I think you are incorrect that global warming is not impacting the earth. This is not a case of "crying wolf", it is a case of scientists and the public finally figuring out that global warming is a slow process, not a cataclysmic one. Global warming is a fact that scientists now agree upon, but the long term impact may still be debated.
And about the economic impact of investing a large amount of money in complying with the Kyoto treaty (I'm thinking federal government subsidy for businesses so that the impact is lessened), I think you are also misguided. For instance, the US spent over $100 billion in wars over the last few years, and possibly $1 trillion in prescription drug "benefits". Was the financial impact on our country used as an argument against those efforts? No...in fact the argument was made that our country won't survive if we don't spend that money, which is the same argument made by the Kyoto treaty supporters. Previously, naysayers had scientific evidence that global warming might be nothing to worry about, and now those arguments have evaporated.
Now, scientists agree, the environmental threat is the same as the terrorist threat. If we don't spend the money to improve things, our world will expire. Of course, terrorism is a more immediate threat than the slow pace of global warming, so it is a much easier sell to the sesnationlist public we have in the US.
It takes hard work and hard leadership to make the world a better place.
I call it "lazy" when people don't want to go through a period of hardship to make a better world.
Yeah, the comparison definitely doesn't go all the way. I think the target is going to be the people who spend at least $15 a month on music. It also might be the same market as the satellite radio. People who are tired of limiting themselves to radio, but want to listen to lots of different music all the time.
As far as keeping the music, I'm not sure of what you're trying to say, since you wouldn't be paying $15 for that one song (ten years from now). You would always.....continuously....be achieving a monthly music rate like this:
{cost per song} = (number of songs) / $15
Of course, the more songs you get the less it costs. So, exactly...if you want to listen to one song it is not a good deal. But if you chose to listen to a lot of songs over that ten year period, it becmes a very good deal....even 10 years down the road.
What you said is absolutely correct....if you expect to spend $15 a month for music, it's a good deal.
Do we want our government to be OO programmers? I don't think so.
Seriously, if it is important to stay away from billionaires, then why stop at software? Why should our government buy anything made by any company that is owned by someone rich? Are you saying that our government should not buy routers from Cisco's rich owners? Should they not buy computers from Dell's rich owners? Should they not get their toilet papaer from the rich guys tearing down the forests? Hardly seems like spite for rich people is a good reason to not by Microsoft products.
Can our governments ever be completely free from outside control? If so, then they will have to manufacture their own software, hardware, desk chairs, light bulbs...you name it, right?
Yeah, Zope is exactly what I'm talking about. It's good to see that business automation is a priority to OSS.
Actually, my most recent InfoPath form did not have any complex server requirement. I merely had the datasource connection for the InfoPath form be a Sharepoint list for retrieval, and a Sharepoint forms library for publishing. I sent the actual form file to my users, and when they clicked submit, bam, it showed up as an entry in the Sharepoint forms library.
But, very true, if you want to do really cool stuff, rather than just simple and quick stuff, you'd better get your manuals out or your checkbook out!
Did you mean to say Office XP or older? I believe that to be true (with most on XP and very few on 97), but that does not mean that most of the world simply saves office files on a file share. That's quite a stretch, which is why I asked about the breadth of your exeprience. Witnessing this behavior at a single company is probably not enough to claim that most companies do it that way (regardless if most companies don't have Office 2003).
Sorry for my nasty post. It just seems strange that a person who feels that free software is better also feels that developers should be given money to create the software. It sounds like a complete contradiction in philosophy.
Developers should be paid for creating something they must only give away for free? (OSS prohibits charging money for the software itself)
Why would they not just be paid by people who use the software...which, of course, would therefore NOT be OSS. Like I said contradictory.
"There is nothing inherent in MS Office that makes it a better fit for business process automation than OpenOffice.org"
Wow, why don't you give me loaded shotgun while you're at it. If you think there is feature parity between Openoffice and Office 2003 then you obviously have not used the latter in an office environment. I don't know any OSS zealot that would agree with you. Most people admit there is a feature difference, but argue that companies don't need the features in Office 2003 (InfoPath, Sharepoint, etc.).
Every company that feels that office software is really just for creating documents should absolutely switch to Openoffice. That is a very sensible decision, given the features in Openoffice are really basic.
Any company that argues today's office PC is a glorified typewriter, and the features in Openoffice will satisfy their needs is a company destined to be unsuccessful.
Any government that abandons streamlining their processes and reducing manual labor where computers will work, is destined for revolution.
So, I'm curious about your experience. You say that "Most of the world simply puts their MS Office files on a normal fileshare.", but are you in a proper place to make that kind of claim? Personally, I am an IT consultant and 100% of my clients that have Office 2003 use Sharepoint to share files with others in their workgroup. Companies that think the computer is merely a word processor and a file cabinet are really missing the boat, and would likely be very happy with Openoffice.
Now, I'm certainly not prepared to apply my experience to "Most of the world", but I'm interested to know how you form that opinion, and whether you are qualified to say that....not that it's not true....just that I'm dubious that the person who knows what the rest of the world is doing with MS Office is responding to my little-old post on Slashdot!
And features, to a certain extent. If they need business process automation, they'll need to look elsewhere than OSS. Even the OSS value-add vendors charge for this, while it is included as part of Office 2003 (Sharepoint, InfoPath, etc.). So comparing Openoffice to MS Office 2003 is probably unfair, because they are two different things.
If you are getting away with using Office 2000 right now, and don't have any need to improve upon that, then yes, it does make sense to use software that has the same features, but does not cost any money for the license.
However, if, in the future, you decide you need those features, then you will not likely find them in OSS, and you'll end up paying a license fee to someone anyway!
Office 97? Office 2000? How about something with at least a comparison to one of the last two versions. However, I guess if you are using Office for basic word processing it makes sense to compare Open Office to Office 2000, since there is feature-parity between those two.
If you need business process automation rather than word processing, you'll have to pay for a license, even if it's Star Office.
I definitely understand--and to a certain degree agree--with your argument. To paraphrase, if they have no expectation of using the features of Office 2003 (because they don't use them now, so it's not a critical need, right?) then any argument about mere features is moot. If their business workflow works fine and they don't need any improvement, then there should be no need for new features.
However, by moving to OSS office productivity applications (not Star Office), they are limiting themselves for the future. If they figure out that taxpayers money is being wasted in an inefficient process where the application of technology like Office 2003 would help. But that technology does not exist in the basic functionality of Openoffice, then they are stuck. In the end, they would have to pay for licenses from one of the office suites that offer those features (some of which, like Lotus Notes, would be a significant expenditure to migrate to).
Again, if they don't plan on changing the way they do business...if they expect to always create and share documents the way they do now, then sure, stick with Openoffice.
The real market for this is people who want to listen to a song for a little bit, but then never listen to it again. This way, they don't pay 99c for that song that they got tired of. They instead pay a small fraction of that to try whatever music fits their mood.
This model will allow people to test the waters of 'different' music without having to pay every time. It could result in people expanding their horizons to listen to music they never would have tried if they had to pay per song.
In fact, it seem very similar to other technology markets such as wireless connectivity or text messages. When I was forced to "pay per message" or "pay per bite" I rarely surfed on my phone and sparingly txt'd. Now that I pay one fee for unlimited bandwidth on my phone, I'm synchronizing my mailbox every 10 minutes and truly enjoying my improved productivity and freedom.
Hilarious! I could envision Kent Brockman saying this very thing! Combined with your signature, you have given me two (yes, TWO) hearty guffaws in one day. I say: THANK YOU!
OK, so I'll find out on my own what the rates are. Although I'd like to think that all things I read in the press are simply true, it helps to have some basic facts to back up a claim.
As for innovation, it is painfully obvious that we merely disagree on the definition of the term. Again, "innovation" is bringing something new to the world, like inventing the idea for a browser of HTML. Not taking an existing idea (GUI to a processing environment) and bringing it to the masses (IBM clone).
You are assuming the end of the story is a cowtow. MS does not buckle under this threat, they never do. The sales story is actually fairly simple to make, if you compare OpenOffice to Office 2003. Even with cost as a factor...the transition to OpenOffice, the support of OpenOffice and the maintenance of OpenOffice all cost money.
Does anyone have a link to a reliable study that compares the maintenance cost of OpenOffice with MS Office?
It's humorous that you are comparing Open Office to MS Office 2000 (two versions old), yet you are making sure that people compare it with the absolute bleeding edge of OpenOffice (1.1.4).
I totally understand not comparing apples-to-apples, because the features are simply not there in the Openoffice product. It's a tough sell.
To me, innovation is bringing something totally new into the market. I think my examples are classic ways that MS has taken something that was not new (web browser and GUI) and brought it to a larger audience. I don't think of innovation as making something that already exists profitable, as you seem to suggest, but maybe I'm not understanding your definition of "innovation".
There are other examples: Lotus Notes brought workflow applications to companies long before MS came up with Outlook/Sharepoint/InfoPath. IBM was the innovator, and MS brought it to the masses. The pattern is undeniable.
As far as upgrading...do you have any facts to back this up (links anyone?)? As a consultant I see many companies' IT efforts, and I would estimate that well over half of the companies I work with use Windows XP (and many have rolled out SP2). Of course, that's a small fraction of the companies in the whole world, so it would be interesting to see the facts that support the "upgrade trouble" you talk about.
I can't imagine any company in the world that uses 9x in their environment on purpose. You simply cannot make a business case in today's world for an OS that has no security model and has very few modern technologies. If you want the stripped-down, task-specific box, at least use Linux not 9x.
Spoken like someone who has never used it. And if you don't know what these things are (you call them gobblygook, so I assume you aren't familiar with what these things are) you probably aren't the best person to criticize them.
The technologies I mention are not Access or Excel applications, don't know where that came from. The examples I give are web portals with data driven forms and workforce tracking. Because you don't do these tasks does not mean it's a complete waste of time and effort. Commercial businesses are usually interested in tracking a workforce, or running projects quickly and efficiently.
And one fact you cannot deny is that companies do not want to be forced to hire an expert in web development or purchase a custom workflow application for every project they run! They would much rather empower the non-IT worker to make the portal and manage the workers directly.
This flies in the face of IT services for OSS, where the idea is that the software is free, but the services to mold the software into what you want require experts that cost money.
Empower the workers to do it themselves? Or keep it arcane so that the businesses have to pay money to make it work? That's one of the key differences between Microsoft's business automation compared to OSS business solutions.
So, the checks just stop coming in one day? Are you saying that there will be zero revenue immediately? Don't you think it will take at least a couple of years to migrate the entire planet off of Windows? Do you honestly think that all purchases of Windows PCs will magically stop instantly?
Even if the hypothosis comes to reality, and Microsoft is destined to expire at some point, the checks will still be rolling in for several years to come as companies migrate (even if it ends in a trickle of cash per month).
Only then will your 2-year deathwatch party begin, and wouldn't they have unloaded most of the moving parts of the business by then (including the unprofitable ventures)?
It's distinctly possible that after 5 years of evaporation of business balanced by 5 years of downsizing and spinning off individual technologies to the highest bidder while closely guarding the profitable Office platform will actually result in a manageable hemmorage of money.
An absolute a worst case scenario after paring the company down is losing 1 billion dollars a quarter over several more years beyond those five years of stagnation. Which works out to 20 years, so you ARE looking at decades.
Why do you think it requires innovation to be successful?
In truth, Microsoft has never really been the innovator. They have been the ones to take the innovation to the masses. Netscape, Apple and other companies blaze the trail, and Microsoft tries to do it cheaper and quicker.
The business model has worked this far, so I can't see the lack of innovation as an argument for a dramatic change in fortunes.
As for the recent entry into consumer search, remember that the market for this product is advertising. And keep in mind that infrastructure is a very large reason for Google's success. Yeah, search algorithms can be tweaked but the real reason that Google has the popularity (which drives advertising) is performance.
The new MSN search technology (tweaked algorithms and indexing power) is actually a small part of the story. Microsoft has spent the last several years building out an impressive infrastructure to support the launch of MSN search. When it comes to building out global infrastructure, the primary component is money, which MS has plenty of. If anyone can compete in search, it will have to be someone the likes of Microsoft.
So, where are the killer features from Office 2003 in OSS?
For instance, when starting a business project, where is the OSS feature for a complete novice to create a Sharepoint portal with Outlook integration, RSS feeds and an Infopath form that connects to a SQL database? Where does OSS have that? Assuming somebody chimes in with link to their favorite OSS widget, can an office assistant straight-outta-U of Phoenix create and configure it (including access authentication) in under an hour like you can with Office 2003?
Most technology like this...office business process automation...costs money. Even if it runs on Linux, Websphere is going to cost you money (and quite likely the same amount of money as the Sharepoint/InfoPath/Outlook solution).
Companies will still be paying somebody to create nix-based solutions that can compete against Office 2003 features that my office assistant can use in a day to create a slick office automation system.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember, though...that was a civil war. An entirely different set of circumstances.
If we were at civil war now, then would you doubt that Bush would extend his "patriot act" to normal citizens that were up in arms against him?
Wouldn't ANY president in history take drastic action in the face of civil war?
I think you are incorrect that global warming is not impacting the earth. This is not a case of "crying wolf", it is a case of scientists and the public finally figuring out that global warming is a slow process, not a cataclysmic one. Global warming is a fact that scientists now agree upon, but the long term impact may still be debated.
And about the economic impact of investing a large amount of money in complying with the Kyoto treaty (I'm thinking federal government subsidy for businesses so that the impact is lessened), I think you are also misguided. For instance, the US spent over $100 billion in wars over the last few years, and possibly $1 trillion in prescription drug "benefits". Was the financial impact on our country used as an argument against those efforts? No...in fact the argument was made that our country won't survive if we don't spend that money, which is the same argument made by the Kyoto treaty supporters. Previously, naysayers had scientific evidence that global warming might be nothing to worry about, and now those arguments have evaporated.
Now, scientists agree, the environmental threat is the same as the terrorist threat. If we don't spend the money to improve things, our world will expire. Of course, terrorism is a more immediate threat than the slow pace of global warming, so it is a much easier sell to the sesnationlist public we have in the US.
It takes hard work and hard leadership to make the world a better place.
I call it "lazy" when people don't want to go through a period of hardship to make a better world.
Yeah, the comparison definitely doesn't go all the way. I think the target is going to be the people who spend at least $15 a month on music. It also might be the same market as the satellite radio. People who are tired of limiting themselves to radio, but want to listen to lots of different music all the time.
As far as keeping the music, I'm not sure of what you're trying to say, since you wouldn't be paying $15 for that one song (ten years from now). You would always.....continuously....be achieving a monthly music rate like this:
{cost per song} = (number of songs) / $15
Of course, the more songs you get the less it costs. So, exactly...if you want to listen to one song it is not a good deal. But if you chose to listen to a lot of songs over that ten year period, it becmes a very good deal....even 10 years down the road.
What you said is absolutely correct....if you expect to spend $15 a month for music, it's a good deal.
Interesting opinion. Never heard of Office 98, either.
Do we want our government to be OO programmers? I don't think so.
Seriously, if it is important to stay away from billionaires, then why stop at software? Why should our government buy anything made by any company that is owned by someone rich? Are you saying that our government should not buy routers from Cisco's rich owners? Should they not buy computers from Dell's rich owners? Should they not get their toilet papaer from the rich guys tearing down the forests? Hardly seems like spite for rich people is a good reason to not by Microsoft products.
Can our governments ever be completely free from outside control? If so, then they will have to manufacture their own software, hardware, desk chairs, light bulbs...you name it, right?
Yeah, Zope is exactly what I'm talking about. It's good to see that business automation is a priority to OSS.
Actually, my most recent InfoPath form did not have any complex server requirement. I merely had the datasource connection for the InfoPath form be a Sharepoint list for retrieval, and a Sharepoint forms library for publishing. I sent the actual form file to my users, and when they clicked submit, bam, it showed up as an entry in the Sharepoint forms library.
But, very true, if you want to do really cool stuff, rather than just simple and quick stuff, you'd better get your manuals out or your checkbook out!
Did you mean to say Office XP or older? I believe that to be true (with most on XP and very few on 97), but that does not mean that most of the world simply saves office files on a file share. That's quite a stretch, which is why I asked about the breadth of your exeprience. Witnessing this behavior at a single company is probably not enough to claim that most companies do it that way (regardless if most companies don't have Office 2003).
Sorry for my nasty post. It just seems strange that a person who feels that free software is better also feels that developers should be given money to create the software. It sounds like a complete contradiction in philosophy.
Developers should be paid for creating something they must only give away for free? (OSS prohibits charging money for the software itself)
Why would they not just be paid by people who use the software...which, of course, would therefore NOT be OSS. Like I said contradictory.
"There is nothing inherent in MS Office that makes it a better fit for business process automation than OpenOffice.org"
Wow, why don't you give me loaded shotgun while you're at it. If you think there is feature parity between Openoffice and Office 2003 then you obviously have not used the latter in an office environment. I don't know any OSS zealot that would agree with you. Most people admit there is a feature difference, but argue that companies don't need the features in Office 2003 (InfoPath, Sharepoint, etc.).Every company that feels that office software is really just for creating documents should absolutely switch to Openoffice. That is a very sensible decision, given the features in Openoffice are really basic.
Any company that argues today's office PC is a glorified typewriter, and the features in Openoffice will satisfy their needs is a company destined to be unsuccessful.
Any government that abandons streamlining their processes and reducing manual labor where computers will work, is destined for revolution.
So, I'm curious about your experience. You say that "Most of the world simply puts their MS Office files on a normal fileshare.", but are you in a proper place to make that kind of claim? Personally, I am an IT consultant and 100% of my clients that have Office 2003 use Sharepoint to share files with others in their workgroup. Companies that think the computer is merely a word processor and a file cabinet are really missing the boat, and would likely be very happy with Openoffice.
Now, I'm certainly not prepared to apply my experience to "Most of the world", but I'm interested to know how you form that opinion, and whether you are qualified to say that....not that it's not true....just that I'm dubious that the person who knows what the rest of the world is doing with MS Office is responding to my little-old post on Slashdot!
And features, to a certain extent. If they need business process automation, they'll need to look elsewhere than OSS. Even the OSS value-add vendors charge for this, while it is included as part of Office 2003 (Sharepoint, InfoPath, etc.). So comparing Openoffice to MS Office 2003 is probably unfair, because they are two different things.
If you are getting away with using Office 2000 right now, and don't have any need to improve upon that, then yes, it does make sense to use software that has the same features, but does not cost any money for the license.
However, if, in the future, you decide you need those features, then you will not likely find them in OSS, and you'll end up paying a license fee to someone anyway!
Office 97? Office 2000? How about something with at least a comparison to one of the last two versions. However, I guess if you are using Office for basic word processing it makes sense to compare Open Office to Office 2000, since there is feature-parity between those two.
If you need business process automation rather than word processing, you'll have to pay for a license, even if it's Star Office.
I definitely understand--and to a certain degree agree--with your argument. To paraphrase, if they have no expectation of using the features of Office 2003 (because they don't use them now, so it's not a critical need, right?) then any argument about mere features is moot. If their business workflow works fine and they don't need any improvement, then there should be no need for new features.
However, by moving to OSS office productivity applications (not Star Office), they are limiting themselves for the future. If they figure out that taxpayers money is being wasted in an inefficient process where the application of technology like Office 2003 would help. But that technology does not exist in the basic functionality of Openoffice, then they are stuck. In the end, they would have to pay for licenses from one of the office suites that offer those features (some of which, like Lotus Notes, would be a significant expenditure to migrate to).
Again, if they don't plan on changing the way they do business...if they expect to always create and share documents the way they do now, then sure, stick with Openoffice.
The real market for this is people who want to listen to a song for a little bit, but then never listen to it again. This way, they don't pay 99c for that song that they got tired of. They instead pay a small fraction of that to try whatever music fits their mood.
This model will allow people to test the waters of 'different' music without having to pay every time. It could result in people expanding their horizons to listen to music they never would have tried if they had to pay per song.
In fact, it seem very similar to other technology markets such as wireless connectivity or text messages. When I was forced to "pay per message" or "pay per bite" I rarely surfed on my phone and sparingly txt'd. Now that I pay one fee for unlimited bandwidth on my phone, I'm synchronizing my mailbox every 10 minutes and truly enjoying my improved productivity and freedom.
Hilarious! I could envision Kent Brockman saying this very thing! Combined with your signature, you have given me two (yes, TWO) hearty guffaws in one day. I say: THANK YOU!
OK, so I'll find out on my own what the rates are. Although I'd like to think that all things I read in the press are simply true, it helps to have some basic facts to back up a claim. As for innovation, it is painfully obvious that we merely disagree on the definition of the term. Again, "innovation" is bringing something new to the world, like inventing the idea for a browser of HTML. Not taking an existing idea (GUI to a processing environment) and bringing it to the masses (IBM clone).
So, what exactly does "funding OSS" mean?
Oxymoron - n : conjoining contradictory terms. Or a geek with acne and lesser intelligence spouting ideas that make no sense.
You are assuming the end of the story is a cowtow. MS does not buckle under this threat, they never do. The sales story is actually fairly simple to make, if you compare OpenOffice to Office 2003. Even with cost as a factor...the transition to OpenOffice, the support of OpenOffice and the maintenance of OpenOffice all cost money.
Does anyone have a link to a reliable study that compares the maintenance cost of OpenOffice with MS Office?
It's humorous that you are comparing Open Office to MS Office 2000 (two versions old), yet you are making sure that people compare it with the absolute bleeding edge of OpenOffice (1.1.4).
I totally understand not comparing apples-to-apples, because the features are simply not there in the Openoffice product. It's a tough sell.
To me, innovation is bringing something totally new into the market. I think my examples are classic ways that MS has taken something that was not new (web browser and GUI) and brought it to a larger audience. I don't think of innovation as making something that already exists profitable, as you seem to suggest, but maybe I'm not understanding your definition of "innovation".
There are other examples: Lotus Notes brought workflow applications to companies long before MS came up with Outlook/Sharepoint/InfoPath. IBM was the innovator, and MS brought it to the masses. The pattern is undeniable.
As far as upgrading...do you have any facts to back this up (links anyone?)? As a consultant I see many companies' IT efforts, and I would estimate that well over half of the companies I work with use Windows XP (and many have rolled out SP2). Of course, that's a small fraction of the companies in the whole world, so it would be interesting to see the facts that support the "upgrade trouble" you talk about.
I can't imagine any company in the world that uses 9x in their environment on purpose. You simply cannot make a business case in today's world for an OS that has no security model and has very few modern technologies. If you want the stripped-down, task-specific box, at least use Linux not 9x.
Spoken like someone who has never used it. And if you don't know what these things are (you call them gobblygook, so I assume you aren't familiar with what these things are) you probably aren't the best person to criticize them.
The technologies I mention are not Access or Excel applications, don't know where that came from. The examples I give are web portals with data driven forms and workforce tracking. Because you don't do these tasks does not mean it's a complete waste of time and effort. Commercial businesses are usually interested in tracking a workforce, or running projects quickly and efficiently.
And one fact you cannot deny is that companies do not want to be forced to hire an expert in web development or purchase a custom workflow application for every project they run! They would much rather empower the non-IT worker to make the portal and manage the workers directly.
This flies in the face of IT services for OSS, where the idea is that the software is free, but the services to mold the software into what you want require experts that cost money.
Empower the workers to do it themselves? Or keep it arcane so that the businesses have to pay money to make it work? That's one of the key differences between Microsoft's business automation compared to OSS business solutions.
So, the checks just stop coming in one day? Are you saying that there will be zero revenue immediately? Don't you think it will take at least a couple of years to migrate the entire planet off of Windows? Do you honestly think that all purchases of Windows PCs will magically stop instantly?
Even if the hypothosis comes to reality, and Microsoft is destined to expire at some point, the checks will still be rolling in for several years to come as companies migrate (even if it ends in a trickle of cash per month).
Only then will your 2-year deathwatch party begin, and wouldn't they have unloaded most of the moving parts of the business by then (including the unprofitable ventures)?
It's distinctly possible that after 5 years of evaporation of business balanced by 5 years of downsizing and spinning off individual technologies to the highest bidder while closely guarding the profitable Office platform will actually result in a manageable hemmorage of money.
An absolute a worst case scenario after paring the company down is losing 1 billion dollars a quarter over several more years beyond those five years of stagnation. Which works out to 20 years, so you ARE looking at decades.
Why do you think it requires innovation to be successful?
In truth, Microsoft has never really been the innovator. They have been the ones to take the innovation to the masses. Netscape, Apple and other companies blaze the trail, and Microsoft tries to do it cheaper and quicker.
The business model has worked this far, so I can't see the lack of innovation as an argument for a dramatic change in fortunes.
As for the recent entry into consumer search, remember that the market for this product is advertising. And keep in mind that infrastructure is a very large reason for Google's success. Yeah, search algorithms can be tweaked but the real reason that Google has the popularity (which drives advertising) is performance.
The new MSN search technology (tweaked algorithms and indexing power) is actually a small part of the story. Microsoft has spent the last several years building out an impressive infrastructure to support the launch of MSN search. When it comes to building out global infrastructure, the primary component is money, which MS has plenty of. If anyone can compete in search, it will have to be someone the likes of Microsoft.
So, where are the killer features from Office 2003 in OSS?
For instance, when starting a business project, where is the OSS feature for a complete novice to create a Sharepoint portal with Outlook integration, RSS feeds and an Infopath form that connects to a SQL database? Where does OSS have that? Assuming somebody chimes in with link to their favorite OSS widget, can an office assistant straight-outta-U of Phoenix create and configure it (including access authentication) in under an hour like you can with Office 2003?
Most technology like this...office business process automation...costs money. Even if it runs on Linux, Websphere is going to cost you money (and quite likely the same amount of money as the Sharepoint/InfoPath/Outlook solution).
Companies will still be paying somebody to create nix-based solutions that can compete against Office 2003 features that my office assistant can use in a day to create a slick office automation system.