OpenOffice.org V3.0 Sets Download Record, 80% Windows

thefickler writes "The newest version of OpenOffice, version 3.0, has set a download record in its first week of availability. Most surprising is the fact that over 80% of downloads were from Windows users. As one commentator noted, when it comes to a choice between almost identical software (e.g. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice), price is the determining factor."

Comments

Package Managers?

[QBasicer]

The question here is do the download numbers also reflect copies downloaded with package managers such in Linux distros such as Gentoo and Ubuntu, or does it only count people that only actually go to the webpage to download? The way Windows users and Linux users tend to get software these days tends to be a little different, where windows users expect going to the website, downloading, and using an something like Install Shield to install.

Re:Package Managers?

[jonaskoelker]

McCreesh said 90% of Linux users traditionally receive OpenOffice.org updates straight from their Linux distribution's vendor

but that would still give windows >66% (assuming os x makes up 0%, which is possible due to neo office

Let's do the math. The official site sees (scaled down) 2 linux downloads and 8 windows downloads. For every 1 of these linux downloads, there's 9 downloading from the distro archives instead of the official site.

That gives us 20 linux downloads, 8 windows downloads. Or just above 25%. How did you come up with 66%?

Even if it's just 25%, that's a fair slice; this means that the plan of moving people over to open-source apps first and moving the OS out under them later has not been shown to be infeasible: windows users are moving to the open-source apps.

Only 221,000 downloads by Linux users were recorded

So just shy of 900,000 windows downloads? That's quite good.

I won't say "we're winning!!one!11ty", but some cautious optimism is probably in order.

80%

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is 80% surprising? The article makes it sound like that's high, but Windows has more than 80% of the desktop market, so it's still a lower percentage.

Re:80%

[AliasMarlowe]

I doubt OOo3 was downloaded by the majority of Windows users.

And I doubt that it was downloaded by the majority of Linux users also.

Most Linux users prefer to upgrade software using the channels for their distrobution. None of my 3 systems have been upgraded to OOo3 yet, but they will be, as soon as it shows up in the repos.

Re:80%

[bcrowell]

Why is 80% surprising? The article makes it sound like that's high, but Windows has more than 80% of the desktop market, so it's still a lower percentage.

In fact, I think 80% is surprisingly low.

First off, we really shouldn't count Macs as part of the equation. I haven't checked recently, but for a long time, OOo's support for MacOS X lagged way, way behind. It was essentially unusable.

So of OOo's potential audience, I would guess 99% would be Windows users, 1% Linux users. I would therefore expect 99% of OOo downloads to be the Windows version. Not only that, but a lot of Linux users probably aren't going to download it from the OOo web site, they're going to get it when it becomes the default through their distro's packaging infrastructure, and therefore they presumably won't be counted in this statistic. Let's guess (pulling numbers out of my rear end, I admit) that 90% of Linux desktop users won't downloaad directly, and will get it via their distro. So based on these factors, I would have expected the percentages to be more like 99.9% Windows and 0.1% Linux, a ratio of 1000 to 1.

It's actually pretty darn depressing that the Windows figure is as low as 80%. That's a 4:1 ratio rather than the 1000:1 ratio I would have expected. That suggests that the Windows market for OOo is hundreds of times smaller than it would be based merely on the market share of the operating systems. Some possible interpretations, none of which are pretty:

1. The Windows users who have never heard of OOo outnumber those who have, by hundreds to one.
2. For every Windows user who's willing and able to switch, there are hundreds of others who can't, because it's impractical for them. (E.g., they don't get to choose what's on their computer at work, or they have too many documents already in Word format that they're afraid would be a huge hassle to convert 100% correctly.)
3. For every Windows user who thinks OOo is better than MS Office, there are hundreds who hold the opposite opinion.

I wouldn't be surprised of #3 captured the essential truth of the situation. OOo is one of the worst pieces of OSS I use. I've searched systematically for something better, and haven't found it. At this point, I feel like OOo was a dead end that had the unfortunate effect of killing off interest in competing OSS office software.

"Almost Identical"?

[coryking]

Is that like saying a cordless phone and a cell phone is *almost* identical because they both make phone calls?

Or did I just get trolled by the summary?

Re:Almost identical?

[CSMatt]

Unless you are a veteran user of the 97-2003 line who used the suite for basic stuff. Then OpenOffice.org looks far more attractive.

Awesome website

[Sentry21]

I'm not a huge fan of OpenOffice (which I refuse to call 'OpenOffice.org, because it's an office suite, not a webserver), but I'll say one thing - their main page is exactly right.

Go to www.openoffice.org and take a look. What do you see? A list of things to do, in big text, impossible to miss. I wanted to download. Normally I hunt for a link. Now, it takes me 5 seconds to grab what I want.

No wonder they got so many downloads - they didn't hide them three pages deep.

Re:I haven't got it yet, not in repository yet.

[FilterMapReduce]

But it will (presumably) be added to the repository much sooner, right? It just won't be included on any Ubuntu discs until next April's release.

They aren't the same

[wicka]

Unfortunately OpenOffice and Word are not identical pieces of software. Not by a long shot.

Re:Almost identical? Not quite.

[aurelianito]

You should have sent a PDF instead and avoid all the problems.

Re:Almost identical?

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Exactly. I have used Word and Excel for ~15 years. I'm not what I'd consider a "power user," but I've grown comfortable with the UI and basic features over this time. Since approximately version 2.0 or 2.1, I haven't felt the need to use the real Word or Excel even once. The Oo equivalents have been able to replicate the functionality of Word/Excel without fail to the point that I don't even bother installing Office anymore. I have also switched over various family members and a few small businesses (sub-50 employees) with nary a complain about missing functionality.

I'm sure there are folks out there that can point to some obscure features of M$ Office products that they rely on, but I think the vast majority of us fit into the mold of users that just use the basic features. I can't imagine needing or wanting to spring for another M$ Office license again.

Cheers,

#downloads != #users

[freddy_dreddy]

This bogus statistic keeps resurfacing. Having x downloads doesn't mean you have x users.

The statistic I'm interested in is the percentage of people that downloaded it and then later updated - that's a much better representation of satisfied customers. The time between update release and downloaded update by a user is correlated to how much that user relies on the software package, especially so for OSS which is typically low in pre-release testing on different boxes compared to commercial software.

Re:Almost identical? Not quite.

[mollymoo]

Oh I'd love to, with something with spikes on it. They just match up keywords in return for 10% of your starting salary. If they're looking for MS-SQL and you've only put down SQL Server experience you're not qualified. If you've got 10 years experience and know Perl and Python you're a worse candidate for a Ruby job than some guy fresh out of college who once wrote a 100 line Ruby script. Because, you know, he knows Ruby and you don't.

I only ever hear bad things about recruitment agents. I really don't know why more companies don't advertise directly. It can't be that much hassle to take a few phone calls and read a few emails.

Re:Almost identical? Not quite.

[The Cisco Kid]

Why on earth would you send someone an electronic copy of your resume in a *any* editable word processor format? Especially when different wrd processors, or even different versions of the same word processor will render the same document in completely different ways.

PDF would be the way to go, regardless of the tool you originally use to enter it.

I assume you don't work in the systems administration field, or IT security. If you do I feel sorry for whatever company hired you (both due to the idiocy in accepting such a format, and because they've hired someone incompetent enough to send it that way in the first place)

Re:Almost identical? Not quite. (MOD PARENT UP)

[kklein]

People are going to flame you and call you stupid, so let me just head off some of their inevitable criticisms:

You should have checked!

No, you shouldn't have had to have checked. Besides, this assumes that you still have to have MS Office and OO.o, and isn't the whole point of this bru-ha-ha to say that you don't need MS Office if you have the free and wonderful OO.o? No, Word did not screw up your CV. OO.o does not export to Word correctly. It's OO.o's responsibility to properly support the de facto industry standard.

You should have sent a PDF!

Okay, smart guys, you try sending PDFs instead of Word documents. There are still lots of moronic HR departments (well, are there any other kind?) who don't even know what they are. The first time I started sending those, I got a call back from an angry HR person saying "We don't take scanned CVs!" I was honestly confused. "I'm sorry, but that is just a PDF of my CV. It's not scanned." "We have to be able to search the text. Please send us the original Word document."

Well you know, and I know that you can very well search the text of a PDF, but that isn't the point; the point is whether HR knows, and, as I think I've already established, those people are borderline retarded.

Also, a lot of places actually request .docs. If OO.o can't produce them correctly, then you look like an idiot. In my case in the above story, where I was requested to send a .doc? It meant I had to get ahold of MS Office, because I'd been using (and liking) OO.o for a year. Hell, the next problem I had was that I had my "letterhead" in my header in Word, and an HR guy called me complaining that I'd used a "gray font," and that it was no wonder I didn't have a job if I didn't know how to format a Word document correctly. "It's conventional to make your name and address legibile to the person looking at your CV," he said. So I went back and reformatted all of that stuff by hand, like an idiot who can't use software. In all of these cases, I did the right thing. In none of these cases was the company itself really to blame. They might have been nice places to work. But when you're applying for a job, you first have to get through the imbeciles in HR who stand guard at the gate. Anything that they don't understand--and that's a lot, it turns out--is going to get your CV tossed in the bin.

Why would you want to work somewhere that wants .docs and doesn't worship at the throne of OSS???

Because he needs a job so he can, you know, eat.

OO.o is damn nice for being free, and I really liked some of its features that are missing in Office. But, in all honestly, Office does more better and is the industry standard.

And finally, to all the people going on about having to pay for PDF export? Um, sourceforge up yourself some PDFcreator. It's free. I've been using it for years without issue.