Microsoft posts video of customers criticizing OpenOffice

[lorddenis]

isnt this against the law ? if im not mistaking in the advertizment i see they arent aloved to say this product is better than the other...

Well tell that to Apple. Haven't they been making Microsoft operating systems look bad and theirs look good???

i live in a small country any news i get about technology is on here so basicly i dont know what apple does etc

 

[geeve420]

I use OO at home on all three machines and MS office at work. I have had no issues between the two. I can say if MS would lower the price I would switch. However if I can have an office suite on three machine for $0.00 and it does what we need it to do (My wife nor I are power users) then why would I spend $360.00 to have MS office on my desktop, her desktop and our laptop? Kinda steap to me, maybe a family pack of Office would make sence to me, 3 machines for one low price. MS has always made the Open source is crap argument, so this is not suprising!

 

[madtownidiot]

If that's the case it's purely the fault of microsoft for not making its' office file formats compatible with other software.. because they can't stand any competition

No, it is their software, they can do as they please with it.
They are not obligated to do anything.
It is up to Open Office to do more testing, which I can tell you they don't do enough, before releasing a new version to make sure they the compatibility they are trying to achieve and tout is there.

If I make a product that IS good and some one wants to create compatibility around it. I am not obligated in any way to accommodate them. That is their business.

Open Office would not have as much of a user base without the minimal compatibility that they do have right now. it is still up to them to create it using existing API's etc. otherwise, don't try.

This is not an MS issue, they have every right in the world to say no.
Just as you do, weather to use it or not.

Competition comes more from creating a better product, not from riding the backs and trying to emulate the competition off of their own product.

As an example, let's take Notepad and Notepad++.
Notepad++ is in competition with Notepad, but they did infact make it better.
They did not just try to emulate Notepad, they went beyond it.

Open Office doesn't even attempt to go beyond MS Office, Because they won't and/or can't.

Microsoft can't even stand the idea of competition. MSOffice is not a better product simply because Microsoft has created a near monopoly on office software. If it were a good product, sold solely by it's value & the merit of its features, they wouldn't need to create proprietary document formats. Instead it's preloaded on nearly every computer sold, with the customer having virtually no choice but to use it or do without

 

[Bootz]

Open Office wont cut it in the corporate world. Its just fine for personal use though.


One thing to understand here is that OO i believe is intended to be for primarily home use. Where as Microsoft office is more geared for a business environment. For the exception of Office basic maybe.

 

[SledgeDG]

MS has always made the Open source is crap argument

They can state that until they're blue in the face that doesn't make it true.
Alone the fact that Microsoft feels intimidated by open source programs contradicts their statement :roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

Just another empty CEO blubber. (blah blah)

Like I said before: for what I have to do in the office world (at home) OO is fully sufficient.
Who can't say that...well just go ahead and buy the MS-Suite.
It's just something everybody has to decide for themselves.

-DG

 

[geeve420]

MS has always made the Open source is crap argument

They can state that until they're blue in the face that doesn't make it true.
Alone the fact that Microsoft feels intimidated by open source programs contradicts their statement :roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

Just another empty CEO blubber. (blah blah)

Like I said before: for what I have to do in the office world (at home) OO is fully sufficient.
Who can't say that...well just go ahead and buy the MS-Suite.
It's just something everybody has to decide for themselves.

-DG

Couldn't agree more with you. Most of the software I use is open source. Does a fine job too and saves me some cash. Yeah some have issues, but I didn't pay for it so I can't really complain MS is scared as they should be, consumers are getting smarter everyday and realizing overpriced software can be replaced by a cheaper if not free alternitive. I have even done the donate via paypal to opensource program writers because I use the product alot, Pay what you can/feel it is worth is a scary option to big corporations......all of them.

 

[bobtran]

Anyone who says that OO is not good enough for the office environment is clearly judging the usefulness of a product by their own personal choices not fact. The real fact is that 95% or more of all documents produced in a typical office (even IT companies) are of the basic type where ".doc" or ".xls" will suffice and yes OO can be set to use these formats as their default since Microsoft refuses to recognize,incorporate or integrate ODF as a file format in Office. Instead of Paint how many of us are using Paint.NET, instead of Notepad how many are using Notepad++.

For the very few people who actually NEED MS office then there is no easy alternative, however if that 95%+ used OO then there would be no inconsistent conversion of important documents, so you could make the argument that Microsoft should be making their product to work with OO instead of the other way around.

Microsoft office is a choice not a natural law. There is ALWAYS a different way to accomplish the task without a specific product of you simply look. This is the essence of Information Technology and we all know it. Anything else is data entry.

 

[Layback Bear]

I use neither Office programs. I do wonder why corporation all over the world use Microsoft Office that comes with a healthy price. If a free Office program worked just as well and cost nothing those penny pinching corporation would use the free Office. Microsoft is in the business of creating programs for sale and they sell a lot of them. If I started a new business tomorrow I would choose Microsoft Office. That would allow me to do business with other businesses without jumping through hoops. Most people who would be hired have worked with M/S Office and are trained. Saving a ton of money and time. Loosing one sale or contract do to the translation between Open Office and Microsoft Office would cost many times more than the price of Microsoft Office. It's not worth taking the chance.

 

[bobtran]

And now you know why OO has such a small market. You just made the Microsoft case despite the fact that OO would probably do everything you need an office app to do. Couple that with the Student discounts, employee share programs, and just plain lack of knowledge about OO with the general Best Buy computer buyer and you can see why it hasn't taken off.
People are inherently lazy and do not want to invest the time and effort to learn a different way to do things than they have historically done...What was good enough in Win98 is good enough for Win7, especially when someone else maintains the pc.

 

[geeve420]

I use neither Office programs. I do wonder why corporation all over the world use Microsoft Office that comes with a healthy price. If a free Office program worked just as well and cost nothing those penny pinching corporation would use the free Office. Microsoft is in the business of creating programs for sale and they sell a lot of them. If I started a new business tomorrow I would choose Microsoft Office. That would allow me to do business with other businesses without jumping through hoops. Most people who would be hired have worked with M/S Office and are trained. Saving a ton of money and time. Loosing one sale or contract do to the translation between Open Office and Microsoft Office would cost many times more than the price of Microsoft Office. It's not worth taking the chance.

I know our company uses MS office simply because it is rolled into the cost of the OS for all the systems, they get a huge discount on it simply because of the shear volume of PC's they have. This was reaon given to me when I asked the head IT guy here. The savings after training on OO plus the price discount on MS Ofiice make it not worth the switch.

 

[mickey megabyte]

...
They would do better to offer free trials of Office.

Free trials of office.. haha, people would keep installing them over and over like they do Adobe products

try office 2010...

 

[Tepid]

I use neither Office programs. I do wonder why corporation all over the world use Microsoft Office that comes with a healthy price. If a free Office program worked just as well and cost nothing those penny pinching corporation would use the free Office. Microsoft is in the business of creating programs for sale and they sell a lot of them. If I started a new business tomorrow I would choose Microsoft Office. That would allow me to do business with other businesses without jumping through hoops. Most people who would be hired have worked with M/S Office and are trained. Saving a ton of money and time. Loosing one sale or contract do to the translation between Open Office and Microsoft Office would cost many times more than the price of Microsoft Office. It's not worth taking the chance.

I know our company uses MS office simply because it is rolled into the cost of the OS for all the systems, they get a huge discount on it simply because of the shear volume of PC's they have. This was reaon given to me when I asked the head IT guy here. The savings after training on OO plus the price discount on MS Ofiice make it not worth the switch.

It is not just all of that, it really has more to do with compatibility issues as well as robustness.

OO just does not offer what MS Office does in the corporate or small business world.
They can not compete. Not because they are being shut out, but because the product just isn't there to compete. If they put more time and effort into it, maybe.

The compatibility issues are no small thing for people who share many documents in-which they need to edit and send back and forth. OO causes corruption to files.

 

[madtownidiot]

...
They would do better to offer free trials of Office.

Free trials of office.. haha, people would keep installing them over and over like they do Adobe products

try office 2010...

If you know where to look, it's pretty easy to reinstall free trials of almost anything over and over again... shhhhh.... lol

 

[Benjamin Hall]

If you know how to backup your registry before installing the program, clear it after the uninstallation, and merge your old registry back in, you're set. I did that with my Adobe CS5 products before I finally bought them.

 

[beauparc]

It seems that I am different to everyone else who has posted on this thread, in that I use Wordperfect Office and have done so ever since it came out on a floppy disk all those years ago. It may not be as good as MS Office but it suits me and I am comfortable using it.

I can never understand why Microsoft, having sold sufficient numbers of Office 2010 to recoup their developement costs, don't start selling Office 2007 for a minimal amount. Any money they make is pure profit and using 2007 might well tempt someone into buying the newer version.

Games manufacturers do this all the time. I've just bought the original Assassin's Creed (£5) to see if I liked it. I do and will now go and buy the later version. Multiply my £5 by all the others who have done the same thing and there's the profit.

I fear that Microsoft's reputation for charging as much as possible for their products may well be working against them.

 

[Benjamin Hall]

If you're comfortable using it, then go for it!

EDIT: I agree, much of their products are very well expensive, which is why they battle piracy issues so much.

 

[Tepid]

I can never understand why Microsoft, having sold sufficient numbers of Office 2010 to recoup their developement costs, don't start selling Office 2007 for a minimal amount. Any money they make is pure profit and using 2007 might well tempt someone into buying the newer version.

Games manufacturers do this all the time. I've just bought the original Assassin's Creed (£5) to see if I liked it. I do and will now go and buy the later version. Multiply my £5 by all the others who have done the same thing and there's the profit.

I fear that Microsoft's reputation for charging as much as possible for their products may well be working against them.

The reason for this is as follows.........

MS are not stopping at the end of development of a single product, such as many Game Devs do.
The ones that have multiple "chapters" are not the same.
They create a product and they sell as many as they can for a short time, they know that at some point, sales of a game are going to drop off because there just isn't that kind of demand for all games, even on the really big selling titles, they only sell a finite number of each release. They make enough off of each of those releases to balance out there long term plans for a series, which is finite. And they are not the ones cutting the price on the product. The sellers/stores are.

MS are developing for a single Product, so yes, they make a lot of profit, but a lot of that profit does in fact go back in the R&D of that line as well as others.

Games, The stores are the ones selling them that cheap to either recoup the costs or just get them off their shelves or out of storage and clear room for the next title.

It is an Apple Juice and Apple Crisp scenario, they may fall under the category of Apples, but they are not the same.

 

[madtownidiot]

Basically, Microsoft never drops its prices because there's a relatively steady demand for their products. They budget several months or years into the future based on projected sales, much the way other large corporations do. However, having virtually no competition means Microsoft doesn't have to plan for the same kind of large scale fluctuations in sales that are seen with other markets, and therefore need a much lower percentage of liquid assets than other companies in order to remain operational. Chances are anything that could reduce Microsoft's market share by even 5% would be a serious threat to them. And If something were to permanently reduce microsoft's sales of office products by 40%, I would be surprised if it didn't put them in serious financial trouble. That is the reason they make videos of people criticizing a product like open office. Enough said on the subject.