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Is OpenOffice.org a Threat? Microsoft Thinks So
Glyn Moody writes "Most people regard OpenOffice.org as a distant runner-up to Microsoft Office, and certainly not a serious rival. Microsoft seems to feel otherwise, judging by a new job posting on its site for a 'Linux and Open Office Compete Lead.' According to this, competing with both GNU/Linux and OpenOffice.org is 'one of the biggest issues that is top of mind' for no less a person than Steve Ballmer. Interestingly, a key part of this position is 'engaging with Open Source communities and organizations' — which suggests that Microsoft's new-found eagerness to 'engage' with open source has nothing to do with a real desire to reach a pacific accommodation with free software, but is simply a way for Microsoft to fight against it from close up, and armed with inside knowledge."
...its GUI is more like Microsoft Office pre-2007 than Microsoft Office 2007 is, and I have never gotten used to the 2007 interface.
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
Of course, these two products compete directly with their two big cash cows. OO may not seriously compete today, but these things change and Microsoft can't get complacent. Is it any surprise that they would take any competitors seriously? I think they are smart enough to know that both Linux and OO are strong products and you really only need a few leaders out there to use these things successfully before others start slowly migrating these products into their environments, and what was once guaranteed profits start to trickle away slowly. Even if companies target areas to use these free products in less critical areas this hurts them. I know in our organization we could easily replace some of our 1500 servers with Linux where right now no matter how light the load or low priority the system is we dump W2K3 or 8 on it. We couldn't do it on all, but easily on some and nobody would even notice. The only thing that stops it is fear of the unknown.
Firefox doesn't already know that CSV should be tied to OO? Shouldn't that have occurred at install time by OO? No, ok, I'll set it up--done.
In OO's defense, It seems that most of the time, CSV is not associated with any app, which is probably a good thing because CSV doesn't always imply "spreadsheet". True, some people want their computer to make all their decisions about which app to use for what. But those people usually also end up with a boatload of adbars in their browser and spyware and viruses on their harddrives. And they wonder why their computer doesn't work.
"Won't that be grand, the computers will start thinking and the people will stop." - Walter, from Tron (1982)
You installed OO on a machine that wouldn't even run Office, then complained about start up times. You then played with the software for 5 minutes. It didn't do what you wanted. You didn't find a menu item and you moved on probably without even consulting documentation or Googling. It's possible that OO is lacking the functionality you wanted to use. Who knows. You didn't bother to find out, so why should I. Regardless, I'd say the problem is behind the keyboard in this case.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I didn't read your entire post, but, MS Office can't properly handle CSV either. If you have an internationalized Windows and in the language settings of WINDOWS (not of office or anything!!), you have somewhere ";" instead of "," as "separator", then MS Excel can't read a CSV that uses "," anymore! It's called COMMA separated list, and yet excel can't read it and uses your localized settings, so that people with a computer of a different language can't even exchange such files with each other!
Come on, it's called CSV, why doesn't MS Office always use comma's then.
1, many MS customers are still using old versions which by definition *are* aged...
2, looks are not terrible important, and load time less so... in the win9x days when you had to reboot constantly and reload all your apps it mattered a lot, these days people will leave it running all day.
3, it has a slightly different feature set and in some ways is more featured than the ms offering, that said many customers use old versions of ms and most only use a small subset...
Remember that when MS took over from wordperfect, it was MS who had the inferior product considered a joke by any serious users of wordperfect...
Traditionally, using OOo has been considered detrimental because of the prevalence of proprietary ms formats, but this is gradually changing.. And despite the best efforts of MS the world is moving towards more open data formats which makes alternatives to ms seem less risky.
At the same time, the economy isn't doing so well and companies are looking for ways to cut costs... For many of those companies, IT is a cost and not part of their core business so faced with the choice between several "adequate" products may well go with the cheapest.
The best product rarely wins, as MS have proved time and time again... It is usually the cheapest or best marketed product which wins. The people making decisions are rarely even qualified to judge which product is best, they will merely choose and expect everyone else to put up with it.
Staff at such companies will complain whatever you do, but ultimately their complaints will get ignored anyway.
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It would be nice, but most of the For Profit software companies don't seem interested in getting along. They're competing.
As for myself, I don't think Linux needs world domination on the desktop, it does need interoperability though. Because interoperability (through truly open standards) is what gives people choice. That said, I would be happy with 20-30% Linux and/or Ooo on the desktop.
By "truly open standards, I don't mean the OOXML farce that was pulled through the ISO. Rather I mean something like the internet RFC's. Royalty-free, unencumbered, fully laid-out specs that anyone can follow.
C|N>K
As for myself, I don't think Linux needs world domination on the desktop, it does need interoperability though.
You do understand that as long as MSFT has a desktop dominance, it would do anything to make sure that there would be no interoperability with any other competing OS?
Because interoperability (through truly open standards) is what gives people choice.
[...] I don't mean the OOXML farce that was pulled through the ISO.
And MSFT many times exemplified that in their opinion a "de facto" standard (they have complete control over like OOXML) is just as good as a "de jure" standard.
That's why as long as MSFT has >50% of market, there would be neither interoperability nor open standards.
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