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Microsoft unwittingly admits OpenOffice.org is a threat

blogs.computerworlduk.com

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Re: Microsoft unwittingly admits OpenOffice.org is a threat

#51

Post by rbanffy »

jasonlotito wrote: post #8
nodata wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One by one: > Staff members will despise it, This isn't a point on its own. > poorly formatted documents from others won't display properly What is a "poorly formatted document"? > training costs go up Training costs only go up if you compare it against people already trained with Microsoft Office. > it's a mess. How? None of your points really said how, apart from the one below talking about .doc

> What is a "poorly formatted document"? I just wanted to touch on this from another angle. I use OO here at work on my Linux machine. My main issue with OO is it's styles support is incomplete, to the point where it's impossible for me to keep my documents style appropriately. It seems like a small thing, but I'd much rather handle styling via style sheets then have to manually edit the items. Here's the basic thing…

Care to list the missing 20%? OOo developers may find the list useful.

Re: Microsoft unwittingly admits OpenOffice.org is a threat

#52

Post by btilly »

eli wrote: post #31
drinian wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people use the features in Excel that are missing from OO? Surely it's a small percentage of the total number of Office licenses out there.

For home users, maybe true. Though I'd imagine many home users of Excel would be better served by Google Docs. But it's a massive number of business users. Everyone at my company relies on at least one spreadsheet that has macros or complex pivot tables. It's a bit scary how much critical data is moving through Excel in the typical business. My understanding is that Wall Street relies pretty much runs on Excel.

It's a bit scary how much critical data is moving through Excel in the typical business.

It is a lot scary that an average of 1 formula in 10 in Excel spreadsheets is wrong.

Re: Microsoft unwittingly admits OpenOffice.org is a threat

#53

Post by jasonlotito »

rbanffy wrote: post #51
jasonlotito wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is a "poorly formatted document"? I just wanted to touch on this from another angle. I use OO here at work on my Linux machine. My main issue with OO is it's styles support is incomplete, to the point where it's impossible for me to keep my documents style appropriately. It seems like a small thing, but I'd much rather handle styling via style sheets then have to manually edit the items. Here's the basic thing…

Care to list the missing 20%? OOo developers may find the list useful.

Obviously the 80/20 numbers are pulled out of my rear, but I feel it's an accurate description. That 20% is different for each person, too.

For example, the last feature missing from OOo that I needed (and it's been reported, too) is styling for tables. Working with Internal API Docs, we use tables for parameter listings, and trying to make the tables readable and easier to use is difficult when you have to style each table individually.

Re: Microsoft unwittingly admits OpenOffice.org is a threat

#54

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

OO is a committee designed bloatware mammoth.

Office was created in low level coding, with the minimum possible dependencies (e.g excel reinvents the wheel so it does not include so many external libs). OO is a sluggish and high level clone with minimum attention for detail. Consumes too much memory and too much processor, like Netscape Navigator became, but hopefully(thanks to the license) it could be transformed into firefox.

It will be very expensive to replicate the hard work that went into Office, only starting from scratch you could do it like Koffice, abiword or gnumeric did.

You can't outperform Office in their strengths, but you can outperform it on things Microsoft is not an specialist, like multiplatform coding, cloud writing, and new interfaces(multitouch and voice).

I don't use windows, and honestly I don't care about Office any more. There are very good alternatives, but not OO.

Re: Microsoft unwittingly admits OpenOffice.org is a threat

#56

Post by stretchwithme »

I've used OO.o and worked with its code and when it came time to choose between it and Office, I had to choose Office.

I needed the ability to manage sections of a document, move them around, open and close them. Only Office has that feature. I spoke to someone from Sun about that feature at their booth at a convention and they had no plans to implement it.

Its bloatware, but it has everything. And it works.

Re: Microsoft unwittingly admits OpenOffice.org is a threat

#57

Post by akho »

bld wrote: post #33

I wonder if the the biggest aid to OO adoption will be the new interface in Office 2007? OO basically clones the old Office menu-driven interface for everything, which I find easier to navigate by drilling down in context to find things. Switching to OO avoids the need to relearn how to use an office suite.

My calendar says it’s 2010 now, so it’s a bit late for that (and the ribbon was awesome from the start).

Re: Microsoft unwittingly admits OpenOffice.org is a threat

#58

Post by rbanffy »

jasonlotito wrote: post #53
rbanffy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to list the missing 20%? OOo developers may find the list useful.

Obviously the 80/20 numbers are pulled out of my rear, but I feel it's an accurate description. That 20% is different for each person, too. For example, the last feature missing from OOo that I needed (and it's been reported, too) is styling for tables. Working with Internal API Docs, we use tables for parameter listings, and trying to make the tables readable and easier to use is difficult when you have to style eac…

Is that the Table/Autoformat thing?

Re: Microsoft unwittingly admits OpenOffice.org is a threat

#60

Post by phr »

dhimes wrote: post #20
nhebb wrote: post #10

The OpenOffice site has a list of major deployments [1], and considering how long it's been available as an MS Office alternative, the list isn't that impressive. Several years ago the local school district switched to OpenOffice. I happened to notice it during a teacher conference, so I asked the teacher how she liked it. I was pretty surprised by how much she hated it ( I mean, she really hated it. ). Of course, th…

That's too bad. Schools are the one place that definitely should switch. The basic skills of writing, revising, presentation, and spreadsheet usage can all be taught just fine with OO. I switched to it (nearly) full time about a year ago and haven't had any problem. The idea that teachers make students pay for MS Office, simply because they can't be bothered to change, angers me. I don't know too many teachers who ca…

Typical grade school teachers spend their days on their feet, rushing from one crisis to another, trying to help mainstreamed kids with serious disabilities, kids with chaotic home-lives and resulting learning and behavior problems, political mandates to teach to a standardized test regardless of what they think the kids really need, and so on. They don't feel they have time to figure out simple user interface problems like where did all these IE windows and tabs come from, let alone learn a new software suite.
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