[ubuntu-uk] MS vs. OO

[Yorvyk]

On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 09:10:46 +0100
Mark Harrison <Mark at ascentium.co.uk> wrote:

> > From: Jacob Mansfield <cyberjacob at gmail.com>
> > of corse you can do it in OO, why the f**k would you want to use M$
> 
> 
> Couple of things:
> 
> 1: I've not used MS Office for about 5 years now, however the one time I
> needed to was in 2007 for a really complex mailmerge, which is one area
> where MSO is still better than OOo :-(
> 
> There are lots of areas where OOo is genuinely better, in terms of
> functionality, as well as being free (in the cash sense). Actually, it's not
> quite Free in the OpenSource sense, if you read the Sun licence carefully
> :-)
> 
> 
> 2: I'm not sure you CAN do this in OOo - ie, create a link in a spreadsheet
> that then creates a pre-populated document in Writer. This wasn't a question
> about mailmerge, but about how to achieve a particular task. To be fair, I
> don't think that mailmerge in MSO is the right answer either, but given the
> user in question feels that mailmerge is too complex, I'm guessing that
> telling them that it needs about 20 lines of VBA macros probably isn't going
> to work either :-)
> 
> 
> 3: If you asked a question about OOo, and someone replied "MSO can do this,
> why the f*** would you use OpenOffice instead", would you:
> 
> A: Feel that the respondent had a good point, and you should go out and try
> MS Office.
> 
> B: Feel that the respondent was a jerk, and that you wanted to steer clear
> of the kinds of things he was recommending.
> 
> 
> 
> The reason I bring this up is that I had a meeting with the IT Director of a
> FTSE 100 company a couple of years ago, and that one of the things that came
> up was OpenOffice as a possible replacement for MSO.
> 
> The reply I got was "This is like Linux. I'm fed up of Linux people. They
> come in and want to have a religious conversation. I want to have a business
> conversation."
> 

> 

> This over-the-top, "why the f**** would you" stuff is actually DRIVING
> PEOPLE AWAY FROM LINUX.
> 
> 
> If I ran for Microsoft's Dirty Tricks Division, then I'd pay people to join
> LUG lists and post nasty comments about MS to make people feel that the
> Linux community were nutters :-)
> 
> 
> So, thanks for harming the spread of Free software.
> 
> 
Negative publicity is still publicity, panning somebody else’s product rarely works.  I’m (nearly :)  always very careful about the claims I make about what OOo can do.  It is not a drop in replacement for Office.


-- 
Steve Cook (Yorvyk)

http://lubuntu.net