basic - continued

[Tero Pesonen]

On Sat, 2010-02-06 at 16:53 +0000, Chris Jones wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> >> Nothing is stopping you buying a newer version of MS office...
> > 
> > Yes, something is: The ICT administration.
> 
> Thats a company discussion, nothing to do with MS per se. So as such it
>  is not fair to factor it into such a purely technical feature-set
>  comparison of two products.

In the real world, there are no such comparisons as "purely feature set
comparisons." 

> > In my case, as in many others, that was the only comparison possible.
> > The admin will either give me a laptop with WinXP and Office 2003, or
> > one with Ubuntu. So, how is this comparison unfair? Office 2003 is not
> > obsolete. It is supported by MS (though I do not know for how long
> > still). The last SP for it was released in 2007. Unlike home users,
> > enterprises do not upgrade Office every year.
> 
> As I tried to explain, it depends on what sort of comparison you wish
>  to make. If you want to make a purely technical comparison on the
>  feature sets of MS office and OO, it is only fair to compare
>  comparable vintage products, like take the most recent of each.

But that kind of comparison is irrelevant for deciding which is a better
choice/product etc. Only real options are meaningful, not theoretical
ones.  

> I don't know why your company admin force office 2003 on you. Maybe its
>  because you company doesn't wish to pay for the upgrade to a new one,

Perhaps the licensing terms that have been agreed on with MS dictate
when the new version becomes available and for which price per seat.

>  since 2003 doesn't everything you want. 

it would do all I need. But it does all that worse than the latest OOo,
which is available as an alternative.

> In which case I go back to my
>  original point which is you are making a cost based comparison, and
>  not a technical one.

I am making a comparison on all the affecting factors. Which were: WinXP
and Office 2003 or Ubuntu 9.04 and the latest OOo. I went for the
latter.

> Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that OO beats MS in many ways, but
>  if you are going to make comparisons that convince people, they have
>  to be fair, and IMO the comparison made that started this discussion
>  is not the right one to make.

The OP's comparison was a real-world comparison, like mine. I personally
am not trying to convince anyone on anything. People on this list are
well qualified to pick their productivity applications, from
Latex-on-Vim to Gnumeric or Abiword or Word Perfect and Paradox on Wine,
or what not. 

Thanks for your comments,
Tero Pesonen

-- 
tero-at-tpesonen.net
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