Why OpenOffice is not being used by corporations?

[dnguyen1963]

I just had a discussion with a co-worker about MS Office vs OpenOffice. It is obvious that MS Office costs an arm and a leg (probably a lot more) for any corporation to have; whereas, OpenOffice is free. Are there any legal implications to why corporations are not adapting OpenOffice in their work environments? Personally, I love OpenOffice and have not used MS Office for many years.

[0per4t0r]

I think that Microsoft is paying businesses to buy their products. Also, most businesses use Windows because it's endorsed so much, and corporations are being told to beware of freeware for some reason.

[LowSky]

this dicusion should be in the Cafe not ABT

the best reason, Macros.

the other reasons, training employees to use, trying to import MS Office documents sometimes goes poorly, sometimes the word free is considered cheap and not as good as something that cost money.

[superprash2003]

you spoke my mind , i too think openoffice is good enough..

[Jojan]

This is an interesting discussion.

Mainly it might be because they want to have someone to blame, there's no warranty in GPL.It might be that they just don't know that there's an alternative to MS Office. Or that the ones who have to work with it "don't know" how to use OpenOffice, but they know MS Office.

I've found that most people are just lazy and don't like to do alot. So if it comes with Windows and have Microsoft Office people just take it.

Is mainly the same arguments of why people pay alot for a Microsoft OS and not a free one based on GNU and Linux.

[binbash]

It is slow, especially at presentations.Also there is another reason : Macros

[cariboo]

Moved to the Community Cafe

[Maheriano]

I've pushed for it a lot at the company I work for and these are the reasons it continually gets shut down:
- no macros
- no Access database equivalent
- no Exchange equivalent that works with a BES

If it had these things, we would likely use it.

[hanzomon4]

What about Koffice?

[JK3mp]

Alot of bigger corporations just get it in a package with there computer systems. And alotof system admins are more comforatable with Microsoft based products. (I've met alot who never touched linux after schooling, and don't plan too, quite sad actually... ) . In turn there's also the same reason they all use WIndows XP/ Vista etc... instead of linux. Its all the same question, there more comfortable with it, and there's warranty's/backups. Plus there are those few KEY features as someone mentioned above that OpenOffice lacks, the better question should be why are not many home users using it... . I mean, a corporation, okay... they can dish it out. But people going out and paying 170 for it so they can write there school book reports? That i don't understand.