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Why Microsoft Is So Scared of OpenOffice
GMGruman writes "A recent Microsoft video on OpenOffice is naively seen by some as validating the open source tool. As InfoWorld's Savio Rodrigues shows, the video is really a hatchet job on OpenOffice. But why is Microsoft so intent on damaging the FOSS desktop productivity suite, which has just a tiny market share? Rodrigues figured out the real reason by noting who Microsoft quoted to slam OpenOffice: businesses in emerging markets such as Eastern Europe that aren't already so invested in Office licenses and know-how. In other words, the customers Microsoft doesn't have yet and now fears it never will."
Nothing to worry about. Some very brave people have Forked it and created LibreOffice to replace it. Given the more flexible source contribution rules the development rate already exceeds that of OO.org. It's only a matter of time before Oracle isn't even relevant anymore in relation to office software. It's unfortunate that they didn't accept the LibreOffice request to coordinate development and direction as it will sideline them even more. Oh well.
It's *NOT* about being a Microsoft "shill", it's a matter of being realistic and understanding that the Open Office product doesn't *YET* measure up in terms of professional standards and needs, what people that use such products in a serious business setting need.
For the one percent of people who actually _need_ them.
For the other 99%, Open Office is fine.
In most economies some 95% of companies and at least half of all employment is in SMEs. >90% of those companies will also never use any of the advanced features MS office has, and OOo is missing. Even sharing documents (as in: opening at the same time for editing - I once tried but failed in a recent version of OOo Calc; no idea on how MS Office is doing there) is often not done.
In large businesses I wouldn't be surprised if >90% of the users doesn't use those features. They probably don't even know it exists.
Actually I think 99% or more of the Office users wouldn't be able to name a feature that does not exist in the other suite, even if you would let them use both for a year for normal work, office and home.
We have to be realistic indeed (MS seems to be): how many people know what a macro is, and how to use it? What VB script is, or how to use it?
The thing is, there are all sorts.
There -are- businesses which use Excel for the features. That is, they use features that are hard to use, or nonexistant in OpenOffice.
But there are -also- a lot of businesses that use Excel because, honestly, they've never honestly considered the fact that there even exists alternatives. Many of them never use formulas more advanced than basic arithmethic and perhaps SUM(..) - but nevertheless fork over the cash for Excel for their entire staff.
The former can't easily swap, but the latter could. And there's a lot of excel noobs, for every Excel guru, out there.
And, OpenOffice runs on Android mobile phones: http://www.alwaysonpc.com/aboutOpenOffice.php
This is highly misleading. In fact, you just wasted about 3 minutes of my time claiming that, because at first I was all "oh wow! need to get that right away". But what they do instead is host a virtual machine for you "in the cloud", and provide you with a VNC client to connect to it. Needless to say, this is 1) online only, and you really need WiFi or 3G, 2) eats bandwidth like cookies, and 3) still slow. No wonder it's rated 3 stars on the Market (with comments along the lines of all three points)! And they want $20 for that... no thanks.
If someone did a proper port of OO.org to Android (redoing the UI etc), I'd gladly pay $100 for that. But this is mostly useless.
I'd be shocked if an other product better supported MS' proprietry format than MS' products. Yes, MS Office is better in supporting MS Office macros. But OpenOffice is better in supporting OpenOffice macros.
Problem: Excel doesn't ask for a delimiter.
Solution: Excel won't even ask for a delimiter.
And that's not even the first time I hear Microsoft fanboys rephrase the problem as the solution.
I've had the same problem. Excel expects that a CSV file is always separated with a comma. If you use the US version. En the European version, Excel expects that a CSV file is always separated with a semicolon.
If you have a file that's not separated with the separator Excel expects, everything ends up in column A. Even if you try to import a euro-style semicolon separated file into a US version of Excel.
So, you never heard of the certificate programs run by Redhat and Novel and never visited http://tldp.org/ or used http://google.com/linux?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
You have to install the grammar checkers for OOo as extensions. Which grammar checkers to install depends upon which languages you want to do grammar checking in.
Amber
Wind Beneath Thy Wings
Wow, if clicking on the image -> scale menu is "extremely primitive and clumsy-feeling to the point of being downright broken", then I wonder how Photoshop does it? A telepathic interface, maybe? Photoshop knows instinctively what size I want the picture to be and reshapes it without any command from me?
Your argument seems pretty desperate, like you are grasping at straws to find some shortcoming in Gimp. If you need to do it, then it seems like Gimp has improved to the point of being a serious contender to Photoshop by now. Good to know that.
When I started working at my last job, we were initially using Openoffice for almost everything except for any documents that needed to go to clients, because documents that we created with Openoffice would not reliably open with the same formatting by clients who were using Microsoft office, particularly if indentation or outlining was used.
Unless things have changed somewhat, neither will even the same version of MS Office always show consistent formatting. If the document author is using 'printer X' and the document is opened by someone using 'printer Y', then the whole formatting can change.
The full truth is openoffice sucks and is hardly usable for real world use.
Have you actually used OpenOffice.org in the real world? Five or six years ago, I was in the mortgage industry and I used Calc to create some pretty complicated spreadsheets such as amortization tables (including adjustable rates loans). In fact, I used such spreadsheets as a sales tool because I could show a client how much he or she could save by refinancing or the potential impact of rate changes on an ARM.
"Hardly usable for real world use"? Bah. Hyperbole not based on real world use. Is it right for every situation? No, it's not but it is sufficient for about 95% of real world users.
Life is short; think quickly.
"you call those things special features? export to web?"
It exports _interactive_ spreadsheet. I.e. I can quickly draft a report with adjustable parameters and nice 'dashboard-like' visualization and expose it on a corporate portal in a matter of minutes. And this spreadsheet can connect to OLAP backend, using connecting user's credentials.
This is certainly not a 'trivial' feature.
I'm ambivalent about ribbon, but a lot of users like it. Besides, Word has a number of nice features, like Russian language grammar checking (Russian is a flexible language, so simple spellcheckers suck).
Yeah, I've always thought about this when I hear that line from Microsoft about "poor support".
I've been working in IT for 15 years, and I've worked in a few different companies of different size and in different industries. I have never been aware of anyone getting support from Microsoft beyond searching their website knowledge base to clarify obscure error messages.
The only times I have called Microsoft for anything (or heard of anyone else doing it) was for 1 purpose: product activation. I've had copies of Windows and Office spuriously decide that they weren't legitimate, and I had to call Microsoft to get them to fix it. So the only use Microsoft's support personnel have been to me is when Microsoft broke my computer on purpose, and I had to get them to undo it.