Subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: Is the Linux desktop really here ?
From: Rob (lau_AT_kudla.org)
Date: Mon Dec 08 2003 - 20:27:44 EET
On Monday 08 December 2003 12:04, Mark Knecht wrote:
> As someone who runs a business, why would I want to pay
> someone $600 to fix 10 documents when I can buy Microsoft's
> tools for $300 and have guaranteed compatibility?
Oh, I don't think you'll find Microsoft guarantees any such
thing. ;)
Seriously though.... It's a game of percentages. When StarOffice
5.2 was around, it was okay for maybe 5% of Word/Excel users.
With OpenOffice 1.1 I have yet to meet a user in real life (I've
heard lots of accounts like your own on the net and I believe
you, but in business I gotta rely on the experiences of those
who pay me) who's unable to use it for basically everything for
which they used Word/Excel previously. So I'm going to go out
on a limb and say that number is a lot larger than 5% now, and
is growing with each release even if the market share's a lot
slower due to the primary marketing being word of mouth. I'm
surprised the low end PC makers aren't already preloading it in
lieu of MS Works or WP Office, but I bet they do sooner or
later.
I always recommend to people to keep one PC with Word and Excel
on it in each department "just in case", or when dealing with
customers who send documents that cause problems. Generally
speaking, those PC's are remaining unused, but it'll be a while
before I stop that recommendation. Crossover Office is great
not only for that stuff, but for running a certain subset of
internally created VB apps that seem to crop up in every medium
to large organization. Usually, though, the org has a ton of
Windows licenses around and can just spare one for that one box.
But the long term solution is going to involve OpenOffice, and
eventually the people with huge Excel macros that won't run in
anything else will wind up like the people who had all those
huge WordPerfect macros that wouldn't run in anything else...
keeping Excel around on a few machines as a legacy app because
the rest of the world moved off of it. Some companies (law firms
in particular) still have machines running DOS and WP51, some
have migrated their macros to newer WP Office versions, and some
have bit the bullet and ported to something else, and not always
Word. If you remember, Lotus 1-2-3 was the same back in the
day; I saw a distressing number of real core business apps
implemented as Lotus macros and when they broke, boy, they
really broke. Those who'd move from VBA-scripted apps to
OpenOffice have an additional incentive to do so in that the
OpenOffice guys are dying to get their hands on Word and Excel
macros that won't work in OpenOffice, so instead of paying
someone 600 bucks it may be possible (in less sensitive
instances) to send your sheets off and check back when the next
version comes out to see whether they run.
Anyway, Gnumeric is a nice program too, and has had the
distinction of being able to open a few corrupted sheets that
neither Excel nor OpenOffice would touch, and then saving them
back out again all repaired. I think it belongs in everyone's
toolkit for just that reason even though I think OpenOffice gets
the "most likely to succeed" plaque.
None of which lets my Windows and Mac loving friends get
CEP/Audition, Cakewalk or Protools working under Linux, but if
you can get an avalanche going, a few pebbles will usually get
pulled along with it ;)
Rob
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Mon Dec 08 2003 - 20:34:12 EET