NZ Outfit Dumps Open Office For MS Office 581
(Score.5, Interestin writes "The NZ Automobile Association has just announced that it is dropping Open Office and switching back to MS Office. According to their CIO, 'Microsoft Office is not any cheaper, but it was almost impossible to work out what open-source was actually costing because of issues such as incompatibility and training.' In addition, 'you have no idea where open-source products are going, whereas vendors like Microsoft provide a roadmap for the future.'" About 500 seats are involved. MS conceded to letting Office users run the software at home as well.
Sniff, sniff... (Score:2, Informative)
no roadmap? (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps someone should send them this: Open Office Roadmap [openoffice.org]
I don't think it could be any more clear or easier to find....
I mentioned this last time... (Score:4, Informative)
When OpenOffice can step up its interface, design, compatibility, and market share, then we might have something to talk about. But as we sit right now, Microsoft Office is the only game in town that does what it does.
It only helps Microsoft to build products on top of Office, like Sharepoint, Project, etc... because they leverage an already existing knowledge of the UI and functionality. Office 2007 is a drastic departure from prior versions, but as I have been using it since the RTM date, it's been rock solid and I'm exceptionally pleased at how much more intelligent it has gotten, in particular with Excel and figuring out what I want to do, or in Word with how I'm formatting a document.
I still am hoping for a kickass version of OpenOffice though, just so that Microsoft doesn't rest on its laurels. Office 2007 indicates that they did anything but, and the polish of that product is something that I'm very surprised by, especially by Microsoft. Kudos to them for this round.
You mean MS Office is generally better than OO? (Score:5, Informative)
I like Openoffice, and I appreciate everything they're doing.
On the other hand, if I could buy MS Office for Linux, I would. It really is just better.
For all that OO tries, it just isn't as compatible with MS Office formats as it needs to be for me to use it. I always have formatting errors with word documents, sometimes I have entire excel spreadsheets that are useless, and I just can't have that.
I have MS office on my powerbook, and I use that for the documents that OO can't handle. I produce the vast majority of documents on there too. If I had Office on Linux, I would use it instead, but I don't.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Informative)
Re:wait wait (Score:3, Informative)
They gave the company another 500 seats for free
Though I wonder just what this company is thinking if their idea of "maintaining" a website involves only Office and Word.
Some valid points. (Score:5, Informative)
Doug Wilson is the Chief Information Officer, The New Zealand Automobile Association Incorporated
Since then he has been the CEO of a PC company (Gateway) and APL+, a software development company that was a Provenco subsidiary. He has also had senior roles at Microsoft [tuanz.org.nz] and EDS.
Doug is currently the CIO of the NZ Automobile Association, a new role that was created last year.
Re:Sniff, sniff... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:no roadmap? (Score:5, Informative)
With a Free Software project, anyone with some money can set part of the roadmap. Need a feature? Pay one of the developers to implement it. With a proprietary product, you need to be one of the biggest customers to have any input into the roadmap, and 500 seats doesn't cut it. Assuming they are paying $100/seat (they must be getting a fairly sizeable discount), that's $50,000, which buys a fair amount of developer time on something like OpenOffice.org.
Re:Sniff, sniff... (Score:5, Informative)
let's not forget (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sniff, sniff... (Score:0, Informative)
Re:Sharepoint (Score:2, Informative)
While there may not be any one product in open sourc e that does everything SharePoint does in one package, one could definitely do it with multiple products.
Also, SharePoint - like most MS products - is a total buyin to the Microsoft mindset. If you try to do anything that is drastically "out of the box", you're going to get burned. There's very little developer documentation worth anything, and MS support is flaky.
Go figure.
Re:Sniff, sniff... (Score:3, Informative)
Now, I just got that from a Google search, so I'm not sure about the quality of the videos, but it should be enough to get most "typical" users over the superficial differences between Microsoft Office and Open Office.
Re:Different/Better/Worse? (Score:2, Informative)
If you have MS Office documents that can't be read by OO, then what good is OO to you ? So, yes, for some people "Open Office isn't as good because it doesn't do [something] the way MS Office does it" is a serious issue. OO might be better, just not for you.
So, better/worse is a relative term depending on your needs. Is a Ferrari better then a truck ? Not if you live in a farm.
What OO has to do is to learn from these cases and make a better product. I live in Brasil and think the brazilian government should throw a couple dozen developers in OO to fix the most serious bugs, then standardize the document format to ODF and the Office suite to OO. Heck, the government should have it's own Linux distro, train all the support teams on it and deploy it to thousands of workstations, saving literally billions in licence fees.
Re:Sniff, sniff... (Score:2, Informative)
Did you see if any of the 199,000,000 search results you came up with offered in house training in New Zealand? Too lazy or incompetent to wade through it all?
Re:wait wait (Score:1, Informative)
1. Select the object to give a motion path to
2. Choose Slide Show - Custom Animation, click Add
3. Go to the "Motion Paths" tab
Re:wait wait (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sharepoint (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sniff, sniff... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sniff, sniff... (Score:3, Informative)
I wholeheartedly disagree...
Which it does pretty decently. Compatibility with the next release of MS Office is a moot point (as I also touch on in the third section below) especially when no one knows when the next release will be out. This same compatibility is an issue with every new release of MS Office - so how is that any different? Go open an Office 2007 document in Office 2000 or Word 98 or any previous version. Sure, you can save the document in Office 2007 using an older format - but the same capabilities exist in OO. Thus, moot point.
MS is NOT a standard. A standard does not change every release. MS creates a new "standard" to drive their upgrade market with each release. That's not a standard - that's driving a market upgrade cycle. There is a big difference.
Microsoft has NEVER provided a roadmap for ANYTHING. They have provided sometimes vague promises, sometimes very detailed promises that they continually break. Their broken promises include every area of software expectations from functionality (like Vista and its lack of many promised features) to delivery dates (like virtually every MS product in the last 10 years). That is NOT a roadmap. That's announcing vapourware. The Open-Source community is a lot more likely (and a lot more apt to) live up to the roadmaps they outline for future software development of most major products, most especially including OpenOffice.
So, the person quoted is basing his decision off promises that will in all probability be broken both in terms of functionality, interoperability, release schedule, compatibility and the need for re-training. All of which are much lesser issues for OO.
See above.
I've already touched on the "incompatibility" issues... so, lets dive into the training one. Anyone with any training experience (ie: anyone who should be in a position at a company to train employees on software) should easily be able to "learn" and train people on OpenOffice. When a new version comes out, the learning curve for that trainer should be minimal to allow that trainer to disseminate that information to the other employees. Please tell me how the massive changes to Office 2007 are easier in terms of training? And what added benefit offsets that? The added cost of the software? The incompatibility with older versions - that now have to be upgraded as well?
Any "trainer" who has the ability to learn the differences, and thus train people on them, for going from an earlier version of Office to Office 2007 should easily be able to take up the task of training someone on OpenOffice - current, past and future versions.
I tend to agree with the GP poster that some sort of kickback was offered. One was already indicated in the article (the allowance of copies of Office to be run dual location at no additional cost). I'd speculate there were others. This seems more like a publicity piece for MS showing that open-source software isnt worth it - all based off erroneous and downright idiotic claims (of compatibility, delivery roadmaps, functionality roadmaps, availability of people to train, and training costs).
Microsoft's Home Use Program (Score:4, Informative)
There is nothing new in this.
Employees can get a licensed copy of Microsoft Office desktop applications, such as Microsoft Office Professional, Microsoft Project, and Microsoft Visio Professional, to install and use on a home computer. The only cost to employees for the Home Use Program benefit is the cost of media (CDs), shipping, and handling. Volume Licensing: Home Use Program [microsoft.com]
Employees are encouraged to discontinue use of the software on termination of their employment, but there has never been a mechanism in place to enforce the rules.
If you work for the NHS you can order Office 2007 on-line for a S&H cost of eighteen pounds, Microsoft Home User Programme [microsoft.com]
Re:no roadmap? (Score:1, Informative)
Except with OpenOffice, the only developers who can commit are at Sun. And, paying Sun's consulting rates to get a feature in OO probably outweighs any volume licensing deal for Office. ($50k at $250/hr only gets you 200 hours, just enough time to get the specs right)
Now, maybe if they wanted a feature added to vi or Emacs this would work... Oh wait, RMS doesn't believe in taking money for development... guess that leaves Vi as the only real choice.
Re:Sharepoint (Score:1, Informative)
Sharepoint is not a new product. From what I can tell there are a few different versions and it can be somewhat confusing to differentiate between them. But the basic ones are Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) 2.0 and 3.0. These are both free and can be installed (and upgraded to 3.0) as an optional component of Windows Server 2003. There is also Sharepoint Portal Server (SPS) 2003, which I believe has been replaced by Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS) 2007.
Once you get past all the different versions, installing sharepoint is very easy. I installed WSS 2.0, upgraded to 3.0, and installed MOSS 2007 on top of that. Once you have it installed, you can connect to the administrative site and create sites/workspaces. It is very customizable, but if you are just using it for basic features (which in my case involves asset tracking, tasks, calendars, document management, etc) it isn't that difficult. If by "get setup and running", you mean actually getting a webpage up and running, then it is not hard at all.
If one expects it to provide all services for an enterprise, it can become daunting. But what do you expect for a product that provide so many features?
Re:Sniff, sniff... (Score:3, Informative)
And from this point, We can see how many other places have done similar things with similar results. So it is now like you telling your friends to act like you won't buy it until they give you the deal you want. They don't intent to go elsewhere either, they just intend on getting a deal.
Re: Sharepoint (Score:3, Informative)
If you use Gnome, however, any Gnome program will access WebDAV for you without having to do anything particular, because of libgnome-vfs. Just browse to dav://somewhere.net/ in Nautilus (or davs:// for HTTPS). If your DAV server supports Content-Type properly, it'll open everything in the right program (if it doesn't support Content-Type, it may or may not open in the right program, but it doesn't necessarily get it wrong). I'd be surprised if KDE doesn't have something very much like it, but I don't know.
Btw., OSX has built in support for WebDAV without having to install anything. Just choose "connect to server" in Finder's menu and type in any DAV-compliant HTTP URL.
DAV client support in Windows sucks, though. I don't know -- surely Windows has to have some kind of VFS layer, so how comes Microsoft doesn't implement DAV using it instead of their current half-assed solution?
OpenOffice has DAV support for any platform, though.
Re: DAV in windows... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sniff, sniff... (Score:3, Informative)
You are wrong.
All of Windows 95/98's READMEs were in
Re:no roadmap? (Score:3, Informative)
The `Free' in `Free Software' is quite uncorrelated to `free as in free beer' freeness.
On the other hand, it is directly related to the fact that you can pay a developer to add the feature you want.
That you find something laughable in what you quote only shows that you do not understand what you are talking about.