re: 15 Customers Who Switched to Microsoft Office After Evaluating OpenOffice.org

Sid Krasinski — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:38:33 GMT

The arguments in this article contained little substance. It seemed that there was more emphasis on "trashing the other guy" than anything else. That video you have there has ~7000 negative votes and ~500 positive votes as of today. You can attack the weaknesses of OO while not being a douchebag, but all you've managed to convince me of is that "arguments" against open source are still pretty seedy, slimy, and manipulative. If you need to use underhanded tactics to "argue" your point, you really don't have an argument at all.

By the way, if you're ever going to make some seriously heavy-duty documents, you shouldn't be using Word, or OO at all for that matter. Latex has always been used for the hardcore stuff, with much better compatability.

re: 15 Customers Who Switched to Microsoft Office After Evaluating OpenOffice.org

Graham Lauder — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:31:59 GMT

@ Raymond: I think that both sides of the divide have to suffer a little from their zealots. :) However the proof is in the pudding, I would suggest, is in the recent attacks on OOo by MS. As Ghandi said:

First they ignore you

Then they laugh at you

Then they attack you

Then You win.

It's good to see we're at the attack phase. I'm one of the OOo marketing team and we wish against wish that we had an MS size marketing budget. (I think John McCreesh, the former lead of the OOo marketing project, was once asked what sort of budget we had, He replied "I think we have 25 cents in a paypal account somewhere." Of course He was overstating things somewhat and our communities donations allow us a small Marketing budget, of course it's microscopic compared to MS. However we have still managed a significant enough impact to get the Steve's attention, and yours obviously.

Of course, as you point out, we could counter all of your case studies with opposing case studies. But here's the thing, one of the best things about OOo that you prove here, is the customer's ability to change. The exit cost for OOo is minimal, whereas MS Office ties the client into a huge exit cost. OOo and LibreOffice and Go-oo.org are all about choice. In the market, of course some, who can afford it,. are going to choose MS and good luck to them, that's what makes marketing so interesting.

Here's to an interesting future, perhaps we'll see you at an OOo conference sometime, as the name says the door is always open and this debate face to face would be a blast! :)