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Microsoft Shoots Own Foot In Iceland
David Gerard writes "The Microsoft Certified Partner model is: an MCP buys contracts from Microsoft and sells them to businesses as a three-year timed contract, payable in annual installments. Iceland's economy has collapsed, so 1500 businesses have gone bankrupt and aren't paying the fees any more. But Microsoft has told the MCPs: 'Our deal was with you, not them. Pay up.' The MCPs that don't go bankrupt in turn are moving headlong to Free Software, taking most of the country with them. (Warning: link contains strong language and vivid imagery.)"
The legal doctine in common law countries is Force Majeure. If something sufficiently big happens, all bets are off.
The other business doctrine is that a big company shall not bankrupt the organizations selling their products:
No sales companies = No salesmen = No sales.
Oh god, a 500 error! MY EYES! THEY BURN!
Here you go, ya' big baby!
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
OpenOffice.org from Microsoft Office. This switch is easy because not only is OpenOffice.org superior software in every respect, itâ(TM)s also feature-compatible with Microsoft Office
Hm. no Can't agree with Open Office being superior. At the least a significant amount of re-learning is require. I know every time I use it I find it a frustrating experience.
And no if Word is the baseline then OO Writer is not feature complete. Once I learnt to use it the outline view in Word was the killer feature, which made editing large documents doable. Without outline view I could not imagine working on documents of a comparable size.
As for spreadsheets their are two keybindings I need. Insert current data and insert current time. Apparently their are third party macros for this. But tts something that's never available without additional effort when I try to use calc.
So no OpenOffice is not a simple drop-in replacement for Microsoft Office. Then Again if it where a drop-in replacement then Microsoft would undoubtedly be suing.
read my mind at http://the-willows.blogspot.com/
Still viewable via ye olde Coral Cache: http://smari.yaxic.org.nyud.net/blag/2009/03/06/microsoft-skull-fucks-icelands-economy-contracts-syphilis/
And the rest of that sentence:
not only is OpenOffice.org superior software in every respect, it's also feature-compatible with Microsoft Office
Look, I like F/OSS software (and dislike MS) as much as the next geek but that's simply not true.
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
If something sufficiently big happens, all bets are off.
This is incorrect - the principle of "Force Majeure" is that it has to be completely unexpected - that is, a reasonable person would be unable to forsee the event, and would not have taken measures to mitigate it.
Say I run a fishing company and all my boats are at sea and are sunk in a big storm. I can't really claim Force Majeure on your supply contracts, as it could be expected that, when fishing, one could encounter storms that might sink your fleet. However, if my boats were docked in a harbour with a narrow inlet with high cliffs and some construction work collapsed the cliffs and blocked the harbour preventing my boats from getting out, well that would fit under "Force Majeure".
In the MCP's case, one can get insurance for loss of business income, and if one is beholden to continuous payments to a third party, it's a good idea to get it. This is basic financial disaster management - plenty of businesses will sit down and think, "what would happen if the building caught fire?", but few will think, "what happens if my customers suddenly can't pay?"
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes
402 Payment Required
416 Requested Range Not Satisfiable
410 Gone
Huh, what does it mean??
Or have I just earned a huge whoosh?
And what does it mean by "practically constitutes foreplay"?
Kdawson.
That says it all really.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
"I'm afraid you have reached beyond the red line of the BS meter. OO.o is just fine for home users that are only writing letters and occasionally making a little speadsheet. But for business? I'm sorry but Calc is no way in hell comparable to Excel, and there are simply way too damned many businesses that live and breathe in Excel for this to be even a remotely viable solution. I've tried giving OO.o to SMBs for evaluation. Most have positive reviews UNTIL they get to Calc. If he wanted to suggest that businesses just take the hit(and probably a huge cost in rewriting a shitload of spreadsheets) that is one thing, but saying OO.o is "superior software in every respect" to anyone who has used Excel is simply spreading the BS a little thick."
I make complicated spreadsheets, with lots of functions, cross linked between sheets, with very large data sets, and it works no worse than Excel. The only downside, is the lack of PivotCharts - they have a PivotTable equivalent, but no PivotCharts. Does this really matter to me? Nope - it's just a feature I really don't use, and can work around anyway.
I would say that 99% of business users would have their needs met with OO.org. If they don't use Excel macros (which have always worked for me in OO.org, but I can see it being a problem), PivotCharts or MS Access, I don't understand why it wouldn't suite their needs. Especially when making the switch from Excel 03 to 07.
If Sun tossed a few more developers into the project, I'd probably pay the same price as MS Office for a copy.
The greatest value behind OO.org is the fact it's free, I can download it from the Internet when I need it, and if I'm on a computer with no office suite, I'll have one by the time it finishes downloading. I make use of GoogleDocs in some cases, but it just lacks features, plain and simple.