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Microsoft Admits OpenOffice.org Is a Contender
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Microsoft has unwittingly admitted that OpenOffice.org is a rival, by launching a three-minute video of customers explaining why they switched to Microsoft Office from OpenOffice.org. Glyn Moody writes: 'You don't compare a rival's product with your own if it is not comparable. And you don't make this kind of attack video unless you are really, really worried about the growing success of a competitor. [Microsoft] has now clearly announced that OpenOffice.org is a serious rival to Microsoft Office, and should be seriously considered by anyone using the latter.'"
There is the price, but then there is the horrible Ribbon interface. I have yet to meet someone IRL who *really* likes it. I recently installed Microsoft Office 2010 to recover emails from a corrupted system (Needed to open PST files, copied the mails to an IMAP server. No more Office needed... That what Trial Versions are great for!). Frankly, it comes over even more toyish, more "Please treat me as a dumb user". It's aggravating.
Interestingly, when installing 2010, it asked me whether I wanted to enable OpenDocument formats. I was torougly surprised by that. That's another admittance of Microsoft that OpenOffice is a treath.
Since the video is little more than quotes from people heralding the stark beauty of Microsoft products when compared to various open-source (and sometimes generic open-source) products, you might wonder where the quotes come from. They're old success stories, most of which are marketed as "Case Studies" on Microsoft.com.
I looked up the quotes in the video and apparently wasn't the only one to notice. Taking the first three quotes your years are 2007, 2009 and 2006. Some of them are more recent than others but I get the feeling that Microsoft needs to dig further back to find quotes deriding open source. I've used OpenOffice.org for a very long time. In college (~2002) I even used StarOffice on the school's Sun machines. And OpenOffice.org used to have some really really shitty aspects. But a few years back, major revisions have made it a lot better. Enough to cause Microsoft to come up with new ideas for their Office Suite. And I'm forced to use MS Office at work and I'm okay with that. It's becoming a contender. And as "tech debt" or "IT debt" begins to be realized for Microsoft and what it did to our history of proprietary format documents, I think OpenOffice.org is only going to look better and better. Yes, there's some cost with OO.o but there's some cost with MS Office as well.
It doesn't always happen but sometimes open source catches up to and even surpasses proprietary software. I cannot say OO.o will pass MS Office but it has made up a lot of ground in the past 2-3 years. A good example of this is the Linux 2.6 kernel and its steadily growing stability and features compared to Windows that remained largely stagnant while this occurred.
With the serious changes to the interface of MS Office suites (not saying they're bad, they're just some of the most major updates I've seen from MS), I think now is going to be the hardest time for Microsoft to find current quotes from customers criticizing open source. Because flipping from MS Word 2007 to OO.o is probably going to be as difficult for users to adapt to as flipping from MS Word 2007 to MS Word 2010.
My work here is dung.
Don't forget, guys... it's called LibreOffice now!
Except that MS should focus on LibreOffice now... didn't they got the memo?
Or is it because they know Larry Ellison hates Microsoft...
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I think TFS laid it on a bit thick, but it does have a point...if a company doesn't feel that another product similar to their own is a threat, they completely ignore it. Making a video with people talking about why they switched from the competitor's product is hardly the same as ignoring it.
Living With a Nerd
Of course, now that OpenOffice is finally becoming a contender in mindshare (as well as technically), they go and change the name, and potentially lose all brand recognition.
For all the people who get exposed to this new video by what ever means, if they never heard of OpenOffice before they sure have now - thanks Microsoft :)
Funny, I have yet to find anyone (except me...as I just hate it) in my workplace (research institute) who does not like the new ribbon interface.
Frankly, it comes over even more toyish, more "Please treat me as a dumb user". It's aggravating.
Well... that might be for your self aggravating ego; for the majority of users it means an interface that gets out of their way.
quoting from TFA:
After doing a little digging, we found that these quotes are actually from case studies and press articles from the last four years,
What I would really like to hear is equivalent quotes of companies who successfully migrated from MS Office to OO.o. Is there any? (no, not /. pseudonym-"in my office"-anecdotes, but real company names)
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Now that OpenOffice is in the hands of a company which isn't being criminally mismanaged and which has a well-known vendetta against Microsoft, maybe this is out of valid fears for real competition. On the other hand, Microsoft has a way of waving Linux and other FLOSS projects around for misdirection whenever they need to conjure a competitor to refute claims of their monopoly. Microsoft "admitting" that OO is a competitor would be like North Korea "admitting" they have nukes in order to try and bum rice off of the west.
It's worth skipping my mod points for this issue. I'll reply to you out of the 5 possible posts that are relevant.
I hate the Ribbon. But I banked on Rule ____ of the net that says if there's a purpose for someone's potential small project, it has better than even odds of existing.
Classic Menu for Office
http://www.addintools.com/
It's a plugin for Office that puts mostly similar menus back.
So the comparison becomes:
A: Office 2007 (or 2010?) with Old Menus
vs
LibreOffice (OpenOffice.org / branding squabbles with Oracle)
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I'm not an open source zealot, don't use Linux, have no particular dislike for Microsoft, but Office hasn't really been on my radar for a long time. I used Word for years, but when I got a new computer a few years ago it didn't come with Office installed so I downloaded OpenOffice to see what it was like. Never went back -- there didn't seem to be any point. I'm sure there are many, many things that Microsoft Word, Excel etc can do that OpenOffice Writer, Calc etc can't do, but personally I've never hit that hurdle. Office may still be required for some business tasks, but for my own business and personal use, OpenOffice will do me fine. Thank you to the wonderful people that made it and released it for free!
Typically Microsoft would keep messing with file formats, binary blobs dumped into the files, fonts/menus etc in every release to keep increasing the "spoiler" features and increase costs to OpenOffice and other competitors who are trying to keep up with the interoperability.
I have not seen any new feature in the last 5 years in MsOffice that is a must have feature or a killer feature. And most of the core functionality that could be saved and restored in Office97 format cleanly in MsOffice is done equally well in OpenOffice. Though it won the battle in getting OOXML certified as another "standard" format, the battle raised the visibility of interoperability issues and a few customers started actually separating "microsoft compatibility" from "interoperability". So they are setting the default save format is Office97 even on newer versions to keep their escape avenue open.
Another important strategic mistake it made was ignoring the web based office tools. Microsoft knew there were millions of pirated copies of MsOffice is being used everywhere. It turned a blind eye to it thinking, "these guys would never actually pay for an office suite. If we crackdown they might go to OpenOffice. So let us keep them in the tent, as a way to deny market share to the competition". When the web based office tools started coming out, they saw it as a pathetic little pipsqueak not comparable to the full power of a desktop Office tool. But it siphoned off a large portion of the bootleg users who were looking for a legal option to do simple editing without having to pay for a full price MsOffice suite. Now compatibility and interoperability with these web office tools is an issue and it is tying down Microsoft. It is not able to play the usual, "make enough changes to the file formats and the api and the look and feel and leave enough bugs in there to make everybody look bad compared to the defacto standard microsoft ".
Finally the software costs have soared. It used to cost 50$ for MsWord and 1900$ for a desk top in 1995. Now it is 100$ for a decent desktop and 300$ for MsOffice (more if you want these ultimate, professional versions). The hardware has become very powerful and a virtual machine running an WinXP 2005 image in a protected sandbox actually runs faster than the original machine it shipped with. People are recyling their old Microsoft Windows licenses and Office licenses using VMware.
I think Microsoft will still milk a few more billions of dollars from MsOffice. But it is not going to grow as fast as it did. If they suspend all new development on it and just milk it for profits, they might actually make more money than trying to add more bells whistles and hidden mines and bombs to thwart interoperability.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Microsoft can be really proud of XBbx. It is a real success. But everything else they are doing is crumbling like a sinkhole under them.
Windows: Macs just climbed to 10% of US sales. That's a huge event, considering that no software vendor can consider losing one in ten of every sale. It means that even despite Windows still near-dominence, Macs are in some ways on equal footing with them. And then of course there's Linux, which continues to grow in mindshare and has the price that can't be beat. Not to mention the security compared to Windows. Plus the libre vs. dracon mindset.
IE: Internet Explorer is now losing ground like crazy to Firefox, not to mention Safari and Chrome. And it's no wonder. Anyone who ever used IE and then *anything else* would find that *anything else* is better in every way except for compatibility with retarded websites that never bothered to program for anything except IE. And have you noticed that those retarded websites have gone from very prevalent to almost nonexistent?
Office: See above story. Then there are things like iWork for the iPad which costs $10 per app. MS doesn't even comprehend that space.
Windows phones and tablets: Well, they're just coming out with these, so its hard to draw conclusions yet, but... they're just coming out with these?? Usually when Microsoft releases something because everyone else is doing it, they have a really hard time doing it at all well. May I draw your attention to the Zune?
Bing: How many of you use Bing? How many of you use Google? 'Nuff said.
IIS: Still nothing compared to Apache.
Exchange server: Still a contender, but the open source tools are very robust now, and the licensing for Exchange is punishingly expensive. If enterprise still wants to buy commercial products, then solutions like OS X Server cost a tiny fraction of Exchange for most of the functionality.
Then you may notice that we see story after story of Microsoft closing down projects which were going to take over the world and which seem to have died a slow and long-overdue death. Again... you gotta wonder how much longer they're going to wait before they give up on the Zune. I'll bet they are losing tons of money on it, but keep it alive just so they don't have to face the humiliation of shutting it down.
So what does Microsoft have going for them? Yeah, Xbox. And while PS3 has at least jumped on the Wii-controller bandwagon, XB seems to still be missing the boat. But maybe they'll catch up here. If I were MS, I would want to spin off Xbox as the one branch of the company that might survive.
Don't get me wrong. They're still a huge and very powerful company. But it seems like they can do no right anymore. How much longer can they keep investors interested in holding their stock?
Thanks to the Ribbon interface I spend much more time in the Microsoft Office products. It has never been easier to search for the tools that I've been using for over 10 years thanks to the new Ribbon interface. I just keep selecting tabs until I find the thing I was looking for. And it only took me half an hour to figure out what the Office Button was and that it was hiding operations like save as and print preview.
Let's be brutally honest here at the expense of karma. The ribbon was created to accommodate the growing population of MS office users who do not have the mental capacity, focus, or experience to utilize the existing menu structure that has been used on all substantial GUI based computer programs for 15+ years. It was preceded by a toolbox panel in the OS X versions of Office which was actually useful since it allowed quick access to basic formatting options but also kept the pull-down menu interface intact for the more advanced commands. But MS actually decreased their program's functionality and efficiency with the ribbon.
Very few who were actually competent in the advanced Office features prior to the ribbon liked the change, because it meant that they had to go hunt for options that they knew used to exist. People who were never very familiar with Office loved it, because there were no large menus to get lost in. MS is happy because now your grandmother can probably work out how to use Office and you still will (unhappily) pay for it as well.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that MS is willing to whore themselves out to the lowest common denominator. Office is no longer specialized software... it's for the masses. However, if you want to write a 5 page memo without images or plot a few points on a graph, it allows you to do that with little initial setup. But if you want to write a 300 page Ph.D. thesis or work with an array of more than 65K points, you'll need to explore other options... unless you like the M in S&M.
But for a 'Power User' that uses the keyboard shortcuts, one has to remember the 2003 menu layout and type away blindly. The idea that the ribbon makes things easier for hard-core Excel is laughable.
I would generally agree with you. It is just as laughable as thinking that Microsoft should be placing most of its attention on catering to 'Power Users'. Power users were able to obtain expertise in the previous UI, and they will be able to gain expertise in the new ribbon UI.
Good UI design is primarily about making it easy to use for the masses, and hopefully catering to power users too if possible. I am one of those 'Power Users' and I love the ribbon when working with Word and PowerPoint. It is much less useful in Excel and Access, but it doesn't get in the way after learning the new UI.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
My office of approx 50 people is about 50/50 OO.org and MS Office. The more technically-minded people took to OO.org. We still save in the MS format for compatibility. For the most part, the MS Office users have not migrated simply because they "think" it's going to make their jobs harder. There have only been a handful of incidents where there was a compatibility issue. Culturally, the two camps feel they are superior to each other, so it is an interesting social experiment and mimics the dichotomy you see on /. posts.
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Give the OO users half the cash from the cost savings of the software license and then see how many people think MS Office is superior.
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There's bound to be other commentators leaping down on this, but I'll put my £0.02 in.
Are you saying that MS removed the old interface and replaced it with one easier to use for beginners?
Yes. Let me be absolutely clear - in Office 2007, there is no way to revert to the Office-2003 style menus except for using third-party add-ons, as other users have commentated.
But why the heck would they remove the old interface entirely? Maybe it's the "Design of Everyday Things" talking, but why wouldn't they keep the old one for more sophisticated users. There's nothing wrong with having an easy interface for casual use and an advanced one for the advanced users. It's actually a very good solution in this kind of case.
If this had been the case, I'd expect you'd have less hate from power users against Office 2007. If I were able to just select an option in Tools -> Options that did this, I'd be using 2007 at home (as it is, my copy of office 2003, cold dead hands, and so forth). However the option was completely denied us.
This makes the (IMO) stupid design decision of auto-hiding menu items (introduced in Office 2000? XP? It's certainly in 2003) look relatively painless. That was another example of Microsoft hiding functionality which detracted from the usability of a product.
I had heard that Office 2010 would allow a 2003-style interface, but a quick search suggests this is also via add-ins - anyone know whether this was the case out-of the box?
Also, anecdote time. A while ago I was testing Office 2007 (pre-SP1) and had need to use a custom Excel add-in I'd built myself under 2k3. Not only could a substantial amount of ferreting not show how you added add-ins to Excel, but the Help file was a direct copy of the 2003 help file content, referring to a menu that no longer exist. It's things like this that novice users won't find, but bug the hell out of power users.