Free software is certainly superior in principle, but it's downfall is and will continue to be the fact that the business world hasn't practically functioned for years.
To be more direct: people do stupid thing in business because they won't be held accountable. I run OOo at home because it's a superior system, but I buy MS Office at work every couple of years because I won't have to request a new training budget when I do so.
Microsoft has the advantage because they know that the people in charge of the money in businesses don't have the technical wherewithal to come to complete or meaningful conclusions when making buying decisions. Yea, I can make budget requests, but until I can hire the guy that makes budget requests I really can't help the ODF push at all.
On the plus side, we're starting to see the standards people make important inroads into the OSS/ODF byways. Hopefully that will help influence more buyers and, therefore, influence the people hiring them so that ODF and other OSS technologies can make meaningful inroads to business.
Isn't one file format (such as ODF) better than two? Surely the weakness of having many is the confusion it creates?
Not that I don't enjoy a good OSS flamewar, but isn't this something of a leading question? As an individual in a position to make buying decisions based on this sort of thing, this is exactly what turns me off to ODF and other "community" technologies.
The closed techs may have more technical annoyances and whatnot, but when it comes right down to it, open technologies and the confrontation they create even within their own support base just turns me off to the whole thing. Give me something that works for 95% of the whole group and I'll happily support the remaining 5% rather than risk 100% of my user base's productivity on something that may collapse from internal quibbling in a few months.
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Free software is certainly superior in principle, but it's downfall is and will continue to be the fact that the business world hasn't practically functioned for years.
To be more direct: people do stupid thing in business because they won't be held accountable. I run OOo at home because it's a superior system, but I buy MS Office at work every couple of years because I won't have to request a new training budget when I do so.
Microsoft has the advantage because they know that the people in charge of the money in businesses don't have the technical wherewithal to come to complete or meaningful conclusions when making buying decisions. Yea, I can make budget requests, but until I can hire the guy that makes budget requests I really can't help the ODF push at all.
On the plus side, we're starting to see the standards people make important inroads into the OSS/ODF byways. Hopefully that will help influence more buyers and, therefore, influence the people hiring them so that ODF and other OSS technologies can make meaningful inroads to business.
' I see what you did there
Not that I don't enjoy a good OSS flamewar, but isn't this something of a leading question? As an individual in a position to make buying decisions based on this sort of thing, this is exactly what turns me off to ODF and other "community" technologies.
The closed techs may have more technical annoyances and whatnot, but when it comes right down to it, open technologies and the confrontation they create even within their own support base just turns me off to the whole thing. Give me something that works for 95% of the whole group and I'll happily support the remaining 5% rather than risk 100% of my user base's productivity on something that may collapse from internal quibbling in a few months.
Just my 2 cents, is all....