[ubuntu-uk] MS vs. OO

[Glen Mehn]

  On 16/09/2010 23:31, David King wrote:
> Alan Pope wrote:
>> On 15 September 2010 09:10, Mark Harrison<Mark at ascentium.co.uk>  wrote:
>>
>>> 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 :-(
>>>
>> I once made the mistake of saying on a LUG mailing list "I have to use
>> Microsoft office at work" at which point it was pointed out that I
>> didn't have to work for that company by one of the members of the
>> list. This is of course true, and for some people it is indeed
>> possible and desirable to make a career choice based only on whether
>> they get to use free software all day or not. An example of such a
>> person would be Bradley Kuhn. Personally that's not a choice I'm going
>> to make because I'm a pragmatist, and the software I use on a daily
>> basis is only part of the decision making process.
>>
>> Unfortunately OpenOffice.org is incompatible with the systems we use
>> at work every day. This frustrates me, but that frustration is
>> tempered with the knowledge that we have hundreds of quite chunky
>> boxes powering the Enterprise that are all running Linux :D
>>
> I too have to use MS Office 2007 at work. We used to use MS Office 2003
> which was quite good, but 2007 is really lousy to use, with a terrible
> ribbon interface and it seems quite a few bugs.
>
> I would much prefer to use OpenOffice.org at work, or other high quality
> software.
>
> A friend of mine recently bought an Apple Mac, which came with MS Office
> 2008. Compared to the Windows version 2007, the Mac version is
> fantastic. It has menus, a toolbar and a floating palette like a DTP
> program. This Mac version of Office is definitely a well-designed
> program, and something that the Linux community should be looking to
> emulate.
>
> I hope that future software will NOT have stupid ribbon interfaces, but
> will continue to have sensible menus and palettes that help people to be
> more productive.
>
> Where I work, the switch to Office 2007 has seriously reduced
> productivity. The only plus side to this is that I have been getting
> more overtime (and thus more pay). But it really has caused a lot of
> headaches. I really wish that OpenOffice.org was up to the task of doing
> what MS Office can do (in relation to what we need to where I work,
> which does not include mailmerge, but does include a lot of page
> layouts, complicated financial charts and lots of complicated nested
> tables).
>
> At least I know that the company does use Linux, at least for its file
> servers, but we have Windows XP on the desktop. I expect they could
> change everything to either Linux or Mac, but within a large
> organisation getting everyone retrained is expensive and time-consuming,
> although they have wasted a lot on changing to Office 2007.
>
> But I do believe that for startups and small companies, using OpenOffice
> is probably the best option for an office suite rather than any MS
> software (as well as Linux on the desktop instead of Windows).
Hmmm.. Much as I am an enormous free software advocate (linux user since 
1993, professionally since 1998), I have to disagree with you here. The 
answer is, unfortunately, "It depends on what you're doing".

This below is all my 2p.

Office software is a large, complicated beast, that's used by everyone 
from programmers to office admins to statisticians. The Ribbon interface 
is a choice, which does some things well and other things poorly. I know 
the OOO interface team is looking at the pros and cons of a ribbon type 
interface. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you understand 
how it works (and where all the functionality is), it can make things 
clearer-- particularly for the new user.

I personally think OOO and MSO have their own pros and cons-- this comes 
from working for 12 years as an IT and business consultant on strategy 
and ops work, and using unix based tools (I'm VI over emacs, for 
instance), but in the last 5 years making extensive use of both sets of 
office products.

Word wins out over Writer, I think, for the following reasons:
- Track Changes is just easier to use.
- Comments make more sense-- you highlight a section to comment, rather 
than picking a point, so when there's a long comment or a tricky bit of 
comprehension, it helps. A lot. Especially when you're 
co-writing/editing a 50pp+ document with people speaking different 
languages in six timezones.
- Writer's styles & formatting is just inconsistent. Sometimes styles 
get applied, sometimes they don't. Sometimes styles change (revert to 
default) between iterations of the same document on the same OS on the 
same install of OOO.

Excel and Calc are closer, though I think Excel still has a slight edge
- Pivot tables support pivot charts and more data types
- Excel has more keyboard shortcuts (think: ctrl-d/ctrl-r to fill 
down/right), although they're hiding both of these
- Slightly better/more user friendly interface for things like the Solver
- Calc has better add-in support, but fewer add-ins...
- Calc has a *much* better ODBC interface, unless you're using SQL 
server on the back-end...

Gnumeric kicks Excel up and down the street, if for no other reason than 
for having support for Monte Carlo simulations and other advanced stats 
support built-in.

Base tosses Access down the road and out the corner, quite frankly, but 
I don't know who really uses that.

Powerpoint is really 10 years ahead of Impress. More default icons and 
images. Faster with large (>100MB) presentations. More image 
manipulation tools. SmartArt. More and better templates. That being 
said, the OOO UI team is on Impress first of all.

I think there's been a lot of frustration with the Ribbon, and it's 
understandable. MS has rejiggered the Ribbon in 2010, and I must say, 
it's a lot better, but it's still a fundamental shift. For me, 
personally, the Mac 2008 MSO interface, with its floating menus and 
whatnot is a complete nightmare. Everything seems really cluttered and 
nonsensical items are put together, and I can't find what I need, ever. 
I think it's important to recognise the power of the default choice-- 
which is what we already know.

All that being said, however, OOO is a fantastic product, especially at 
the price. If you're using Alfresco, for instance, it Just Makes Sense. 
Ditto Sharepoint and MSO.

Anyway. My 2p, as a pretty heavy technical and nontechnical user of both 
sets of products, whose heart is with OOO (and I've installed and 
trained a couple of hundred users on it-- from Brixton to Zambia-- but 
sometimes, when I just want to Get Things Done, end up with MSO.

Best,

Glen

-- 
Glen Mehn
e: glen.mehn at oba.co.uk | t: @gmehn
m: +44 7942 675 755 | w: http://glen.mehn.net
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