When you first saved a new document created in Wordpad, it defaulted to ".doc" as a filetype.

      --

      -----
      PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
    35. Re:Sniff, sniff... by Allador · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sharepoint is huge. Many businesses use it. Lots of money to be made as a consultant right now showing people how to use it effectively. There are certain types of information worker type of jobs for whom sharepoint is superior to traditional file sharing.

      It's not anything like as entrenched as Exchange, but dont discount it too much. There's a lot of activity going on around sharepoint.

      And to discount access? Access is so ridiculously successful at giving non-IT folks the ability to create simple database and form apps without involving IT, that its often the bane of many IT shops in large organizations.

      Many, many organizations out there have lots of sub-enterprise (but still critical) business processes that run purely on access, and were developed as point solution by the dept 'techy' because IT didnt have the resources to do the project properly.

  2. wait wait by stim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now before we all agree that they suck and start the conspiracy of how much MS paid them to switch back... Perhaps they have some valid points here. What can the Linux movement do to curb the switchbacks, and address some of these concerns?

    --
    Browse at -1 to keep an eye out for abuses.
    1. Re:wait wait by orasio · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Linux has nothing to do with OpenOffice.

    2. Re:wait wait by TubeSteak · · Score: 2, Informative

      The AA's agreement with Microsoft, for around 500 seats, includes home-usage rights, so staff can use the software at home.
      It's pretty obvious how much MS 'paid' them
      They gave the company another 500 seats for free

      Though I wonder just what this company is thinking if their idea of "maintaining" a website involves only Office and Word.
      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    3. Re:wait wait by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well for one it has little to nothing to do with Linux.
      They have a few valid points but they are hard to work around.
      1. OpenOffice will never be as compatible with Office as Office is.
      2. If you know Office you must learn OpenOffice. Office is taught in every school I know of.
      3. I still don't think Calc is even as good as Excel in Office 2000 but then I haven't really used it a lot in a long time.
      4. Outlooks+Exchange are a better Enterprise calendering system than anything I have seen from FOSS.
      5. Sharepoint. I haven't seen anything as easy to use from the FOSS community.

      Microsoft had done some good things, give the devil his due.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    4. Re:wait wait by pavera · · Score: 5, Funny

      hmm, I haven't heard of MS giving "home" copies since office 97/windows 95.

      In fact, I worked at a company that still thought they had home copies (big 5000 person company, big volume license deal), and they had to pay almost 10 million in fines to the SBA for their "home" copies.

    5. Re:wait wait by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well yes and no.
      Office, Outlook, and Exchange are big reasons to not use Linux. That and frankly VisualBasic are really deal killers for a lot of places as far as Linux on the desktop.
      Sharepoint and Exchange are great weapons to use to get Linux off servers.
      It is a problem for Linux in that if All of your software will run on Linux there is no reason to keep Windows If you have to keep Windows then you have to keep Windows.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    6. Re:wait wait by BrianH · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, MS still offers offsite licensing for large customers. My employer has home licenses (we refer to them as work-at-home licenses) available for all 1400 of our employees. It even covers OS upgrades for XP and Vista.

      It all depends on how much clout you have with them. I work at a college, and between our employees computers, our students computers, and the many hundreds of lab computers around campuses, the multi-year contract for our site is worth millions. With money like that on the line, it's pretty easy to get them to concede enough offsite licenses to cover the few hundred employees actually willing to use them.

      --

      There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
    7. Re:wait wait by cycik · · Score: 2, Informative

      I handle Microsoft licensing for my company. Microsoft is desperate to keep getting their Software Assurance income. I suspect this company is paying for software assurance which gives 1 home license for each end user up to the amount of the corporate licenses. Basically each user pays for just the media and shipping which comes to about $25 for the full office suite. This is nothing unusual. You also get free Tech Net subscriptions and free training vouchers for MS training. So this in nothing special for the company in the article.

    8. Re:wait wait by Sparr0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1. OpenOffice will never be as compatible with Office as Office is. I disagree. I have made this counter-point with regards to windows gaming as well. As new versions of Office lose compatibility with older versions of Office, OpenOffice slowly eats into the compatibility margin. Eventually the missing features from Office2020->OpenOffice10 will be less than the incompatibilities between Office2020 and Office97, while OpenOffice10 will still be able to read and write Office97 documents at least as well as OpenOffice2 can today. This same argument is my favorite for windows gaming, I have lots of Win98/Win2k games that won't run in WinXP, but run fine in wine or Cedega, giving Linux *better* windows compatibility than windows.
  3. Linux? by goldspider · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What does Linux have to do with this story?

    Anyway, I don't see what the big deal is. Perhaps the folks that make OO.o can learn something from this and give potential customers some kind of assurance that their product will still be around/supported/updated for the foreseeable future.

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
  4. Roadmap to the future? by canUbeleiveIT · · Score: 2, Funny

    All roads lead to $$$$$

  5. IT team can't handle metrics? by itwerx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it was almost impossible to work out what open-source was actually costing

    Sounds like there's a disconnect between the IT staff and the business side of the house. Any CIO worth their salt would have had before-and-after metrics to compare.

    1. Re:IT team can't handle metrics? by orasio · · Score: 2, Insightful

      it was almost impossible to work out what open-source was actually costing

      Sounds like there's a disconnect between the IT staff and the business side of the house. Any CIO worth their salt would have had before-and-after metrics to compare. I think that should not be overlooked.
      If it was almost impossible to work out the cost, it can't be a problem with the software, but with their metrics.
      And it isn't a real reason to change their packages. The issue is orthogonal to the products used.
      Just because msoffice has a licensing cost, (OO does, too, zero), it doesn't mean the other costs are more easily accounted for.

      Of course, in any office package change, there should be more money devoted to support, but with OO it could be easier due to licensing costs saved.

      I think they probably didn't buy support from the beginning, and thought that OO had free (as in beer) support. That is not true, of course. And probably that is why they can't measure the costs.
  6. no roadmap? by datapharmer · · Score: 5, Informative

    "'you have no idea where open-source products are going, whereas vendors like Microsoft provide a roadmap for the future.'"

    Perhaps someone should send them this: Open Office Roadmap

    I don't think it could be any more clear or easier to find....

    --
    Get a web developer
    1. Re:no roadmap? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative
      Microsoft's roadmaps aren't exactly credible, either. Remember WinFS? Cairo?

      With a Free Software project, anyone with some money can set part of the roadmap. Need a feature? Pay one of the developers to implement it. With a proprietary product, you need to be one of the biggest customers to have any input into the roadmap, and 500 seats doesn't cut it. Assuming they are paying $100/seat (they must be getting a fairly sizeable discount), that's $50,000, which buys a fair amount of developer time on something like OpenOffice.org.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:no roadmap? by toleraen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I wouldn't really call that terribly clear. They're only adding in 4 features in the next year? Support for Office 2007 maybe next september? I'm all for OOo, and I use it daily, but I've seen far more detailed and spelled out schedules. Take the FF3 schedule for instance. Detail, exact dates, feature lists, etc.

    3. Re:no roadmap? by msuarezalvarez · · Score: 2, Informative

      The `Free' in `Free Software' is quite uncorrelated to `free as in free beer' freeness.

      On the other hand, it is directly related to the fact that you can pay a developer to add the feature you want.

      That you find something laughable in what you quote only shows that you do not understand what you are talking about.

  7. Isn't obvious where MS is going though? by $1uck · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Expensive upgrades shoved down your throat by forced upgrades due to designed incompatibilities with previous versions? Why can't newer versions of office access all the older versions?

  8. Where it 's heading by Tribbin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "In addition, you have no idea where open-source products are going, whereas vendors like Microsoft provide a roadmap for the future."

    Why do I think the exact opposite? I have more faith in ODF being supported by multiple apps, say, twenty years from now.

    --
    If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
  9. roadmap?? by donnyspi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "A roadmap for the future" ??? You're just as much at the mercy of M$ as you to the OO.o developers. What kind of security can one kind in M$'s supposed "roadmap for the future". Bah!

    1. Re:roadmap?? by orasio · · Score: 4, Funny

      "A roadmap for the future" ??? You're just as much at the mercy of M$ as you to the OO.o developers. What kind of security can one kind in M$'s supposed "roadmap for the future". Bah! That is measurable.
      You can look into previous roadmaps, and measure how much they have come through in the past.
      You can do the same with open source, and free software projects.

      OO didn't have any issues coming through with planned features in the past.

      I don't think MS had any issues with roadmaps, my Longhorn Tablet PC works great with WinFS right now.
  10. I mentioned this last time... by HerculesMO · · Score: 4, Informative

    But OpenOffice has a long, long way to go. The fit and finish, polish and performance of Microsoft Office to this point, is unparalleled. I'm not a Microsoft fanboy, but I'm not a Microsoft hater either. I'm just a realist.

    When OpenOffice can step up its interface, design, compatibility, and market share, then we might have something to talk about. But as we sit right now, Microsoft Office is the only game in town that does what it does.

    It only helps Microsoft to build products on top of Office, like Sharepoint, Project, etc... because they leverage an already existing knowledge of the UI and functionality. Office 2007 is a drastic departure from prior versions, but as I have been using it since the RTM date, it's been rock solid and I'm exceptionally pleased at how much more intelligent it has gotten, in particular with Excel and figuring out what I want to do, or in Word with how I'm formatting a document.

    I still am hoping for a kickass version of OpenOffice though, just so that Microsoft doesn't rest on its laurels. Office 2007 indicates that they did anything but, and the polish of that product is something that I'm very surprised by, especially by Microsoft. Kudos to them for this round.

    --
    The price is always right if someone else is paying.
    1. Re:I mentioned this last time... by pomerol · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I am a big advocate of open source solutions, but I have to agree with the author of the parent post. I have some minimal experience with OO Writer, and I had to throw it out because I immediately encountered a very serious flaw. One of the most basic features that one typically needs and expects to work ("Select All") does not always work. When I went to report this bug, I discovered that it has already been reported to bugzilla almost 5 years ago! Furthermore, the developers had it marked as Closed/WontFix. You can read more on this bug and the whole sad story here (http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id= 7747).

  11. What exactly were they expecting??? by Dusty00 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From the sounds of it the company seemed to be expecting to basically have MS Office for free. Whenever you switch to a new platform of any sort there's some initial cost of training and converting old documents (macros are the only thing I can think of they'd have to actually convert). I think they're looking at short term cost and ignoring the long term payback.

  12. Re:Not surprising by PFI_Optix · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My biggest hang-up is with Excel versus Calc. Excel makes some operations very easy that are time-consuming with Calc because it won't let you do things like perform operations on multiple separated cells. Also, the behavior of some keys (tab and enter) vary from Excel and make data entry more difficult than it could be.

    --
    120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
  13. MS Roadmap by Ihlosi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1. We're going to fix some bugs. If we feel like it.
    2. The next version is going to be much more colorful, but will need 4x the memory and CPU power. We're also planning to make a 3D graphics card mandatory.
    3. Just when you got comfortable with the present version, we'll stop supporting it. We'd also deactivate it over the internet if we could get away with it.

  14. Just becasue it's free... by Itninja · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...doesn't mean it's cheaper. I am kind of a open-source fanboy myself, but when it came time to either buy Photoshop or spend valuable hours learning to use Gimp, I also opted for the cash-heavy/time-light option.

    My employer pays something like $40/hr (I think..I'm salary). So if I spent even 10 hours getting as good with Gimp as I already am with Photoshop, then the closed-source product is cheaper. But I do use all open source at home when time is less important than money.

    --
    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
  15. You mean MS Office is generally better than OO? by Bandman · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, duh?

    I like Openoffice, and I appreciate everything they're doing.

    On the other hand, if I could buy MS Office for Linux, I would. It really is just better.

    For all that OO tries, it just isn't as compatible with MS Office formats as it needs to be for me to use it. I always have formatting errors with word documents, sometimes I have entire excel spreadsheets that are useless, and I just can't have that.

    I have MS office on my powerbook, and I use that for the documents that OO can't handle. I produce the vast majority of documents on there too. If I had Office on Linux, I would use it instead, but I don't.

    --
    Check out my sysadmin blog!
    1. Re:You mean MS Office is generally better than OO? by unapersson · · Score: 3, Insightful

      OpenOffice handles its native files just fine. How well does MS Office handle OpenOffice files? The fact it works so well with Office files is an achievement, but if you're using OpenOffice then you're better off using its native format.

      As for OpenOffice's compatibility with Office, it really comes into its own when Office is incapable of opening an Office file. It does happen. And in that case, OpenOffice will frequently be able to come to the rescue.

      I'm sure it's much more preferable to be on the office treadmill, where you're eventually forced to upgrade by being sent files from the newer version.

      I find it amusing how there is this attitude that OpenOffice sucks because it can't always perfectly handle a closed proprietary format, but how the situation that people are being locked into that format is somehow perfectly acceptable. Despite all its flaws. I can't help but stifle a laugh when I hear about the perfection of MS Office. The suite has so many problems, I truly do not know where to begin. It's merely entrenched, highly overrated and as buggy as hell.

    2. Re:You mean MS Office is generally better than OO? by manekineko2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can explain to you why you don't understand why people feel Office is much better with regards to compatibility.

      You see compatibility from a technical point of view, where OpenOffice surely does a better job opening Office documents than Office does opening OpenOffice documents.

      People who use Office as a tool for business see compatibility from a social point of view. Office can open 99.99% of documents that are sent to them. Open Office can only open 90%. And that's really the end of the story.

    3. Re:You mean MS Office is generally better than OO? by amber_of_luxor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Office can open 99.99% of documents that are sent to them. O,/p>

      You've obviously never had to explain to a PHB why the document he spent hours working on during the weekend at home can't open in the office computer. And when you do deliver it (opened in OOo) it looks totally unlike anything he dreamed of, when he was working withit at home.

      MSO (any version) is utterly incompatible with MSO (same version) on any computer other than the one it was created on. On the computer it was created on, there is a 50% or greater chance that it will be incompatible with the system the next time it is opened.

      Amber

      --
      Wind Beneath Thy Wings
  16. no idea where open-source products are going... by oatec · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yea, those word processors and spreadsheet programs need a good roadmap. Think of how much they have changed since Office 97.

  17. May I point out by also-rr · · Score: 5, Funny

    That it's office productivity software. You can generate your own road map.

    *Version +1. Just like the current version, but with slightly more features and shiny icons!
    *As above.

    What are they worried about? That the OpenOffice roadmap might include:

    *Given up on office suite. This version is a badger tracking application. Enjoy!

    --
    Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
  18. Re:Not surprising by Himring · · Score: 2, Informative

    Exactly. We did the same, and had a rather large project in the works to switch all users to OO. Pilots showed that users trouble with the small differences was enough to stop it. Support calls were too much. That, and it ran slower. In the end, the project was beached and we stayed with MS. Sad, but true....

    --
    "All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
  19. Some valid points. by neoshroom · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some valid points:

    Doug Wilson is the Chief Information Officer, The New Zealand Automobile Association Incorporated

    Since then he has been the CEO of a PC company (Gateway) and APL+, a software development company that was a Provenco subsidiary. He has also had senior roles at Microsoft and EDS.

    Doug is currently the CIO of the NZ Automobile Association, a new role that was created last year.

    --
    Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
    1. Re:Some valid points. by bealzabobs_youruncle · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well I guess that ansswers that, so now MS just has to find a former employee to fill every CIO seat in the world and they are all set...

  20. Different/Better/Worse? by FreudianNightmare · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm struck by the number of people posting things along the lines of:

    Open Office isn't as good because it doesn't do [something] the way MS Office does it

    or

    OO isn't as good because it won't render MS Office stuff properly.

    Now, I have no real preference for either (I have both on my Machine, since the other half needs MS Office to be compatible with a course she's doing, and I had OO originally cause it was free...)
    But why are these things that make *Open Office* 'worse'?

    Why are there never winges about 'MS Office just doesn't render Open Office format docs properly' or 'MS is rubbish because the tab key behaves differently to OO'?

    A lot of people, including AANZ, seem to be confusing familiarity with quality, when it ain't necessarily so...

    --
    'Speak softly and carry a beagle'
    1. Re:Different/Better/Worse? by dumb_jedi · · Score: 2, Informative

      Because it's not a question of which one is better.
      If you have MS Office documents that can't be read by OO, then what good is OO to you ? So, yes, for some people "Open Office isn't as good because it doesn't do [something] the way MS Office does it" is a serious issue. OO might be better, just not for you.
      So, better/worse is a relative term depending on your needs. Is a Ferrari better then a truck ? Not if you live in a farm.
      What OO has to do is to learn from these cases and make a better product. I live in Brasil and think the brazilian government should throw a couple dozen developers in OO to fix the most serious bugs, then standardize the document format to ODF and the Office suite to OO. Heck, the government should have it's own Linux distro, train all the support teams on it and deploy it to thousands of workstations, saving literally billions in licence fees.

  21. Brilliant! by aaronl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    After actually reading the article, the reasons they switched to MS Office are:

    *They weren't sure if it was cheaper or not, so they bought MS Office (again), which guarantees that OOo was cheaper.

    *MS told them some stories about future plans that MS may or may not do with MS Office, and OOo didn't.

    *Someone wanted to use Word and Sharepoint as a CMS for their website.

    *They didn't actually switch 100% to OOo, so there were occasional internal compatibility issues between OOo users and MS Office users. It would also seem that some employees were sending ODF docs to the outside world, and people didn't know what they were.

    So, basically, this organization switched back to MS Office because of some formatting issues with MS' undocumented file formats, some features that aren't actually available yet in MS Office looked interesting, and improper use of OOo by employees.

    I've heard a lot of reasons to use MS Office instead of OOo, but this looks to be a pretty sorry collection of excuses. So far, the only two that come up in my line of work are lack of training, and poor VBA support. There isn't really any way around the VBA problems at the moment, either.

  22. Honestly, Both of Them Kind of Suck by Greyfox · · Score: 2, Insightful
    IMO both OpenOffice and MS Office kind of suck. I don't think either of them are particularly essential to the running of a business. For one thing if your IT department is to be believed, you can't safely open a document you receive in E-Mail anyway. Even if you could it's probably some nimrod using a spreadsheet as a work scheduling tool. Nothing good ever comes of it.

    Important data tends to be stored in other systems anyway. You probably have a financial system where stuff like payroll data gets stored. I'm seeing more use of wikis for shared documents and that sucks a lot less than passing a word document around like a bong. The MS Office calendar and sending meeting invites is perhaps its strongest capability but even that isn't anything that a company like Google couldn't duplicate easily enough. Perhaps they'd find they'd get more work done if they jettisoned both MS Office AND Open Office and rolled some of their own well integrated tools if there were any gaps left (I doubt there would be, though.)

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  23. let's not forget by pedramnavid · · Score: 2, Informative

    that the people using these applications aren't the same people who read slashdot. if you've tried supporting microsoft office users you'll quickly realize what a nightmare converting, training, and supporting openoffice for the typical user might be.

  24. Not trying to defend MS or anything... by benhocking · · Score: 2, Funny

    But, fair is fair. OO.o also let them have 500 seats for free. :)

    --
    Ben Hocking
    Need a professional organizer?
  25. Re:Sharepoint by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's a pretty large "collaboration" suite which allows sharing of documents, version control over documents, and things like forums, wikis, and (semi-almost) blogs for departments. It also allows custom development of web page components (think iGoogle, but more dorky. Way more dorky.)

    While there may not be any one product in open sourc e that does everything SharePoint does in one package, one could definitely do it with multiple products.

    Also, SharePoint - like most MS products - is a total buyin to the Microsoft mindset. If you try to do anything that is drastically "out of the box", you're going to get burned. There's very little developer documentation worth anything, and MS support is flaky.

    Go figure.

  26. I have to say this, and I hate Microsoft. by Caspian · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I hate Microsoft. I hate them with a passion. I don't own a single Windows machine.

    But OpenOffice.org is an absolute piece of shit compared to Microsoft Office.

    Mind you, I use OO.o over Office-- because I'd feel filthy using Office. But I fucking hate the thing. It's bloated, poorly designed, and butt-ugly. Compatibility issues aside-- since I know quite well that reverse-engineering Microsoft's convoluted file formats is far from simple or easy-- OO.o is a crappy program, not the be-all, end-all of word processing that it's marketed as. As quirky as MS Office is, OO.o crosses the line from 'quirky' into 'crappy'.

    Frankly, what do I think is the best office suite? Office 97 or 2000. Everything after that just went downhill.

    But I digress.

    Most of the time, when I have to edit a letter, or a resume, or something else vaguely simple, I just whip open TextEdit. OpenOffice is a bloated sack of crap, MS Office makes me feel like I need to take a bath, and the rest of the contenders for 'best office suite' crown are nonstarters.

    When the only serious choices for office suite are 'bloated piece of crap' and 'creepy Microsoft Borgware', it's only due to my distaste for the latter that I use the former. And I avoid even that whenever possible.

    --
    With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
  27. Re:Not surprising by mgpeter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I also have some experience with switching users over to OOo from Microsoft Office. Here are some pointers:

    * Nearly all female users will refuse to switch and complain at every little difference. At a school, we decided that the school would provide OpenOffice.org on all teacher computers, if the teacher wanted to use MS Office they would have to come up with the funds somewhere else beside the Technology related budgets. All of the Male teachers (except 1) happily switched to OOo. All of the Female teachers (except the handful that had no experience with MS Office) chose to purchase MS Office on their own.

    * Most people use a word processor by typing something in, highlighting text and changing fonts, spacing, etc. A well instructed lesson in Styles will lessen the impact people have when switching to OOo. It will probably increase productivity once they learn to use styles instead of micro-managing their documents.

    * If you are seriously planning a deployment, test out users on a Linux Distribution. In my experience OOo works much better (and much faster) within Linux than it does in Windows. Also, I have (surprisingly) found that many people find Linux easier to use than Windows (using Novell's SLED 10).

    * Show your users how to use the Help Documentation. It actually works with OOo.

    If you are considering a switch, do not be too high strung. People will complain, but that is human nature. Also be sure to keep at least a few workstations that run MS Office, not for compatibility issues, but to have the user's show you how they do something within MS Office that they cannot figure out in OpenOffice.org (Most people think they are experts in Word, but usually aren't and this will weed out the idiotic problems).

  28. Roadmap? the Japanese had a roadmap... by JimmytheGeek · · Score: 2, Interesting

    from Corregidor to Bataan in WWII. I don't think the US and Allied prisoners enjoyed following it much.

    Window 95 - the last Consumer OS before merging with NT.

    Windows 95 OSR2, ditto.

    Windows 98, ditto.

    Windows 98 SE, ditto.

    Windows ME, yeppers.

    Thanks for the precision and accuracy! And for the extra dimensions in the test cases.

    Sure, MS provides you a roadmap, but it's for a different city! Even they don't know where the fsck they are going. I was testing a BackOffice product back in the day. They gutted the feature set to get it out the door ahead of the immanent release of NT 5, and only beat it by 18 months.

    Forced upgrades through strategic backward incompatibility, useless duplicate licenses because nobody can track the ones that come with OEM pcs. Oh yeah, give it to me.

    What a tool.

  29. Re:Sharepoint by Penguinshit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Apache + Postfix + Mailman + Subversion + Request-Tracker + [insertfavoritewikihere] = voila....

    Customizable, expandable, and portable. It can even easily be made rather secure. I've installed this combo many times and not a single dissatisfied customer.

    --

    I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...

  30. Re:Sharepoint by dave562 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's a work flow / collaboration tool. Think of it as a Wiki on steroids that is fully integrated with Office. It can act as a document repository. It can drive a workflow. The product is new and it is a PITA to get setup and running (which is pretty much the case with any new MS product). I've personally seen it implimented at an architectural firm. They have a lot of requirements when it comes to submitting bids. They need a lot of documentation to go with the bid. Sharepoint provides a convenient place for them to organize all of the information in one place. It sends out notifications to team members as the project progresses. Everyone who needs to be aware of their responsibilities is aware of them. Nobody can say, "I didn't know that I need to do ...." because it's all right there in SharePoint.

  31. Microsoft's Home Use Program by westlake · · Score: 3, Informative
    No, because TFA specifically said that MS "conceded" to letting their users run office at home.

    There is nothing new in this.

    Employees can get a licensed copy of Microsoft Office desktop applications, such as Microsoft Office Professional, Microsoft Project, and Microsoft Visio Professional, to install and use on a home computer. The only cost to employees for the Home Use Program benefit is the cost of media (CDs), shipping, and handling. Volume Licensing: Home Use Program

    Employees are encouraged to discontinue use of the software on termination of their employment, but there has never been a mechanism in place to enforce the rules.

    If you work for the NHS you can order Office 2007 on-line for a S&H cost of eighteen pounds, Microsoft Home User Programme

  32. Having used those tools... by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wrangling those backend tools would require just as much training as learning another system. You need staff to manage Sharepoint effectively.

    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  33. Nothing more to say after this: by erroneus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The AA is also considering using Microsoft Sharepoint Server to maintain some of its websites. This would allow Office Pro users to maintain the sites directly from within Office and Word. Maintaining web sites with Word?! Anyone who has any respect for the technologies involved already knows what my reaction to that is and I'll just let it go unspoken for now. But anyone who would actually consider maintaining a public web site in that way doesn't fully appreciate what he's doing. I think we're seeing the results of some very persistent and convincing sales people.
    1. Re:Nothing more to say after this: by DavidD_CA · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You certainly don't know what SharePoint is. And if you do, you give the impression that you have never made use of it in a corporate setting.

      SharePoint is primarily for intranets and extranets, where the content consists mostly of Word/Excel/PowerPoint files. Using Word to edit this "website" is precisely what you're supposed to do with it.

      --
      -David
  34. .DOCX. XLSX, and PPTX files by linebackn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wonder how much this switch had to do with them receiving files from the outside in Microsoft new proprietary Office 2007 file formats. OpenOffice simply can't open them (except for one rather limited DOCX-only converter).

    My observation is this is an insanely major hurdle for OpenOffice. And even a major factor for people switching from earlier versions of MS-Office.

  35. Re:Sharepoint by DogDude · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Apache + Postfix + Mailman + Subversion + Request-Tracker + [insertfavoritewikihere] = voila....

    K-l-u-d-g-e.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  36. pricing opensource by EreIamJH · · Score: 5, Funny

    "...but it was almost impossible to work out what open-source was actually costing..."

    They kept getting a div by $0 error.

  37. Re: Sharepoint by Dolda2000 · · Score: 2, Informative
    There's davfs2 for one thing. It doesn't use Fuse, as it was written before Fuse existed, so it uses Coda instead. :)

    If you use Gnome, however, any Gnome program will access WebDAV for you without having to do anything particular, because of libgnome-vfs. Just browse to dav://somewhere.net/ in Nautilus (or davs:// for HTTPS). If your DAV server supports Content-Type properly, it'll open everything in the right program (if it doesn't support Content-Type, it may or may not open in the right program, but it doesn't necessarily get it wrong). I'd be surprised if KDE doesn't have something very much like it, but I don't know.

    Btw., OSX has built in support for WebDAV without having to install anything. Just choose "connect to server" in Finder's menu and type in any DAV-compliant HTTP URL.

    DAV client support in Windows sucks, though. I don't know -- surely Windows has to have some kind of VFS layer, so how comes Microsoft doesn't implement DAV using it instead of their current half-assed solution?

    OpenOffice has DAV support for any platform, though.

  38. Seconded. Furthermore... by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I work in a technical environment with experienced individuals from other industries. Tech staff are still discovering frozen panes in Excel, page numbering in Word, change tracking, etc. for the first time.

    Regardless of intelligence, when people learn how to use a tool in an adhoc manner (or even if they have training) they will fall into a habitual usage pattern, their comfort zone. They may not even be aware of features to solve problems they use inefficient methods for (page numbering, etc.) and will not even consider looking in the help documentation since they don't expect the feature, or don't know what it's called.

    Tools like Office, Photoshop, and the like will always be like this. And switching the tool on people (even if it's functionally equivalent) takes the user out of the comfort zone and as their productivity suffers, they lament the change.

    It would be helpful if those classes in HS/College that teach you "Business Skills" or "Typing" didn't just teach a software application, but actually taught you about the tools and approaches in general so that the end-user had a good feel for what tasks can be automated/assisted by commonly available software.

    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  39. Modern office and training by redstar427 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "So, in other words, you've never worked inside a modern corporate office."

    Have you??

    I have worked in multiple corporations, a school district, and a government agency.
    None of them train their staff in an effective way. The users are on their own.
    Some will pay lip service, and pretend to train staff, but less than 5% are allowed to actually go to training.

    All of the business took 2-3 years to upgrade to a current version of MS Office, causing many problems with file compatibilites, since Microsoft changes the file format of every version of Office.

    As far as capabilities, some people will use MS Office well, but it's a small percentage. Most people in the places I have worked over the last 20 years, barely know how to use MS Office, and it's a huge waste of time and money for simple documents.

    So when you state that users use the office suite to do complex things, just how many people is that? In my experience, it has never been higher than 5% of all staff who have MS Office.

    --
    "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." Albert Einstein
  40. Re: DAV in windows... by Dolda2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah, that's what I was referring to when I said that it sucks. Both Linux and OSX does the same thing in the filesystem layer, so applications really don't have to care at all if a file is on WebDAV or not, and they don't need to be invoked via DAV client like explorer.