On 10/18/05, Jonathon Blake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip great deal of information about resources used per office suite>
Still want to claim that OOo uses less resources? OOo uses a lot more resources - and it's slower. No questions there. It amazes me how open source promoters talk about MS Bloat, when MS Office is smaller, lighter, and faster than OOo. > [And for Chad, this comparison is fair, because the choice for SOHO is > staying on MSO97, or switching to something else, that is > perceived/known to be incompatible with MSO97. For that matter, it is > not unknown for organizations to standardize on software that the > software distributor has said are at, or past their end of life. ] I totally agree. As I pointed out in my illustration, my office had been using Mac OS 9/OS 8 up until three months ago. Mac had been telling people to switch to OS X since like 2000. What I think is unfair about comparing OOo to MSO 97 is when you talk about innovation or security features. OOo has had the benefit of 8 years of technology and creativity that MSO didn't have. I mean, this is the year 2005, and OOo doesn't have something as common as a Grammar checker - something WordPerfect had in 1993 - if not eariler. What's not fair is saying "Windows sucks!" "What sucks about it?" "It doesn't support multiple users!" "Yes it does - WIndows XP has great support for multiple users - and it has since 2001." "I'm talking about Windows 98!" "Well, if you use outdated software, you're gonna have outdated features." The absolute _worst_ thing that one can do, when marketing OOo, is > talk about money. More to the point, the fact that OOo is free, is > seen as a _major_ liability, and is a good selling point for why MSo > should be the replacements. for all practical purposes, TANSTAAFL is > engraved in the minds of every PHB who has to decide whether to buy > MSO, or OOo or any other software. I agree, to a certain extent. If you are marketing it to businesses (as this thread is discussing), then, you're right - don't bring up money. You get what you pay for is common thinking. And "What's the catch?". Discuss what you think are good things about OOo. It's inclusion of Draw. It's one-program-different-modes approach. It's safety from MSO viruses. ODF, (if you think that's a selling point.) Stuff like that If you can't think of anything good about OOo to say other than "It's free!" then you might want to volunteer somewhere other than the marketing department. That, or focus on marketing to college students whos concensus is bothering them about stealing software. -Chad Smith
