Fear and loathing

[rpm]

Fear and loathing

Microsoft says it will embrace an internationally recognised file format developed by the open-source software community. Is the company finally embracing openness and interoperability? Not so fast.

 

[HavocXphere]

Office would be forced to compete entirely on its merits.

Imagine that...

 

[zamicro]

Microsoft Office is very good. But now average user do not need to fork out thousands to buy it. The can now use alternatives easier.

 

[DblD]

what they are afraid of..... the inevitable ..............days of exorbitant profits and license extortions are over.....new are of office productivity has begun....

 

[Moederloos]

If ODF were to replace Microsoft’s own format as the corporate standard for documents, Office would be forced to compete entirely on its merits. It is still, by far, the best productivity suite available, so what exactly is Microsoft afraid of?

Maybe, maybe not.
What I do know is that everyone I know that uses OpenOffice finds it has nothing missing - I use it exclusively every day.
Bottom line is: 99% of people use a word processor for some documents, and a spreadsheet for simple budgets and as a "database". (shudder)

Even if someone were to successfully argue the point that M$ is "better" because of some set of obscure features, my argument would be "so what". Who needs to pay a fortune so you can do "xyz" with one click instead of two?

 

[chiskop]

Even if someone were to successfully argue the point that M$ is "better" because of some set of obscure features, my argument would be "so what". Who needs to pay a fortune so you can do "xyz" with one click instead of two?

I'm not sure it even comes down to one click instead of two. There may be some collaboration features that some buisnesses use which can't be managed with OOo - but I've never actually met anyone who uses anything Word for anything more complex than letters, faxes and simple spreadsheets. For the vast majority of users, OOo does that equally efficiently and costs nothing. For the tiny minority that need those features and want the lock-in, they can justify the additional cost of MS Office.

 

[Tns]

openoffice is good , but what doesn't it have that MS does?

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Am using openoffice at home now, doesn't find it lacking.

 

[ambo]

I use OpenOffice exclusively at both home and work and so does most of my family.

The irony is that a colleague was writing a document in word and one morning word would not open it without crashing. He emailed it to me, I opened it in OOo without a problem. I then did a few edits, saved and sent it back to him... and suddenly word was able to read it again

 

[Tns]

The irony is that a colleague was writing a document in word and one morning word would not open it without crashing. He emailed it to me, I opened it in OOo without a problem. I then did a few edits, saved and sent it back to him... and suddenly word was able to read it again

lol! had a few of those here in the office too!

 

[milomak]

My laptop came with a trial version of Office 2007. I installed OOo nstead. The only MS product I will probably install is Outlook and that is because of needing to sync my TyTN. If I could sync it with OOo (or TB or any other software) I would be over the moon.