I've been a general user on systems for over 25 years. The only one
that ever behaved as "it should" was the Mac. That's because it was
intuitive. Moreover, you could buy, load, and use nearly every
application without RTFM. Load and Go. There was an occasional
reference to a "cheat sheet" or Help facility; otherwise, you were off
and running. We are still working for computers rather than the other
way around. We do interesting, exciting, and exasperating things with
them but they are still dogs that we "teach" to stand on their hind legs
each days by holding their front legs up. Mr. Gates products embody all
that is wrong with computers. I'm not picking on him. It is simply
that people spend more time messing around with disasters and
difficulties than they should ever be, in any scenario.
Chad Smith wrote:
On 10/17/05, Tom Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
It is quite unbelievable that acquiring OOo would not bring down the TCO
significantly. The acquisition cost; the cost of an alarming number of
outages due to MS Office insecurities, bugs, and viruses; the upgrade
costs; the deployment costs, the sheer "weight" of MS Office suite in
terms of computing resources required just to start it up, etc. speak to
an enormous cost to any user base. By the way, the items that you chose
as a negative for OOo adoption are precisely those things which make it
a barrier to change for any user/buyer of MS Office; they count on it.
Let me explain how keeping an existing, (and paid for) version of Microsoft
Office (or any for-pay office suite) would indeed cost less than downloading
and/or installing OpenOffice.org.
1) The existing infrastructure is already in place. There is no download
time. There is no deployment time. There is no time used *at all*. The
computers/servers that need MS Office already have it. There is no need to
use (read: *waste* or *spend*) any time installing anything. It's all there.
- Conversely, downloading/installing OOo to X,000 machines is quite costly
in manhours - both of wasted manhours for the employees who can't use their
Office suite, and in paying the IT guy(s)/gal(s) to install it.
This can be handled by cascading servers to upgrade software
automatically if the network is set up properly.
2) The existing training has already taken place. You may think that OOo is
close enough to MSO x that no learning is required - but you are not the
typical office worker. Some people work by wrote memory.
My boss all but cussed me out one time because I *UPDATED HIS ITUNES*. It
changed *THE COLOR* of the Itunes background, and it added a button to the
side. Nothing was removed but the links to songs he no longer had on his
machine (things he removed, not the update - but I deleted the broken
links). He *FREAKED OUT*. Again, only 3 things changed, the color of the
background, 1 added button, and removed broken links. Tell me again how much
OpenOffice.org is "just like" Microsoft Office 2003 or XP or 97 or anything.
You have my sincere condolences. I think most of us have suffered the
"slings and arrows" of progress impeded by ignorance and stubbornness.
It is especially unattractive in a boss. I'm amazed and delighted at
how dumb some very intelligent people can be at times.
Another example - my friend was teaching her older, more experienced
co-worker (same department, similiar job responsiblities) how to do the
reports that she normally does while my friend is going away for her
honeymoon. The more experienced coworker did not know how to use the
scroll-wheel! Let me explain, my friend is an accountant. They use Excel
about 35 hours a week in her office. Her co-worker never used a shortcut,
never Right-Clicked, never typed in a formula function, never scrolled with
the mouse. She did everything *EVERYTHING* with the drop-down menus from the
menu bar. She'd been working in Excel for over a decade. All she knew was
the drop-downs. She didn't even Ctrl-C to copy or Ctrl-V to paste. She put
her cursor in the cell - moved the mouse up to the Edit menu, clicked on it,
moved the mouse down to the "Paste" option, and clicked on it.
My point is, that's *all* she knew how to do. If it wasn't where it "should
be" - she was lost. My friend tried to enlighten her to the other buttons on
her mouse, and the quick keyboard shortcuts... her co-worker said "I think
I've learned enough for one day!"
She is the worst case scenario and her experience is what should be
avoided when replacing technologies. That was my point. I said that
folks who are "heads down" Excel, Word, Powerpoint, etc." users should
not be forced to change because of exactly the scenario you describe.
It's unreasonable to expect people to change in these cases. And, as
you point out, it is terribly unproductive and excruciatingly
frustrating for them.
These are the people - the truly smart, intelligent, hard-working people -
that it takes to run a business. They do their jobs. THey do them well. They
don't want to relearn *anything* on the computer. Again, I'm not talking
about choosing between upgrading to Vista as opposed to switching to OOo -
I'm talking about *KEEPING* MSO X as opposed to *SWITCHING* to OOo.
3) Macros, Macros, Macros. Macros are a useful tool - or so I have been
taught. They take a series of potentially complex, or repetitive actions and
make them automated into one simple keyboard shortcut or mouse-click. Lots
of companies use them for many different purposes and reasons. If a company
has them in FOO Office X, they won't work in OpenOffice.org Anything. There
will be time (which = $) spent (read: wasted) rewriting all the macros the
company needs.
Thank you. You just gave me an idea for a start up venture. What the
world needs now is a macro translator!
If a company switches, and doesn't actually take the time to teach their
employees how to use the new system, they will still end up paying their
employees to learn it, because they will be hunting around to find the
danged Word Count for 30 minutes, instead of being taught it's buried under
properties in the file menu. So that cost will still be there, whether it
shows up on a budget or not. It's called loss of productivity.
For these 3 reasons, (and plenty more that others could share), *KEEPING*
whatever you have is cheaper than switching to whatever is out there, even
if it's free.
And most of the arguement applies to MSO versus OOo - Mac OS X 10.2 versus
Mac OS X 10.4 - Windows versus Linux - Sound Edit 16 versus Audacity...
Whatever. The Macros thing could be replaced by whatever neat thing the old
system does that the new one doesn't, or does in a way that can't be quickly
imported.
Another reason is file compatiblity. The files I make with BlankOffice 10
will always work with BlankOffice 10. They might not with BlankOFfice 9 or
BlankOffice 11 - and there's even less of a chance that they will with
AnotherOffice 2 - but they certainly will with BlankOffice 10.
OpenOffice.org is even dumb enough (dumb from a marketing standpoint) - to
freaking advertise this scary fact everytime someone tries to save as a
Microsoft Office format. If I switch from anything to anything, there's a
chance my legacy files won't work in the new system. And again, the same
arguement can be raised from Microsoft Office 11 to Microsoft Office 12 (or
10 to 11, or 9 to 10).
Humans will find a way to make things work. There can be an MSO server
with different versions (one license each) to "translate" documents
until everything becomes and open format. Being Open is a good thing in
the long run. It's the only reason pdf exists at all; to provide an
open solution to an inherent industry problem. Left to their own
devices, most companies will produce their own "standards" which fit
nothing else and "ensure" a revenue stream from fixes, upgrades, etc.
So, marketing something as Open isn't as dumb as it seems. It's the
reasonable thing to do. It doesn't mean that everyone has to do it. It
just means that there is more communication and interaction enabled by
doing it in the long run.
My ultimate point is, there are plenty of reasons that switching to
OpenOffice.org can cost a company *PLENTY* of money. So can upgrading to the
next version of MS Office - but keeping what we got ain't gonna cost us a
dime.
Being a prisoner is one thing. Making you pay usurious sums for your
chains is quite another.
Keeping Microsoft Office 97 doesn't cost a thing - assuming you've already
paid for it.
-Chad Smith
