Slashdot Mirror
Why Buy Microsoft Milk When the Google Cow Is Free?
theodp writes "Touring a high school with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt informed students they're eating Google 'dog food' because Microsoft's costs money. 'Why would we use Google Docs over like Microsoft Word?' a teacher asked the class. 'Because it's free!' exclaimed a grinning Schmidt. 'Schmidt's comment,' writes GeekWire's Blair Hanley Frank, 'highlights one of the risks Microsoft faces in the academic world. While Microsoft has started offering schools incentives to use Office 365, including free licenses for their pupils, the company is under greater pressure from its competitors. As more schools like Chicago's face budget shortfalls, free and discounted products from companies like Google and Apple, especially when attached to financial assistance, start looking better and better.' Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis said she'd rather see companies pay more in taxes and fund schools that way, rather than relying on their charity or free software."
Why does Apple look better?
Both my private and work machines both have MSOffice on them and I still use Google Docs for the bulk of my writing. It is light weight, easy to use, accessible from anywhere, and easy to share with collaborators. Office 365 is a bit better in some of those regards, but still makes collaborating with external entities more difficult.
" ...Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis said she'd rather see companies pay more in taxes ..."
Wouldn't they have to pay taxes first?
Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis said she'd rather see companies pay more in taxes and fund schools that way, rather than relying on their charity or free software."
She is making a dangerous assumption that if tax revenues increased the extra would be spent on schools
1) Cloud office suites store documents.... in the cloud
2) Cloud office suites make you 100% dependent on their apps. Sure... Google uses "open formats" but as they add features and other companies add features, they lose formatting compatibility.
3) Here kid, the first one is free. Using free cloud software is great while it's free. Where's the guarantee that it will always be free? When it's not free, how much will it cost? Will I actually be able to move?
4) Are you seriously asking me to trust Microsoft, Google or Apple more than the other? This just is laughable. They're all a bunch of crooks. The only difference is, at least for now, Microsoft has governments around the world already treating them like crooks, so they at least have to try to be honest. Apple makes absolutely no pretenses of being an honest player and Google... they scare the shit out of me.
In the end, the best solution is a cloud player which has a clear means of licensing their software and running it within your organization without them being involved. So far as I know, Google doesn't even try for this. Microsoft does have a product, but it's not easy to get.
So for now, I'll use desktop and mobile apps and cloud storage. Thank you very much.
P.S. - It's scary how I am not nearly as worried about government spying, I simply accept it as part of life. But Google really scares the shit out of me.
Why use Google Apps when LibreOffice is not only economically free, but spyware free?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I was asked to pay when my corporation subscribed. Once you're bigger than a certain size, you're stuck paying. Only fools think Google is some fountain of free.
'Why would we use Google Docs over like Microsoft Word?'
Stupid question:
- Word should be compared with LibreOffice
- GoogleDocs should be compared with Office 365
The FOSS movement should work to educate such people. Perhaps we should call it Bespoke Handcrafted Libre FOSS because some people equate "free" with "cheap and nasty"
'Why would we use Google Docs over like Microsoft Word?' a teacher asked the class. 'Because it's free!' exclaimed a grinning Schmidt.
It is NOT free. It might not involve a cash outlay but Google isn't providing Google Docs out of the goodness of their heart. You are paying with personal information that they can then sell to others who want to advertise to you. You are trading Google something, it's just not cash. Nothing wrong with that in principle but Eric Schmidt pretending there is no cost is disingenuous. When making this deal with teachers to get personal information of minors it's borderline creepy.
There is supposedly a double Irish Dutch sandwich variant which presumably yields similar results. Apparently the loophole is being closed since most countries are getting so pissed off with tax avoidance / evasion that they're cooperating (or being coerced) into stamping it out.
Libreoffice does not require java for most commonly used functionality. It will just complain when launched by terminal.
Three years ago I installed libreoffice without java thinking: I will put java when it's necessary. Still not happening.
A lightweight install of libreoffice (only writer and calc and dependencies, no java) is also a good idea in many cases.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Free isn't as important as "good enough". Just because something's free doesn't mean we all dive into it - it has to be *AT LEAST* good enough as well.
The problem MS has is that things like Google Apps for Education"good enough" for almost everyone's uses and - to schools - free. I've put entire schools onto it. Why not? Gigabytes of "always up" storage, accessible from web, PC, Android, etc. Gigabyte-sized inboxes with one of the best email services around (GMail). Integration into your AD if you desire but also manual / CSV user/group management. Enforced signatures on email, group permissioning, all kinds of integration and automation, and switching to them is just a matter of changing your MX record once on any domain you'd like them to handle (and you can always change it back).
Google Apps so that people can work from home on the same documents they created in school. No need to spend fortunes on Office licensing just so that that temporary, occasional member of staff can edit a document.
Google Calendar, which does 99% of whatever I've seen people actually use Exchange calendaring for, with unlimited calendars, no licence fees, no software installation, no onerous browser requirements, no need to expose your servers to the world.
I've seen schools do most of their timetabling through Google Calendar - it's free and good enough, such that they haven't bothered to look for alternatives because, well, why? They don't have any problems with what it does or does not do.
That's before you even get into Google Pages, all the other stuff they offer and their Android device management (which is great - set policies, install apps and remote wipe Android devices remotely for everything in your Google "domain").
Sure, there are power-users somewhere that have problems with it - I am a school network manager and I certainly had other things that I used and just used, say, IMAP or iCal formats to put the data into the things I wanted it in, but hell - for 99.9% of my users it was more than good enough and, because we were a school, free. I've even seen a much larger school use it just to clear some space on their servers so they don't have to upgrade RAID. Give everyone 5Gb of Drive storage and suddenly all that junk they "must have" on their accounts isn't as important any more.
And, if you ask, they will guarantee that your data stays under EU control - and they have a standard EULA that states just that or schools in the EU wouldn't be able to touch them.
Free is one thing, but Google Apps etc. is good enough that I've actually paid for it (more storage etc.) in the past and would pay again for it in the future. But there are numerous places I've worked where "free" and "more than good enough" are the terms that won the decision. Even in places with annually recurring MS licenses under educational licensing deals anyway.
You are technically correct about Google not showing adds to minors within their Google Apps for Education range of products. But that statement is disingenuous. They still harvest data from every user within GAE and use it to target ads to minors outside GAE. Once they leave GAE and start surfing YouTube (and what minor doesn't), they get targeted ads using data from GAE. Also, the majority of websites use Google AdSense for their site advertising. Every one of those sites that minor will visit will have targeted ads using data from GAE.
If you don't believe me, here's a good article to read over at SaveGov. Google admits to these practices via a legal deposition filed in California over a class action lawsuit against this very practice.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: When a service is free, you are not the customer. You are the product.
Google Docs is not free. Ask Stallman about this. The code is closed source and off limits to anyone except the anointed ones at Google. You never know if Google will data mine your data, basically you have given all of your sensitive data over to google.
A truly free package would be LibreOffice, open source, and which does not demand you hand over all of your data over an internet connection to Google's grid.