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dnguyen1963
May 29th, 2009, 05:15 PM
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
May 29th, 2009, 05:18 PM
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
May 29th, 2009, 05:21 PM
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
May 29th, 2009, 05:22 PM
you spoke my mind , i too think openoffice is good enough..

Jojan
May 29th, 2009, 05:27 PM
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
May 29th, 2009, 05:27 PM
It is slow, especially at presentations.Also there is another reason : Macros

cariboo
May 29th, 2009, 05:40 PM
Moved to the Community Cafe

Maheriano
May 29th, 2009, 05:41 PM
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
May 29th, 2009, 05:43 PM
What about Koffice?

JK3mp
May 29th, 2009, 05:47 PM
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.

GeneralZod
May 29th, 2009, 05:51 PM
What about Koffice?

KOffice 1.x is mostly unmaintained; KOffice 2.0.0 is not ready for the enterprise; no paid developers (unlike OO.o, which has plenty); very little interest in working with Microsoft's proprietary formats.

OffHand
May 29th, 2009, 05:56 PM
Outlook :S

monsterstack
May 29th, 2009, 05:57 PM
Microsoft's business products are all very tightly-integrated. They've made it so that by changing your office suite, a business will most likely have to change most of their other software as well. Add in the fact that Office has been a de facto standard in business for many years, and that businesses are locked-in to the accompanying formats, it means compatibility is also an issue.

sonicb00m
May 29th, 2009, 06:00 PM
People just don't know any better. My boss came to me and said "i've just got this microsoft office package while i was in the states, can we use it?"

I just laughed and said all the computers here run OpenOffice and it's free, why the hell would we want to pay for user licences for that?

He just had no clue.

Today a colleague of mine came to asking if I knew where the windows driver disc was for one of the PCs he was reinstalling cos it had been hit hard with spyware. I told him to install linux on it and he laughed and said "that's so you to say". I said it was because i've had linux on my pc there for 2 years without having to reinstall it because of spyware and then waste the whole day not finding drivers for the computer.

Biochem
May 29th, 2009, 07:09 PM
Don't forget that big corporation moves very slowly. A lot of them are still using IE6 and Office 2003. In that respect they are unlikely to change to a completely different software even if it means saving a few buks. Smaller companies that are more flexible then wants to make business with the big boy. Sadly that means being compatible with them and that often translate to using the same software.

Resulting in the actual stand still situation.

What will make it change is those governments who are responsible to keep archived records that are realizing that proprietary file format will be a problem in the future and are starting to require open formats.

drawkcab
May 29th, 2009, 07:35 PM
OO doc writer is pretty solid and serves the purpose for 99.9% of what I need to do with it. The rest of the office suite is pretty shaky though. For example, in Office 2007 powerpoint has some really nice features for slide presentations that I need. I wouldn't pay for it myself, but since my organization made it available to me, I prefer to use it.

dnguyen1963
May 29th, 2009, 07:40 PM
Thanks for all the replies. Beside some logistics, technical issues seem to revolve around the lack of macros and inability to link to Outlook. Are these issues being looked at by the folks at OpenOffice?

mxboy15u
May 29th, 2009, 07:42 PM
Google Docs or an equivalant will take over long before Open Office ever does. IBM's Symphony is pretty excellent too.

burvowski
May 29th, 2009, 07:44 PM
what are macros? why are they important in business? why doesnt OO have them?

mamamia88
May 29th, 2009, 07:46 PM
they get it at a discount when they buy mass liscneses

hatten
May 29th, 2009, 07:50 PM
Vim > OOo > ms office
It is just that nobody understands that...

amitabhishek
May 29th, 2009, 08:54 PM
I don't know about the world but in India I have seen lots and lots of companies use OOo. This is more true for junior and middle management. When I was working for this particular bank (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/hdfc-bank-bets-its-money-on-suns-open-office/76139/) I used OOo for 3 years. That was way back in 2003-2005. Also some info. is here (http://www.solidoffice.com/openoffice/nyc).

RiceMonster
May 29th, 2009, 09:01 PM
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.

How are they making profit then? Enough conspiracy theories.


Vim > OOo > ms office
It is just that nobody understands that...

Uhhh.... I use MS Office at work, and I'm pretty sure vim can't replace it. Not even close. I'm even saying this as someone who uses Vim pretty much everyday. It's for editing source/configs, not writting documents, making spreadsheets, etc

happysmileman
May 29th, 2009, 09:04 PM
A lot of the time it's ignorance.
A lot of the time companies simply prefer to fork out the cash (they probably get discounts that you and I would never see) rather than have their employees get used to new software.
The rest of the time the companies may have specific requirements that OO.o can't fill yet.

andrewabc
May 29th, 2009, 09:06 PM
Why don't corporations use openoffice?

It is simple.

1. Create a new spreadsheet.
2. input text or anything into cell A1
3. copy cell A1 (ctrl+c)
4. double click on any cell. Press enter. It will paste copied cell (I have no idea how to get rid of this behaviour, it was not present in 2.4.1).
5. undo twice (ctrl+z)
6. openoffice crashes.

This happened with 3.0.1 and 3.1 on ubuntu.

If you can't undo without OOo crashing, then no reason for corporations to use it.

EDIT:
When reporting if you have this bug, please state ubuntu version, 32/64 bit, 3.0.1 or 3.1

Here (http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=102456) is bug report.

burvowski
May 29th, 2009, 09:10 PM
Why don't corporations use openoffice?

It is simple.

1. Create a new spreadsheet.
2. input text or anything into cell A1
3. copy cell A1 (ctrl+c)
4. double click on any cell. Press enter. It will paste copied cell (I have no idea how to get rid of this behaviour, it was not present in 2.4.1).
5. undo twice (ctrl+z)
6. openoffice crashes.

This happened with 3.0.1 and 3.1 on ubuntu.

If you can't undo without OOo crashing, then no reason for corporations to use it.

just tried it. worked 100% fine for me *shrugs*

Maheriano
May 29th, 2009, 09:22 PM
Don't forget that big corporation moves very slowly. A lot of them are still using IE6 and Office 2003.
Ding. I completely rewrote the installer for a large application we sell at our company last October and it hasn't been implemented in production for our clients yet. They take our product and install it in their test environment, then have someone come on site and test everything out with rigorous quality assurance testing to make sure everything works. Whatever doesn't work comes back and gets changed, then they install it in their development environment. Again, someone goes out there and tests everything to make sure it works and whatever doesn't work gets changed back here again. Then they take it and go through all the environments again, continuously until there are no more issues with the software. After about 6 months they're finally putting version 9.3 into production and we're already developing for version 9.12.

Corelogik
May 29th, 2009, 09:26 PM
just tried it. worked 100% fine for me *shrugs*

Worked for me too,...

oldsoundguy
May 29th, 2009, 09:29 PM
As has been pointed out, most corporations and small businesses are fairly well locked into MS products. The reasons are sometimes simple and sometimes complex.
First, many do not KNOW that there is another alternative besides the overpriced Apple stuff.

Then there is the instructional matter. Most city colleges in the US offer classes that are, in part, underwritten by MS. There are NO classes for Open Office and even Linux at the majority of those schools. Taxpayer bux .. think about that.
(and check out the COST of taking a course in ADOBE programs!! My local CC offers those at a mere $500 a quarter and you have to BUY THE SOFTWARE over and above that!)

Then there are TAXES! Corporations can write off the costs of the software over time, so in the long run, get it for free. AND MS rakes it in!

You are not going to see any major shift as far as the corporations are concerned,
BUT, the government and governmental agencies are a totally different story .. and the BUCK stops there .. the TAXPAYER'S buck. With the current economic conditions, many agencies are looking at Linux SERIOUSLY for the first time to save that budget and keep people at work!
(and MS is spending MILLIONS lobbying to STOP any change!)

And then there is this (this link will die eventually!)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8073654.stm
You had best realize that Linux is part of the answer to this issue and will NOT cost anything but time and energy to implement!

don_quixote
May 29th, 2009, 09:37 PM
Why don't corporations use openoffice?

It is simple.

1. Create a new spreadsheet.
2. input text or anything into cell A1
3. copy cell A1 (ctrl+c)
4. double click on any cell. Press enter. It will paste copied cell (I have no idea how to get rid of this behaviour, it was not present in 2.4.1).
5. undo twice (ctrl+z)
6. openoffice crashes.

This happened with 3.0.1 and 3.1 on ubuntu.

If you can't undo without OOo crashing, then no reason for corporations to use it.

I tested this, and must say that I didn't believe you because I have a 40,000 cell, 6 worksheet spreadsheet that takes a bear of a time to load, but that has never crashed on me (and I've certainly undone many times). However, under those particular conditions, OO crashes every time! This is no good. Is this a known bug???

aysiu
May 29th, 2009, 09:39 PM
It's because of one or more of the following: People are less likely to know about OpenOffice than MS Office Even if they've heard of OpenOffice, they are less familiar with it, so they stick with the familiar (MS Office). People have compatibility issues (real or imagined) because "everyone" is using MS Office The price savings of switching to OpenOffice isn't enough for potential retraining and employee dissatisfaction that will ensue. The company actually uses some MS Office functionality that is not available in OpenOffice.

aysiu
May 29th, 2009, 09:40 PM
Why don't corporations use openoffice?

It is simple.

1. Create a new spreadsheet.
2. input text or anything into cell A1
3. copy cell A1 (ctrl+c)
4. double click on any cell. Press enter. It will paste copied cell (I have no idea how to get rid of this behaviour, it was not present in 2.4.1).
5. undo twice (ctrl+z)
6. openoffice crashes.

This happened with 3.0.1 and 3.1 on ubuntu.

If you can't undo without OOo crashing, then no reason for corporations to use it.
That bug is inexcusable, but are you really trying to tell me Microsoft Office never crashes?

andrewabc
May 29th, 2009, 09:49 PM
I tested this, and must say that I didn't believe you because I have a 40,000 cell, 6 worksheet spreadsheet that takes a bear of a time to load, but that has never crashed on me (and I've certainly undone many times). However, under those particular conditions, OO crashes every time! This is no good. Is this a known bug???
I have 150,000 spreadsheet, 21 worksheet. This bug and also the "double click on any cell, press enter and it will paste anything you had copied". This "feature" was definitely not present in windows version of OOo2.4.1, and I do not believe it was for 3.0 for intrepid. I havn't found a way to disable this and it makes using calc very difficult, as it is always pasting **** when I don't want it to paste. And then of course I press undo (ctrl+z) to get rid of it and OOo crashes.
Is there a way to uncopy stuff? Like say I press ctrl+c a cell, how do I make it unselect/copy that cell (deselect?)?

Example:
1. Input bunch of text or whatever into cell A1
2. in cell A2 input =1+1
3. copy cell A1
4. double click on cell A2 and press enter. It inputs the current location of what you just double clicked on! =1+1A2 Why does it do that? I just want to close the formula. Now I have to manually edit out the now input A2 cell location that is in the formula. And of course if I try to undo, it will crash OOo.



That bug is inexcusable, but are you really trying to tell me Microsoft Office never crashes?
No, I was merely pointing out that there is a very basic bug that has been around for a while that crashes OOo. And to be honest, OOo has crashed more for me than MSO 2003.

Luckily the crash recovery works perfectly and I lose no data. Otherwise I would be ditching ubuntu and openoffice (or booting into my winxp partition) since it could not be used for work spreadsheet.

aysiu
May 29th, 2009, 09:51 PM
Thanks for the clarification.

I use Microsoft Office at work and actually need it at work. But OpenOffice is fine for my home use, and I know a ton of people who could probably use OpenOffice at work and be just fine with it.

andrewabc
May 29th, 2009, 09:56 PM
I am perfectly happy with OOo as long as they fix the bugs. 3.0.1 and 3.1 fixed 2 bugs that were very bad for my spreadsheet. But the introduction of crashing bug and the other bug I just described is even worse than the bugs they fixed.

Last spring I switched from excel to calc. Although I still used winxp + OOo2.4.1. November I switched primarily to ubuntu.

Using ubuntu 9.04 64 bit ext4 openoffice3.1 from calcs PPA.

For people who are not experiencing this bug, what are you using?
As far as I can remember it was working in 8.10 2.4.1 (or was it 2.4.2?), and I think even for intrepid 3.0 calc PPA.
But ever since upgrading to jaunty and using default 3.0.1 I've had this problem, and 3.1 PPA didn't fix it.

fatality_uk
May 29th, 2009, 09:59 PM
The return bug you will find in MS Office 2007. Our WHOLE accounts team use that "feature". I can't say it's logged as a bug with the OOo team, or at least I can't find notice of it.

andrewabc
May 29th, 2009, 10:04 PM
The return bug you will find in MS Office 2007. Our WHOLE accounts team use that "feature". I can't say it's logged as a bug with the OOo team, or at least I can't find notice of it.

Wait, so it was a feature introduced into MSO2007 (not present in 2003), and so openoffice copied it?
Gah! I had gotten used to MSO2003, made the easy switch to OOo, and now OOo is making me relearn how to use calc?

So no option to disable. This has to be a bug.
You have something copied, and you want to check out a cell formula so you double click on it, realize it correct (or notice what cells it is getting info from), so you press enter and so it inputs current cell location? How exactly is inputting current cell location inside a formula helpful? Isn't it impossible and would always return an impossible calculation (#NAME?)?

wsonar
May 29th, 2009, 10:05 PM
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.


same reason everyone still uses QWERTY most people in a office aren't computer users they like to stick with what they have been hooked on
for years

wsonar
May 29th, 2009, 10:10 PM
Big corporations like to spend money and they must have retards in the finance division

every piece of hardware we get is like double the price why get a 6000 blade when we can get one bigger drives for half the price

companies get locked into these marriage contracts and they just stick with them why joe sales rakes in the commision

lisati
May 29th, 2009, 10:11 PM
same reason everyone still uses QWERTY most people in a office aren't computer users they like to stick with what they have been hooked on
for years

Nicely said: I was about to jump in and say something very similar. Familiarity, together with the perception that "low $$$ cost = low quality" does wonders for slowing down change.

Koori23
May 29th, 2009, 10:14 PM
I have Office 2007 and Open Office on my machine at work. I actually use both. However, cost is not the only factor that companies use to determine which product to use. It's tough to admit, but one thing Microsoft has done correctly from the beginning is Office. And no, I'm not getting into a WordPerfect vs. Office vs. OOO debate.

Word,Excel,Access and even Outlook are very tightly integrated. Access is probably the best of it's kind. I haven't found anything that touches it. Besides, there are still some glaring compatability issues you run into when creating the document in one program and opening it in another..

I'm not a huge fan of Microsoft but they did do an excellent job with MS Office.

It's like when DHL tried to get into the US domestic ground and express package industry. UPS and FedEx were best in class for the US Market. It's tough to wedge yourself in there when the established players have such a jump on you.

andrewabc
May 29th, 2009, 10:15 PM
An even worse case scenario:

Say you are copy/pasting 10x10 cells or so (lots of cells).

1. You are done pasting. Although the multiple cells are still "copied" (ready to be pasted).
2. Double click on a cell that has formula =1+1 and press enter. It pastes all the multiple cells! The cell that has =1+1 now appears blank, and is removed (replaced with copied cells).

I have large spreadsheet so sometimes copy/pasting many cells with many formulas. And of course I double click on a cell when stuff is still "paste ready", and it wipes out a bunch of formulas as it pastes stuff everywheres. Then I try "undoing" and crashes OOo if I undo too much. I spent an hour one night trying to figure out why OOo kept pasting stuff when I never told it to paste, and why it kept crashing when I did "undo". I thought formulas were too complex, but turns out buggy software.

fatality_uk
May 29th, 2009, 10:18 PM
Wait, so it was a feature introduced into MSO2007 (not present in 2003), and so openoffice copied it?
Gah! I had gotten used to MSO2003, made the easy switch to OOo, and now OOo is making me relearn how to use calc?

So no option to disable. This has to be a bug.
You have something copied, and you want to check out a cell formula so you double click on it, realize it correct (or notice what cells it is getting info from), so you press enter and so it inputs current cell location? How exactly is inputting current cell location inside a formula helpful? Isn't it impossible and would always return an impossible calculation (#NAME?)?

Microsoft's implementation of this "feature" is slightly different. I currently have Microsoft Office 2007 (Excel) open.


Write text into Cell A1
Ctrl+C
Cell highlights
move to another cell with keys
hit return and text is copied to THAT cell.

Now I assume you want to log a bug with BOTH Microsoft and the OOo team as to me they both seem very similar.


Bear in mind that it's not Excel. A little modification of the way you work is required to run Calc.

andrewabc
May 29th, 2009, 10:21 PM
Write text into Cell A1
Ctrl+C
Cell highlights
move to another cell with keys
hit return and text is copied to THAT cell.

No the problem is that I double click on a cell (one that already has formula), and then press enter. It pastes copied cell and eliminates the info that was already there.

It kinda makes sense to copy a cell, then move with keyboard or highlight another cell and press enter to paste. It does not make sense to do this when you open/edit a cell and press enter.

In excel 2007 if you double click on a cell and press enter, does it paste the copied cell(s) and eliminate what was in cell you just opened?

pwnst*r
May 29th, 2009, 10:24 PM
if a corporation were to start from scratch, OO may be a choice, but there's no way a corportation like the one i work for can revert to it. everything is tied around MS products from sharepoint, to Communicator, etc. you cannot retrain 100's of thousands to try something new. our company is productive as it is, no need to do such a major change. and if you think for a second that that wouldn't be a major change, then you have no idea how large scale businesses operate.

fatality_uk
May 29th, 2009, 10:25 PM
No the problem is that I double click on a cell (one that already has formula), and then press enter. It pastes copied cell and eliminates the info that was already there.

It kinda makes sense to copy a cell, then move with keyboard or highlight another cell and press enter to paste. It does not make sense to do this when you open/edit a cell and press enter.

Ok, I can see you may see that as a bug. Can I suggest that you LOG this with the OOo team. Maybe there's 100's, 1000's of others who have this "issue". The only way this software will get better and be taken into wider use is to have people report issues.

pwnst*r
May 29th, 2009, 10:26 PM
Vim > OOo > ms office
It is just that nobody understands that...

i understand it perfectly. it's rubbish.

lykwydchykyn
May 29th, 2009, 10:27 PM
For people who are not experiencing this bug, what are you using?


I'm not experiencing the bug. I just tried it, and no crash. I'm using whatever the latest OOo (3.1, I think) in Jaunty is on Kubuntu.

One thing many people are overlooking is vertical software. A lot of the vertical software I see integrates in some way with Excel or Exchange/Outlook. For example, many enterprise VOIP solutions integrate voicemail with Exchange, and Exchange pretty much demands Outlook.

Everytime we have a salesman come in and demo some kind of enterprise-type software that integrates with MSO in some way, I ask if it works with OpenOffice and the answer is pretty consistently "no". That's unfortunate.

burvowski
May 29th, 2009, 10:35 PM
I am running OpenOffice 3.0.1 (the one that came with my ubuntu installation) on UNR 9.04 on a Asus eee 1000HE. The bug doesn't happen for me.

don_quixote
May 29th, 2009, 10:38 PM
Hmmm, I wonder. Those not experiencing the bug, are you running 32 or 64bit Ubuntu?

wieman01
May 29th, 2009, 10:39 PM
I think that Microsoft is paying businesses to buy their products.
???

How does that make sense?

burvowski
May 29th, 2009, 10:39 PM
hmmm, i wonder. Those not experiencing the bug, are you running 32 or 64bit ubuntu?

32

andrewabc
May 29th, 2009, 11:08 PM
currently on winxp 32bit with OOo 3.1

I do not have the bugs I have shown earlier.
When I copy cells, they do not stay highlighted, and I can freely double click on any cells and nothing gets pasted or entered into the cell. The copied cells remain in copied state and I can paste at any time anywhere, even after messing with cells/formulas. In ubuntu as soon as you start editing cells and stuff the highlighted "copied" cells become unpasteable (unselected).

So this appears to be ubuntu/go-oo specific problem.

burvowski
May 29th, 2009, 11:23 PM
^except it works fine in UNR for me

Koori23
May 30th, 2009, 12:05 AM
???

How does that make sense?

It doesn't.

PilotJLR
May 30th, 2009, 12:20 AM
I'm a big supporter of open source, and I compete against Microsoft (on a different product category) at the dayjob... but in the Office space, they are simply the best. Office 2007 is leaps and bounds above OpenOffice. THAT is why enterprises use it.

Consider what I can do on Office 2007:
- Plugin integration with Cisco Meetingplace
- "Presence" support with UCS
- Great integration with AD and Exchange
- File formats transfer to and from clients with no issues
- Public folders, meeting scheduling, etc
- Quick email indexing
- Accountants LOVE Excel (seriously, it's usually true)
- Very well known and supported integration with Citrix XenApp / PS
- Great integration with Sharepoint

OpenOffice is fine for small business and individuals. WHen friends and family ask me where to buy MS Office, I tell them to download OpenOffice instead. But this is a matter of right tool for the job. MS Office is simply the winner.

kernelhaxor
May 30th, 2009, 01:13 AM
I'm a big supporter of open source, and I compete against Microsoft (on a different product category) at the dayjob... but in the Office space, they are simply the best. Office 2007 is leaps and bounds above OpenOffice. THAT is why enterprises use it.

Consider what I can do on Office 2007:
- Plugin integration with Cisco Meetingplace
- "Presence" support with UCS
- Great integration with AD and Exchange
- File formats transfer to and from clients with no issues
- Public folders, meeting scheduling, etc
- Quick email indexing
- Accountants LOVE Excel (seriously, it's usually true)
- Very well known and supported integration with Citrix XenApp / PS
- Great integration with Sharepoint

OpenOffice is fine for small business and individuals. WHen friends and family ask me where to buy MS Office, I tell them to download OpenOffice instead. But this is a matter of right tool for the job. MS Office is simply the winner.

+1
In terms of features, MS-Office is way ahead. For basic tasks and general home usage, I guess Open Office is good enough, but I think the feature-richness of Ms-office does boost productivity of employees who heavily use office suite in corporations

Docaltmed
May 30th, 2009, 01:33 AM
How about these issues:

Try being on Ubuntu and opening or saving a file on a network share with OOWriter....ooops, sorry, can't do that!?! Whaaat?

Or, how about this....ever since upgrading to oo 3.1, Base doesn't work. It. Just. Doesn't. Start. No splash screen, no nothing.

I'm not the only one with these problems, they are all over the net, and the workarounds are both single-situation and obscure.

I am the CEO of a small corporation, and these problems are enough to bring me to my knees. If I ran a large corporation, and these problems happened, I would kick the IT guy out on his tush.

Dimitriid
May 30th, 2009, 02:06 AM
Microsoft cheats. There is a lot of integration that will only work right with office 2007, basically at work if I know somebody's NT log in ( its usually first letter of first name and last name ) I can pretty much configure their outlook credentials automatically in exchange, automatically grant access to shared files ( this is actually used a lot to create quick and dirty data trackers in excel for personal use ) and otherwise use a lot of other features like that.

All that integration can be done sure, but it is pre-done ( afaik ) on office already for you. So when the company buys the computer they pay a fixed ammount for NT and Office license and the IT guy can go home to rest 3 months early instead of having to properly set up a network, grant permissions, set up shared files and foldrs, etc.

andrewabc
May 30th, 2009, 02:14 AM
I tested openoffice on liveusb ubuntu 32bit desktop.
I could not get it to crash. So maybe it is a 64 bit bug?

EDIT:
I'll test my 64 bit liveusb desktop sometime tomorrow.

Icehuck
May 30th, 2009, 02:36 AM
Microsoft cheats. There is a lot of integration that will only work right with office 2007, basically at work if I know somebody's NT log in ( its usually first letter of first name and last name ) I can pretty much configure their outlook credentials automatically in exchange, automatically grant access to shared files ( this is actually used a lot to create quick and dirty data trackers in excel for personal use ) and otherwise use a lot of other features like that.

All that integration can be done sure, but it is pre-done ( afaik ) on office already for you. So when the company buys the computer they pay a fixed ammount for NT and Office license and the IT guy can go home to rest 3 months early instead of having to properly set up a network, grant permissions, set up shared files and foldrs, etc.

Integration goes a long way into increasing productivity. When I create domain users I can check a box and they have email. It's really convenient when you are migrating 200-300 users from one system to another.

kevin11951
May 30th, 2009, 02:38 AM
I tested openoffice on liveusb ubuntu 32bit desktop.
I could not get it to crash. So maybe it is a 64 bit bug?

EDIT:
I'll test my 64 bit liveusb desktop sometime tomorrow.

I use 64 bit kubuntu and it didnt happen :D

Icehuck
May 30th, 2009, 02:45 AM
I use 64 bit kubuntu and it didnt happen :D

That's great that it didn't happen but, it's obvious you don't have the same setup and features causing it. Does this mean the bug is any less ridiculous? Nope

andrewabc
May 30th, 2009, 03:28 AM
That's great that it didn't happen but, it's obvious you don't have the same setup and features causing it. Does this mean the bug is any less ridiculous? Nope

I'm pretty sure he was just responding to say that it didn't work with his particular set up.
The more people that test it and report back the sooner we can guess as to what might cause it (which would help with a bug report)

I have java disabled.

don_quixote
May 30th, 2009, 03:40 AM
Yeah, I'm a 64bit user, and it happens. Java also disabled.

lykwydchykyn
May 30th, 2009, 04:00 AM
That's great that it didn't happen but, it's obvious you don't have the same setup and features causing it. Does this mean the bug is any less ridiculous? Nope

Well, I'd say is less ridiculous. If something is consistently a problem and easily reproducible, it's easily diagnosed and fixed. If something happens inconsistently to a relative minority of users, it's a lot harder to triage and fix. Look at this thread, we can't even figure out if it's happening on Ubuntu, Windows, 32 or 64 bit.

Until someone experiencing the bug reports it and follows through with information to reproduce and analyze the bug, I don't see how any developer could expect to fix it.

Let's turn it around; if MSO crashes for 2 users in 100 under a certain unknown set of variables, is it ridiculous?

Icehuck
May 30th, 2009, 04:13 AM
Let's turn it around; if MSO crashes for 2 users in 100 under a certain unknown set of variables, is it ridiculous?

Yes, yet it is.

Warpnow
May 30th, 2009, 06:22 AM
I use MSOffice 2007 on school computers and have had it randomly crash on me before. Many times when trying to paste things in/out of either word or excel, the application freezes and won't come back.

And these are quad core machines with 8 gigs of ram.

bashveank
May 30th, 2009, 07:52 AM
Microsoft cheats. There is a lot of integration that will only work right with office 2007, basically at work if I know somebody's NT log in ( its usually first letter of first name and last name ) I can pretty much configure their outlook credentials automatically in exchange, automatically grant access to shared files ( this is actually used a lot to create quick and dirty data trackers in excel for personal use ) and otherwise use a lot of other features like that.

All that integration can be done sure, but it is pre-done ( afaik ) on office already for you. So when the company buys the computer they pay a fixed ammount for NT and Office license and the IT guy can go home to rest 3 months early instead of having to properly set up a network, grant permissions, set up shared files and foldrs, etc.

Explain how this is cheating. You make it sound more like the OpenOffice devs are bums who wont figure out how to do their own integration.

semaseo
May 30th, 2009, 07:55 AM
We Use MS-office. I like Open Office.

hatten
May 30th, 2009, 08:13 PM
Uhhh.... I use MS Office at work, and I'm pretty sure vim can't replace it. Not even close. I'm even saying this as someone who uses Vim pretty much everyday. It's for editing source/configs, not writting documents, making spreadsheets, etcJust joking, but in my case i actually write my homework in vim, if i then need to add pictures and headlines before print i copy+paste the text into OOo and fix that there.
And making spreadsheets with vim...xD

WatchingThePain
May 30th, 2009, 08:24 PM
I think openoffice is awesome.
Obviously no reason why they don't use it other than some hidden agenda.

Microsoft treat business customers a lot nicer than Joe Bloggs.
Even giving amazing freebies.

Maybe it's due to corporate ties or something.

WA_Garrett
May 30th, 2009, 08:38 PM
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.

Student's want MS office Because Instructors always have formating requirements that relate just to MS Office. You gotta use 'X' font in 'Y' Size and you gotta format it just like this in MS Word otherwise I won't grade it and you'll get a 0.

Plus schools don't teach kids how to use Open office, well I haven't heard of any at least. Let's be fair my school didn't. I went to public school and my district used strictly Macs and had MS Office installed. There was this class in high school everyone had to take that was basically a "Learn to Use MS office class" They didn't teach us how to use anything besides Word, powerpoint and Excel, we did do a little project with iMovie at the end though.

My point basically is
1) Many people don't know about open office
2) People are conditioned to use proprietary software
3) Even if people knew what open office is many wouldn't use it because they wouldn't be used to it or that they would be worried that if they used it for a book report, their instructor would give a bad grade because the report wouldn't look the same as it would in word.

WatchingThePain
May 30th, 2009, 10:49 PM
Student's want MS office Because Instructors always have formating requirements that relate just to MS Office. You gotta use 'X' font in 'Y' Size and you gotta format it just like this in MS Word otherwise I won't grade it and you'll get a 0.

Plus schools don't teach kids how to use Open office, well I haven't heard of any at least. Let's be fair my school didn't. I went to public school and my district used strictly Macs and had MS Office installed. There was this class in high school everyone had to take that was basically a "Learn to Use MS office class" They didn't teach us how to use anything besides Word, powerpoint and Excel, we did do a little project with iMovie at the end though.

My point basically is
1) Many people don't know about open office
2) People are conditioned to use proprietary software
3) Even if people knew what open office is many wouldn't use it because they wouldn't be used to it or that they would be worried that if they used it for a book report, their instructor would give a bad grade because the report wouldn't look the same as it would in word.

I don't know.
Your point about schools is very valid.
I always say if Schools don't use Linux then the budget can't be that bad.
Reports in Openoffice look fine.
I guess open source does not have the advertising budget so it's just down to ppls curiousity.
Small businesses at least should recognise the advantage.
Has Linux done enough to reach ppl?.
Have we as users done enough?.
If you use Linux and you like it then don't keep it a secret.
You wear a West Ham t-shirt (Hopefully) so wear a Linux t-shirt.

themarker0
May 30th, 2009, 10:52 PM
Its really because they make good deals. And give guide. when we bought over 300 new versions of office, it was mainly because of all the Free help books they said they'd give us. and did give us.

WatchingThePain
May 30th, 2009, 10:59 PM
Its really because they make good deals. And give guide. when we bought over 300 new versions of office, it was mainly because of all the Free help books they said they'd give us. and did give us.

There ya go.
That's exactly it.
I was in charge of a Unix sys years ago and I called MS about something.
They kinda mistook me for the business manager and wanted me to see the benefits of Windows over Unix (teehee).
They sent me SQL server, sna server , VB, visual studio.net basically bare software all full versions for free.
Open source ops cannot afford to do that, and we all know ppl love freebies especially if you just paid out loads.

Mark Phelps
May 31st, 2009, 02:03 AM
A more general form of the same question is "Why don't corporations push machines other than MS Windows for desktop use"?

The answer to this is essentially the same as the question on Open Office -- because 90%+ of the current workforce that is familiar with desktop computing is also familiar with the MS Office (and MS Windows) way of doing things.

Like it or no, just about anyone you hire off the street today can be put in front of an MS windows box with MS office on it and be using it in 5 minutes or less.

Second part of the answer is due to the licensing deals that MS makes with large companies. One company I know uses MS products a lot and worked a deal with MS for its employees to purchase new, licensed, copies of MS products (including Windows) for $20 a copy. It's hard to beat Office 2007 Pro for $20!!

Third part of the answer is the opposite question -- why SHOULD they switch to something else, given the first two answers? Other than the licensing cost, there really is no compelling reason to switch a large workforce to a different product than the one they're used to working with.

lykwydchykyn
May 31st, 2009, 03:53 AM
Third part of the answer is the opposite question -- why SHOULD they switch to something else, given the first two answers? Other than the licensing cost, there really is no compelling reason to switch a large workforce to a different product than the one they're used to working with.

And here is a problem: the FOSS community has not done a good enough job to point out all the benefits of using FOSS apart from price.

There are more reasons than licensing costs; particularly when you are a corporation with a decently staffed IT department. Source code availability can make a difference then. And then there's the file format issue.

I guess I'm partially biased because part of my job at work is keeping up our database of software licenses. What a nightmare.

pwnst*r
May 31st, 2009, 07:05 AM
Its really because they make good deals. And give guide. when we bought over 300 new versions of office, it was mainly because of all the Free help books they said they'd give us. and did give us.

yes, that's the only reason.

prismpirate
May 31st, 2009, 07:37 AM
The main reason is because Open Office seriously lacks the capabilities of handling graphical objects, and documents published in OO usually lack a professional look. Microsoft has come up with well designed templates and so does Keynote, whereas OO Presentation's templates are childish and lack design sense. Lastly, the ribbon interface in Office 2007 has made life a lot easier than the find and click toolbar interface that OO still retains.

ParanoidMetroid
May 31st, 2009, 07:53 AM
1. Create a new spreadsheet.
2. input text or anything into cell A1
3. copy cell A1 (ctrl+c)
4. double click on any cell. Press enter. It will paste copied cell (I have no idea how to get rid of this behaviour, it was not present in 2.4.1).
5. undo twice (ctrl+z)
6. openoffice crashes.


Hmmm, I wonder. Those not experiencing the bug, are you running 32 or 64bit Ubuntu?

I got the bug. OO.o 3.0.1 on 64 bit 9.04, Dell E521. I even wasted time checking to see if glipper had anything to do with it, but nope. Still crashed even with glipper uninstalled.

aysiu
May 31st, 2009, 08:00 AM
No crash here. Jaunty 32-bit on an HP Mini 1120nr.

andrewabc
June 1st, 2009, 05:12 PM
I've looked through openoffice issue tracker and could not find the bug about undo crashing OOo.

Is there a reason why ubuntu OOo calc is different than windows version?
copy/paste are different. In ubuntu when you copy something it doesn't remain highlighted, and you can only paste until you edit/type something in then it goes away from clipboard or whatever. On windows when you copy a cell, it remains copied until you copy something else. And windows does not have copy/paste bugs either.

Could this be problems with go-oo version of openoffice that ubuntu uses? Has anyone downloaded/installed directly from openoffice website to see if it acts the same as windows version?

Currently ubuntus version is no good, because of bugs that are there, but are not present in windows version. I'm going to test x64 bit liveusb and see if bugs are present.

It's kind of hard to report a bug wehn I don't have an account at openoffice website yet, and there is no way to reproduce the bug or know why it happens on some machines and not others.

andrewabc
June 1st, 2009, 05:21 PM
Good news everyone!

I previously tested liveusb of jaunty 32 bit and it did not crash.

I just tested 64bit jaunty liveusb and it crashes!

So much more evidence pointing towards a 64 bit problem.
I'm going to test 32 bit again to make sure.

EDIT:
Still can not crash under 32 bit. So 64 bit most likely the problem.

raul_
June 1st, 2009, 05:22 PM
Not trying to start a FW but i honestly think Open Office sucks when compared MS Office. But it is a valid alternative. I just don't have the idea that companies spend that much money on licenses.

Ace1989
June 1st, 2009, 05:26 PM
OpenOffice may be nice and all, but on Windows it is much slower than Microsoft Office. I love using it, and found it to be a good replacement, but it was too slow and too incompatible, especially on the spreadsheet side of things. Microsoft Office is more stable in Windows as well. Also, it is hard to change something that millions of people are using when training across the board is focused on Microsoft Office - most business schools around the country require you to take a computer class, and it is always in the newest version of Microsoft Office. So what if it is free? They are going to use what is best, and no one can pretend to say that OO offers a better spreadsheet or word document program than Microsoft Office.

olskar
June 2nd, 2009, 04:27 PM
Why don't corporations use openoffice?

It is simple.

1. Create a new spreadsheet.
2. input text or anything into cell A1
3. copy cell A1 (ctrl+c)
4. double click on any cell. Press enter. It will paste copied cell (I have no idea how to get rid of this behaviour, it was not present in 2.4.1).
5. undo twice (ctrl+z)
6. openoffice crashes.

This happened with 3.0.1 and 3.1 on ubuntu.

If you can't undo without OOo crashing, then no reason for corporations to use it.

Works fine for me to

Paul41
June 2nd, 2009, 04:52 PM
My company is terrified of open source. When I talk to someone in IT as soon as you mention something is open source that is the end of the conversation. It is also VERY clear that they have no idea what open source means which I find kind of scary coming from IT people.

pwnst*r
June 2nd, 2009, 04:57 PM
It is also VERY clear that they have no idea what open source means which I find kind of scary coming from IT people.

not always true. it's funny how just because someone works in a corporation in IT people here assume that they have no idea what open source is or what it stands for.

you guys crack me up.

Paul41
June 2nd, 2009, 05:01 PM
not always true. it's funny how just because someone works in a corporation in IT people here assume that they have no idea what open source is or what it stands for.

you guys crack me up.

I am not referring to all corporate IT people, only the ones at my work. Since I work with and talk to these people daily I am pretty sure I know what I am talking about here ;).

pwnst*r
June 2nd, 2009, 05:04 PM
I am not referring to all corporate IT people, only the ones at my work. Since I work with and talk to these people daily I am pretty sure I know what I am talking about here ;).

that was mostly directed towards a lot of other member's comments about their IT depts, so i apologize if it sounded direct at you. that was not the intention.

Paul41
June 2nd, 2009, 05:06 PM
that was mostly directed towards a lot of other member's comments about their IT depts, so i apologize if it sounded direct at you. that was not the intention.

No worries. I agree with your comment on a broad level.

timcredible
June 2nd, 2009, 05:19 PM
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.
the answer is bribes

andrewabc
June 2nd, 2009, 06:06 PM
Works fine for me to

Please say what version of ubuntu you are using. (ubuntu, kubuntu, xubuntu, 32 bit or 64 bit, ext3 or ext4, OOo 3.0.1 or 3.1).

My investigation shows most likely a 64 bit problem. So instead of saying "does or doesn't work for me", please state that and what software you are using. :)

Paul41
June 2nd, 2009, 06:14 PM
Please say what version of ubuntu you are using. (ubuntu, kubuntu, xubuntu, 32 bit or 64 bit, ext3 or ext4, OOo 3.0.1 or 3.1).

My investigation shows most likely a 64 bit problem. So instead of saying "does or doesn't work for me", please state that and what software you are using. :)

I get the crash. Ubuntu 9.04, etx3, OOo 3.0.1 from repository, on 64 bit. Is there a bug filed for this?

khelben1979
June 2nd, 2009, 06:45 PM
I think this is the main reason: they are used to Microsoft Office and knows how it works: switching to Open Office would cost money and create problems when using MS Office made documents.

Personally I really like Open Office, where I strongly dislike any MS Office product.

rookcifer
June 2nd, 2009, 07:01 PM
More corporations don't use OO because they are like most average desktop users -- all they know is *******. And M$ tries very hard to keep these corporations dependent on them just as a crack addict depends on his dealer.

dmn_clown
June 2nd, 2009, 07:36 PM
they get it at a discount when they buy mass liscneses

Microsoft ended bulk licenses years ago. $450 per seat for everyone.

The biggest reason is compatibility with customers. The second biggest reason is feature set. The third is ease of use.

pwnst*r
June 2nd, 2009, 07:38 PM
More corporations don't use OO because they are like most average desktop users -- all they know is *******. And M$ tries very hard to keep these corporations dependent on them just as a crack addict depends on his dealer.

*******, M$, blah blah

andrewabc
June 2nd, 2009, 11:19 PM
I get the crash. Ubuntu 9.04, etx3, OOo 3.0.1 from repository, on 64 bit. Is there a bug filed for this?

I finally signed up for an openoffice account.

I filed bug at:

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=102456

Let me know if any additional information should be added.

I was going to report at launchpad, but it said to use openoffice issue tracker instead.

miggols99
June 2nd, 2009, 11:36 PM
Don't forget that big corporation moves very slowly. A lot of them are still using IE6 and Office 2003. In that respect they are unlikely to change to a completely different software even if it means saving a few buks. Smaller companies that are more flexible then wants to make business with the big boy. Sadly that means being compatible with them and that often translate to using the same software.

Resulting in the actual stand still situation.

What will make it change is those governments who are responsible to keep archived records that are realizing that proprietary file format will be a problem in the future and are starting to require open formats.

Corporations stay with older programs because of there is bad backwards compatibility. Try opening a docx (Office 2007) file in Office 2003 without installing anything extra. Hard huh? ODT is a good format, because it works well in versions of OpenOffice both old and new alike.

Also the corporations don't want to have to train their employees to use the new ribbon interface (which I honestly struggle with using), which will cost extra money.

Paul41
June 3rd, 2009, 02:13 AM
I finally signed up for an openoffice account.

I filed bug at:

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=102456

Let me know if any additional information should be added.

I was going to report at launchpad, but it said to use openoffice issue tracker instead.

Thanks for the update. I signed up also and confirmed the bug.

DeadSuperHero
June 3rd, 2009, 04:00 AM
I think that OpenOffice is getting to the point where it can be adopted by large corporations. It just needs some comparable database software and tweaks under the hood.

I would really like to see the Presentation suite take more advantage of OpenGL. You can really do anything to make a good slide, but animations and paths make everything so much simpler.

starcannon
June 3rd, 2009, 04:11 AM
Why... Because people have been convinced that they can not do word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, or interface a database on anything else.

It doesn't matter that they can use OOo, they believe that it is impossible to get work done without MSO. I'm not being mean spirited, I'm just calling it like I see it. Marketing and Propaganda work, if they didn't then no one would invest the insane amounts of money into them that they do.

If I were to start a small/medium size business tomorrow, it would be started from the ground up using OOo and compatible databases. I would not have to deal with the switch over pains later, and I would have my staff trained and ready to use these things from day one. I would send out unlocked PDF's for those interactions that required absolute compatibility with MS shops.

Icehuck
June 3rd, 2009, 04:13 AM
Why... Because people have been convinced that they can not do word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, or interface a database on anything else.

It doesn't matter that they can use OOo, they believe that it is impossible to get work done without MSO. I'm not being mean spirited, I'm just calling it like I see it. Marketing and Propaganda work, if they didn't then no one would invest the insane amounts of money into them that they do.

If I were to start a small/medium size business tomorrow, it would be started from the ground up using OOo and compatible databases. I would not have to deal with the switch over pains later, and I would have my staff trained and ready to use these things from day one. I would send out unlocked PDF's for those interactions that required absolute compatibility with MS shops.

Whats OO.Org's equivalent of Sharepoint? How well does it integrate with it? Can you edit a file in open office, email it to someone, have them update it, and get your copy automatically updated? Documents aren't for single use anymore, they are more for collaboration.

starcannon
June 3rd, 2009, 04:27 AM
Sharepoint will only make a company more beholden to MS than ever, there are other ways to collaborate on documents. Somehow we managed collaboration before sharepoint existed, I'm sure we can manage a bit longer if needed. iGoogle offers a lot of resources that can help in this respect. O3Spaces offers a collaborative tool to any office suite one chooses to use http://www.o3spaces.com/. So really, Sharepoint is a non-issue; there are already as good or better solutions in place ready to use.

edit:
When I say beholden, I don't mean it as a "shakes fist angrily", I mean it as a "its never good business to become beholden"; once one is on that slippery slope the fees can be jacked up to uncomfortable levels, and one will pay them just to stay in business.

sultanoswing
June 3rd, 2009, 12:18 PM
As for school reports needing to look the same, I find that OpenOffice's integrated PDF creation is absolutely one of the best features in comparison with Office....save as PDF, and you know it'll look just right (notwithstanding pdf is another proprietary format! - ahhh - the irony!).

Paul41
June 3rd, 2009, 01:36 PM
Whats OO.Org's equivalent of Sharepoint? How well does it integrate with it? Can you edit a file in open office, email it to someone, have them update it, and get your copy automatically updated? Documents aren't for single use anymore, they are more for collaboration.

I have never used Alfresco so I can't comment on how good or bad it is but it suppose to be a open source alternative to Sharepoint.

http://www.alfresco.com/index-a2.html

Cowchip7
June 3rd, 2009, 02:03 PM
what are macros? why are they important in business? why doesnt OO have them?

I never checked to see if OO has macro capability... but judging from this thread, I guess it does not. (See below for definition). My office uses macros for saving letter head information for everyone in the office, envelope templates, fax cover sheets, etc. Just click on one button... and BAM!

Macro:

A macro is a set of computer instructions that you can record and associate with a shortcut key combination or a macro name. Then, when you press the shortcut key combination or click the macro name, your computer program carries out the instructions of the macro. This saves you time by replacing an often-used, sometimes lengthy series of actions with a shorter action. For example, instead of clicking several menus and buttons to add text to your business documents in Microsoft Word, you can record those steps in a macro and then just click the macro to add the text in one step.

Johnsie
June 3rd, 2009, 02:26 PM
-No E-mail Client. Most offices are outlook centric. Outlook comes as part of Office and this therefore very compatible with it.

-Existing MS Office Macros Wont Work
-Existing VBA wont work
-No Access Equivalent

-Businesses will be seen as less professional or cutting corners if they don't have the industry standard software

-Unfamiliarity with the OO interface makes users less efficient at the first time of trying. Why would you want to learn OO when you are already highly competent in MS Office

-Less support options. When you pay for an item it gives you the power to make demands and gives you the right to expect a good support service.

-Open Office can be slow to start

- Many companies do not allow their workers to install their own software.

-If it aint broke don't fix it.

Paul41
June 3rd, 2009, 02:35 PM
-No E-mail Client. Most offices are outlook centric. Outlook comes as part of Office and this therefore very compatible with it.

Just because it is bundled with Office doesn't make it the best/only choice. there are several email clients to choose from that could do the same thing as Outlook. I would say on the email end it has more to do with Exchange than Outlook.

With that said, I am not saying Outlook is a bad option. Only that it isn't the only option. My office uses Lotus Notes. I have never seen a worse email client than Notes and I would take Outlook any day over it!

Johnsie
June 3rd, 2009, 02:54 PM
Outlook is necessary for most companies because it is the most compatible office client with Office, and Exchange on Windows Server. Very few alternative email clients can work properly with exchange.

Paul41
June 3rd, 2009, 02:59 PM
Right, which is why I say it has more to do with Exchange than the email client itself. I haven't had any problems as far as Office compatibility goes with other email clients.

For my curiosity, can you give an example of where Outlook can do something with Office that say Lotus Notes can't?

billgoldberg
June 3rd, 2009, 04:06 PM
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.

Open Office is used by corporations.

The one office I worked in used it.

It was a big chemical production company.

billgoldberg
June 3rd, 2009, 04:07 PM
Outlook is necessary for most companies because it is the most compatible office client with Office, and Exchange on Windows Server. Very few alternative email clients can work properly with exchange.

Well if a company use Open Office, why would they use Exchange/Outlook?

aysiu
June 3rd, 2009, 04:10 PM
I've never worked in a corporation, but I've worked in several schools.

All of them (both public and private) used Microsoft Office (not OpenOffice). And only one of them used Microsoft Exchange for email. I can't speak for corporations, but in schools it just seems to be a matter of inertia and fear of change. Very few school members (out of staff, faculty, and students) actually use Microsoft Office-specific features.

Viva
June 3rd, 2009, 04:50 PM
With the economic situation worsening, they'll start using it more.

dominict
June 3rd, 2009, 04:58 PM
Open Office is used by corporations.

The one office I worked in used it.

It was a big chemical production company.

Yeah, I've worked in a company that uses OpenOffice too. The only drawback of OpenOffice is that it often auto-adds border to the images created by Microsoft Word.

starcannon
June 3rd, 2009, 06:51 PM
I never checked to see if OO has macro capability... but judging from this thread, I guess it does not. (See below for definition). My office uses macros for saving letter head information for everyone in the office, envelope templates, fax cover sheets, etc. Just click on one button... and BAM!

Macro:

A macro is a set of computer instructions that you can record and associate with a shortcut key combination or a macro name. Then, when you press the shortcut key combination or click the macro name, your computer program carries out the instructions of the macro. This saves you time by replacing an often-used, sometimes lengthy series of actions with a shorter action. For example, instead of clicking several menus and buttons to add text to your business documents in Microsoft Word, you can record those steps in a macro and then just click the macro to add the text in one step.
Macros are definitely available, I normally don't put up a google search term link, but in this instance it is the best I could do; anyway, if your interested in creating macros in OOo check out some of the links here (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=open+office+macros+tutorial&aq=0&oq=open+office+macros&aqi=g7&=Google+Search&=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&fp=a4yop6-RGmA).
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=open+office+macros+tutorial&aq=0&oq=open+office+macros&aqi=g7&=Google+Search&=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&fp=a4yop6-RGmA

pwnst*r
June 3rd, 2009, 06:57 PM
With the economic situation worsening, they'll start using it more.

there are plenty of other places to cut spending, switching/training to OOO from a corp standpoint is NOT one of them, sorry.

pwnst*r
June 3rd, 2009, 07:27 PM
Managers are usually the most dim-witted and short-sighted people in the entire company, and so ostensibly that statement is correct. But if your employees need training to learn how to write a simple document in OpenOffice, then they should be sacked. It really depends on what your company's workers actually have to do. Spreadsheets and databases make things much more difficult when the prospect of switching comes up.

of course not a document, ffs. implementing a new email interface is a big one.

andrewabc
June 4th, 2009, 02:07 AM
-No E-mail Client. Most offices are outlook centric. Outlook comes as part of Office and this therefore very compatible with it.


I thought Mozilla thunderbird/sunbird was going to work somewhat with openoffice at some point. I remember reading that at some point. Dunno if it happened.

H2SO_four
June 4th, 2009, 02:09 AM
A business wants to use what works and what ppl are comfortable using. simple as that

qamelian
June 4th, 2009, 04:00 AM
I never checked to see if OO has macro capability... but judging from this thread, I guess it does not.
OOo does have macro capability, but it is not compatible with the macros in MS Office. MS Office macros are written in a version of Visual Basic. OOo macros are similar in that they are written in Star Basic, a hold-over Star Office, which was the original name of OOo before it was purchased by Sun.

ezsit
June 4th, 2009, 07:21 AM
It is simple.

1. Create a new spreadsheet.
2. input text or anything into cell A1
3. copy cell A1 (ctrl+c)
4. double click on any cell. Press enter. It will paste copied cell (I have no idea how to get rid of this behaviour, it was not present in 2.4.1).
5. undo twice (ctrl+z)
6. openoffice crashes.

This happened with 3.0.1 and 3.1 on ubuntu.


I have OpenOffice 3.1 installed (downloaded directly from openoffice.org) in Ubuntu 8.10 and I do NOT see this behavior. Calc allows me to copy, cut, and paste (it will not paste simply by double-clicking a cell and hitting Enter, I must use the paste command or use ctrl+v. I can also undo (tried udoing up to seven steps and not one crash). It would appear that Ubuntu's version of OpenOffice may have this bug, but the OpenOffice 3.1 downloaded directly from the source has fixed this bug.

visionaire
June 4th, 2009, 09:46 AM
What about Gnumeric? is it better or worse than calc?

t0p
June 4th, 2009, 11:15 AM
I think a lot of corporations don't use OpenOffice because it's free (I mean as in price, not liberty) The corporate mind believes that you pay for quality - if OO's free it must be crap.

tsali
June 4th, 2009, 11:40 AM
If anyone has done any serious crunching and analysis with Excel or OO, it becomes quickly apparent that Excel is far superior.

My company leverages a lot of the document automation features in MS Office.

I think its an excellent product.

That said, I use Abiword and Gnumeric at home...

Paul41
June 4th, 2009, 12:49 PM
I have OpenOffice 3.1 installed (downloaded directly from openoffice.org) in Ubuntu 8.10 and I do NOT see this behavior. Calc allows me to copy, cut, and paste (it will not paste simply by double-clicking a cell and hitting Enter, I must use the paste command or use ctrl+v. I can also undo (tried udoing up to seven steps and not one crash). It would appear that Ubuntu's version of OpenOffice may have this bug, but the OpenOffice 3.1 downloaded directly from the source has fixed this bug.

Are you using 64 bit or 32 bit Ubuntu?

MikeyXX
June 4th, 2009, 01:08 PM
This is exactly what I was going to put in. In my office (large bank), Opensource is frowned upon as they need to have a support agreement that can be legally backed up. Normally that is with the developer of the software unless they no longer exist.

Second agreement is the formatting does not have the same professional or recognized visual as MS Office. If I edit an MS document on my OpenOffice and then send it back to the originator, they get upset over all the formatting and font changes.

Third is Exchange compatibility. Most major corporations who want calendar, blackberry, push email, contact, and public folder (resource booking) use Exchange. Linux has NO exchange compatable products that can cover all that, let alone OO.





-No E-mail Client. Most offices are outlook centric. Outlook comes as part of Office and this therefore very compatible with it.

-Existing MS Office Macros Wont Work
-Existing VBA wont work
-No Access Equivalent

-Businesses will be seen as less professional or cutting corners if they don't have the industry standard software

-Unfamiliarity with the OO interface makes users less efficient at the first time of trying. Why would you want to learn OO when you are already highly competent in MS Office

-Less support options. When you pay for an item it gives you the power to make demands and gives you the right to expect a good support service.

-Open Office can be slow to start

- Many companies do not allow their workers to install their own software.

-If it aint broke don't fix it.

soliddiesel
June 4th, 2009, 02:32 PM
As many people have mentioned, all the previous files and reports are in MS-Office format, so migration is not easy for every one, we who have been using it for quite some time, have our files in Open Format or tweaked, but just opening your well formeted report in Open Office and see it all out of place is enough to make any one run away, so the first step!! a smooth migration, and not only that, but some tweaks to it, like my simple written document when exported to PDF format, it looks so cool and professional.

Secondly the hardware hungry graphics! MS-Office like Windows uses too much resources to "make you feel" you are doing something very important. Although its not! so it can be done pretty easily on Open Office. (If it was important u would be using J-Builder or Dream Weaver...)

Paul41
June 4th, 2009, 02:41 PM
Secondly the hardware hungry graphics! MS-Office like Windows uses too much resources to "make you feel" you are doing something very important. Although its not! so it can be done pretty easily on Open Office. (If it was important u would be using J-Builder or Dream Weaver...)

I have to disagree with this. I work in R&D at a pharmaceutical company and our protocols and reports for submission to FDA are written in Word, why would we ever use J-Builder or Dream Weaver for this? I would say these things are pretty important. If we don't don't write these we don't get new products, and with no products we have nothing to sell and go out of business so I would say it is highly important. Could we do this with OpenOffice? Absolutely. But to say that important things aren't done in MS-Office is just wrong.

CrazyArcher
June 4th, 2009, 03:21 PM
OpenOffice is horrid in comparison to MS Office, especially since the 2007 version was released, that's why.
OO is good enough for a kid to write an assignment for school, but when it comes to real work - it clearly doesn't cut through. Time after time I try to use it on ocassion, and lack of familiar features plus silly bugs really kill me.
As for lack of support for other formats in MS Office - it's not true anymore. With the last SP, it supports anything, including - surprise! - odt.

aysiu
June 4th, 2009, 03:28 PM
OO is good enough for a kid to write an assignment for school, but when it comes to real work - it clearly doesn't cut through. Not all office workers do what you call "real work." Plenty of people who use Microsoft Office (yes, even at work) could do the same things in OpenOffice. Not everybody. But a lot of them.

CrazyArcher
June 4th, 2009, 03:34 PM
Not all office workers do what you call "real work." Plenty of people who use Microsoft Office (yes, even at work) could do the same things in OpenOffice. Not everybody. But a lot of them.

Perhaps. I guess that masses of so-called "office plankton" use the whole suite in just one way - an advanced typewriter, who could be just as happy with Abiword.

Wiebelhaus
June 4th, 2009, 03:37 PM
What country are talking about here? In the USA it's obvious but it's not like this all over the world. Remember there's 265 countries and ODF is the International standard.

We need to clarify the country your speaking about.

MasterNetra
June 4th, 2009, 03:48 PM
I have OpenOffice 3.1 installed (downloaded directly from openoffice.org) in Ubuntu 8.10 and I do NOT see this behavior. Calc allows me to copy, cut, and paste (it will not paste simply by double-clicking a cell and hitting Enter, I must use the paste command or use ctrl+v. I can also undo (tried udoing up to seven steps and not one crash). It would appear that Ubuntu's version of OpenOffice may have this bug, but the OpenOffice 3.1 downloaded directly from the source has fixed this bug.

Using 3.0.1 in Jaunty (32bit) and tried this, I also didn't crash in spreadsheet.

MasterNetra
June 4th, 2009, 03:54 PM
I thought Mozilla thunderbird/sunbird was going to work somewhat with openoffice at some point. I remember reading that at some point. Dunno if it happened.

I believe they did. In OpenOffice there is "Evolution Mail & Calendar" and in OOo Word there is a mail merge wizard that lets you email it i guess idk much of it as I never use it.

matmatmat
June 4th, 2009, 05:01 PM
xxx

0per4t0r
June 4th, 2009, 05:05 PM
What about Koffice?
What about AbiWord?

pwnst*r
June 4th, 2009, 05:06 PM
It's not MS WORD so obviously its not the best. Also how many companys know of it if they use MS WHATEVER

it's interesting to hear comments from members that have obviously never worked in a corporate environment.

ZarathustraDK
June 4th, 2009, 06:04 PM
Prime reason : Volume licensing.

"You want 2000 licenses you say? Ok, we'll give you a rebate and ask you for 200.000$."

"Oh, now you want to cut your licenses down to a 1000? Gah, sorry, then the rebate will not pertain anymore, 200.000$ please..."

Ok, maybe not quite like that, but you get the picture. That coupled with people having the distorted notion that price = quality. Sure, it may be so in a lot of areas, but in this particular instance (software/information) it is not.

If you want to change anything within your workplace you gotta realize the chain of events leading up to the change. Very few big corps (if any at all) would react on a logically valid and sound argument stated face to face (or rather, they may recognize your point and then give up because they believe the argument will be lost on everyone else and get written off as idealistic hogwash). You gotta speak a language people in power will understand, repeat after me: MoneyAndSpreadsheetish.

Incidentally I'm working on that particular aspect right now: trying to convince my workplace to replace as much proprietary software as possible with Open Source (on my own time of course, so kind of an ambush ;) ).

My idea: "The Spreadsheet of Proprietary Doom". Make a spreadsheet, take all the proprietary programs (that you can find acceptable Open Source replacements for) you use in your workplace and line them up in column A, list how many licenses of each you have in column B, how much a license costs in column C, and do B*C in column D with a summed up total in the bottom showing the total expences on licenses. Then try to take into account the expenses connected with a migration (however fluffy and hard to calculate that may sound, just try). Then the killer: As Open Source is free as in beer the expenses on licenses = the savings of using Open Source, so now you can show how all the savings acummulate over time (every time you would have paid to upgrade with proprietary software) while the expenses are one-time-expenses only (migration). Spice it up with some of the other savings Open Source has to offer because it's Open Source (for instance savings on reduced amount of virus infectrions, or perhaps savings on not having to maintain a license database, stuff like that, it varies from company to company depending on its profession).

Casually spam your entire exchange-server with the spreadsheet (or hand it to your nearest trustworthy boss) and let people figure it out on their own, perhaps leave some cells blank for people in Finance to tinker with for their orgasmic pleasure. :D

Remember: The point is not to get people on the bandwagon saying "Let's install Linux tomorrow", it's igniting that spark of interest that paves the way for the pilot project (that you'll likely be a significant part of) that has to show that everything that is currently being done is possible to do with Open Source.

texashiker
June 4th, 2009, 07:51 PM
Kids grow up with microsoft office, so they bring that with them when they enter the job market. If schools would stop using microsoft office and switch to open office, in a few years we would see a swing towards open office.

Its only natural to use what you feel comfortable with. And from the time kids start using computers, its microsoft this and microsoft that.

pwnst*r
June 4th, 2009, 07:56 PM
If schools would stop using microsoft office and switch to open office, in a few years we would see a swing towards open office.



pipe dream.

texashiker
June 4th, 2009, 07:59 PM
pipe dream.

If Linux fans would get involved with the School Board, it would not be a "pipe dream." If the school board will not listen to how much money they can save by using linux, they run for a spot on the school board during the next election.

aysiu
June 4th, 2009, 08:31 PM
Kids grow up with microsoft office, so they bring that with them when they enter the job market. You must be young. I didn't grow up with Microsoft Office, and yet I still have to use it at work. And I'm only in my 30s. I grew up with DOS and a host of word processors you've probably never heard of. We didn't have email, web browsers, or even 1 MB of RAM.

KiwiNZ
June 4th, 2009, 08:33 PM
1.The cost of the product is not the primary cost.
2. Document exchange with partners and clients etc
3. affect on other systems
4. quality
5. downstream changes can be huge
6. no overwhelming need to change as there is little benefit gained in doing so .
7. costs required can be better utilised in more cost beneficial areas.

Just a few that come to the mind of a CIO

RiceMonster
June 4th, 2009, 08:37 PM
Anyone saying the only reason is lack of knowledge or something similiar have likely never worked in an office. Just saying.

keypox
June 4th, 2009, 08:42 PM
because it sucks, pretty badly. It feels like something that was made in 1995.

NFblaze
June 4th, 2009, 08:46 PM
MS Office is still in us because it can do a little more than making simple documents.

Quick examples I can think off the top of my head are:
Visual Basic Integration.
Sharepoint/Cooperative editing
COM Add-ins

Also typical user often I've seen when they save a file they use whatever default format appears in the "Save As" box. Which is typically some MS Office proprietary type. So that also helps keep it alive. I think they are/were catching on to this tho with the introduction of 07 Office and Microsoft Works.

I dont think OpenOffice can do that. Though, when I have seen OpenOffice much more recently at Public Internet Cafe's and Libraries.

pwnst*r
June 4th, 2009, 09:05 PM
If Linux fans would get involved with the School Board, it would not be a "pipe dream." If the school board will not listen to how much money they can save by using linux, they run for a spot on the school board during the next election.

in schools, yes, that could happen. that does not change the industry, or at least, not as quickly as you point out.

MasterNetra
June 4th, 2009, 09:05 PM
MS Office is still in us because it can do a little more than making simple documents.

Quick examples I can think off the top of my head are:
Visual Basic Integration.
Sharepoint/Cooperative editing
COM Add-ins

Also typical user often I've seen when they save a file they use whatever default format appears in the "Save As" box. Which is typically some MS Office proprietary type. So that also helps keep it alive. I think they are/were catching on to this tho with the introduction of 07 Office and Microsoft Works.

I dont think OpenOffice can do that. Though, when I have seen OpenOffice much more recently at Public Internet Cafe's and Libraries.

VB sucks anyway. Python > VB :p

LinuxGuy1234
June 4th, 2009, 09:11 PM
Bussiness will NEVER adopt OpenOffice because MS Office has advanced features that OpenOffice doesn't have.

Or maybe "Microsoft" is the world's favorite word.

pwnst*r
June 4th, 2009, 09:27 PM
VB sucks anyway. Python > VB :p

you go ahead and present that to corporations.

Paul41
June 4th, 2009, 11:25 PM
You must be young. I didn't grow up with Microsoft Office, and yet I still have to use it at work. And I'm only in my 30s. I grew up with DOS and a host of word processors you've probably never heard of. We didn't have email, web browsers, or even 1 MB of RAM.

I'm right there with you. I liked WordPerfect much better than Word, but everything went Word so I eventually went that way for convince,

scorp123
June 5th, 2009, 01:22 AM
Are there any legal implications to why corporations are not adapting OpenOffice in their work environments? Where did you take that idea from?? I myself have at least three customer accounts (yes, we're talking about companies with several 1000 employees each) where they use OpenOffice or it's commercial cousin StarOffice, even on their Windows installations. And two of my larger customers are officially Microsoft-free. :D

scorp123
June 5th, 2009, 01:25 AM
you go ahead and present that to corporations. Seriously. At least here in Europe you might actually get somewhere with this. There is quite a strong anti-Microsoft sentiment here. Especially companies with a Unix background might in fact be very open for such suggestions.

lykwydchykyn
June 5th, 2009, 03:30 AM
you go ahead and present that to corporations.

I would think 10 lines of code in both languages sitting side-by-side would convince just about anyone.

pwnst*r
June 5th, 2009, 03:42 AM
I would think 10 lines of code in both languages sitting side-by-side would convince just about anyone.

to completely switch office suites? lol?

Viva
June 5th, 2009, 07:44 AM
you go ahead and present that to corporations.

:surprised: You're not arguing that VB is better than Python, are you?

cmat
June 5th, 2009, 08:02 AM
Simple reason, no one ever gets fired for using Microsoft products. MS is a giant company which provides support for all it's software. Whereas open source is reliant on in house support which adds to increased costs. Not to mention MS is so embedded into the market it's near impossible to get people off it.

tsali
June 5th, 2009, 12:47 PM
Microsoft ended bulk licenses years ago. $450 per seat for everyone.

The biggest reason is compatibility with customers. The second biggest reason is feature set. The third is ease of use.

Who told you that? I only paid $20US for the bulk license MSOffice 2007 I run at home...

Paul41
June 5th, 2009, 01:07 PM
Seriously. At least here in Europe you might actually get somewhere with this. There is quite a strong anti-Microsoft sentiment here. Especially companies with a Unix background might in fact be very open for such suggestions.

From what I read on this forum and in other places I would think this is true but from what I actually see in day to day work (my company is based in Switzerland) I don't think so. My company is currently looking at moving everything possible that is not in something from Microsoft (such as email) to Microsoft products.

dnguyen1963
June 5th, 2009, 03:08 PM
What country are talking about here? In the USA it's obvious but it's not like this all over the world. Remember there's 265 countries and ODF is the International standard.

We need to clarify the country your speaking about.

Is it not a little obvious that I was talking about the good old USA? I live in a supposedly "educated" city (Madison, WI) and I would say that more than 90% of the population does not know what Linux is. I am well aware that other countries are much more open to non-MS products.

dnguyen1963
June 5th, 2009, 03:42 PM
Where did you take that idea from?? I myself have at least three customer accounts (yes, we're talking about companies with several 1000 employees each) where they use OpenOffice or it's commercial cousin StarOffice, even on their Windows installations. And two of my larger customers are officially Microsoft-free. :D

This might be true in Europe and other parts of the world, but not in the USA.

lavinog
June 5th, 2009, 05:22 PM
Simple reason, no one ever gets fired for using Microsoft products. MS is a giant company which provides support for all it's software. Whereas open source is reliant on in house support which adds to increased costs. Not to mention MS is so embedded into the market it's near impossible to get people off it.

I know someone that almost did:
She had a company computer with office 2007 and saved a spreadsheet for her boss in the new format. Her boss couldn't open it because he had 2003. She came to me for fear of losing her job to find out what she was doing wrong. How was she supposed to know that she couldn't use the default format.

The same thing happened to another friend in school. The teacher had 2003 and couldn't open 2007 documents.

We use openoffice at work for pretty much everything. We have two computers with access for invoicing, but eventually we will be transitioning it to a sql based system.

There are some hurdles with using openoffice in an office enviroment:
documents don't seem to be supported by windows indexer (google desktop search doesn't seem to work either)
Can't use images in spreadsheet headers
No 3d mesh graph in spreadsheet
Spreadsheets are much slower to load.

The feature most used is the email as pdf button. Our customers shouldn't need be expected to install an office suite to read a document.

Rackstar
June 5th, 2009, 05:31 PM
My biggest gripe towards OpenOffice is the fact, on Ubuntu the repaints are not done correctly.

When I edit text, I often need to scroll up and down to view my edited text. This can be very frustrating when using it a long time.

I used open java, and it was still the same. It really sucks all the fun out of OpenOffice.

Paul41
June 5th, 2009, 05:35 PM
I know someone that almost did:
She had a company computer with office 2007 and saved a spreadsheet for her boss in the new format. Her boss couldn't open it because he had 2003. She came to me for fear of losing her job to find out what she was doing wrong. How was she supposed to know that she couldn't use the default format.

The same thing happened to another friend in school. The teacher had 2003 and couldn't open 2007 documents.

We use openoffice at work for pretty much everything. We have two computers with access for invoicing, but eventually we will be transitioning it to a sql based system.

There are some hurdles with using openoffice in an office enviroment:
documents don't seem to be supported by windows indexer (google desktop search doesn't seem to work either)
Can't use images in spreadsheet headers
No 3d mesh graph in spreadsheet
Spreadsheets are much slower to load.

The feature most used is the email as pdf button. Our customers shouldn't need be expected to install an office suite to read a document.

Interesting information. I have a couple of curiosity questions. Are you in the USA? Is it a small company? Is it a tech company?

I haven't used Google Desktop in a long time but from what I remember there is a way to tell it to index OpenOffice documents. If things are the same it isn't on by default but you can tell it to add them to the index. It's been so long I don't remember how though, sorry.

lavinog
June 5th, 2009, 05:57 PM
Interesting information. I have a couple of curiosity questions. Are you in the USA? Is it a small company? Is it a tech company?

I haven't used Google Desktop in a long time but from what I remember there is a way to tell it to index OpenOffice documents. If things are the same it isn't on by default but you can tell it to add them to the index. It's been so long I don't remember how though, sorry.

It's a small company in the US. It isn't a tech company, but a construction contractor.
There is a plugin for google desktop, but apparently it doesn't work anymore (according to the comments)

scorp123
June 5th, 2009, 07:39 PM
Simple reason, no one ever gets fired for using Microsoft products. I have one customer where Windows is outright banned for security reasons. They absolutely will fire their employees if they catch them in-house with anything Microsoft in their hands.


MS is a giant company which provides support for all it's software. And so? It didn't really help making their products better (as in: less prone to viruses, more compliant to standards, etc.).


Whereas open source is reliant on in house support which adds to increased costs. Not true. You can get commercial Linux support if you really want that. From HP for example (Novell/SUSE, Debian and Red Hat are officially supported). And you can also get commercial support for a lot of opensource applications if you ask in the right places. I worked for such a group within HP and we offered support for pretty much anything: MySQL, OpenLDAP, Apache Tomcat, Apache Web Server, Linux, tons of other stuff. And then the other thing about "increased costs" .... If your own staff can support a product -- why would this then cost more?? It actually gets cheaper. :D

pwnst*r
June 5th, 2009, 07:49 PM
And then the other thing about "increased costs" .... If your own staff can support a product -- why would this then cost more?? It actually gets cheaper. :D

you really don't know how corporations work then.

KegHead
June 5th, 2009, 07:56 PM
value for money spent--if it's free, something is wrong.

scorp123
June 5th, 2009, 08:01 PM
from what I actually see in day to day work (my company is based in Switzerland) You just haven't been working in the right places then.

Two examples from Switzerland:

http://www.osor.eu/case_studies/open-source-on-the-desktops-of-the-swiss-federal-court-and-federal-administrative-court-organisational-challenges

These two are in German (both about Canton Solothurn):
http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/schweiz/open_source_oss_solothurn_microsoft_1.2519907.html

http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/schweiz/freie_software_als_sparprogramm_1.2523242.html

scorp123
June 5th, 2009, 08:02 PM
you really don't know how corporations work then. I worked for HP 2000-2007 ... trust me: I know how they work. You just have to use the right approach, that's all.

scorp123
June 5th, 2009, 08:04 PM
value for money spent--if it's free, something is wrong. That's some of the thinking you might encounter, yes. So you add a hefty service fee so "free" is not free anymore, and voila: you have your deal. Most managers associate "free" with == "no commercial support". You just have to remove that little road block and voila, you win.

uberdonkey5
June 5th, 2009, 08:10 PM
I think its probably advertising. How many managers (many of whom have limited computing ability) are even aware of open-office? Of these, how many have used it or even know the difference. MS dominates the market cos everyone knows of them.

Personally I used to use alot of Excel macros, but I don't now. 98% of the time I use open-office, partly because I feel it is future proof in that they won't add lots of gimmicks and change it massively without just cause, also cos I am in ubuntu most of the time. MS always has to have some new look or functionality to sell their product.

Do have problem with bibliographic software in open-office though... need to sort that out some day!

pwnst*r
June 5th, 2009, 08:18 PM
I worked for HP 2000-2007 ... trust me: I know how they work. You just have to use the right approach, that's all.

then you should read the thread on my thoughts of how for most corporations, this sort of transition wouldn't happen easily or cheaply.

Ac1ds0ld13r
June 5th, 2009, 08:21 PM
-No E-mail Client. Most offices are outlook centric.

That Outlook-centric view is also the cause of a lot of nastiness with viruses and data being corrupted or stolen.

The corporation I work for (an international retailer) uses Office 2003 and it took us almost 2 years after Office 2007's release to get that stupid patch to make docx documents readable in 03. Why it didn't work out of the box like that I'll never know, and frankly it makes my brain bleed to think about it...

I know schools pick up license deals from MS (my school had a deal with MS and I ended up picking up a 1500$ Office 07 suite for around 200 bucks) I imagine MS does the same for corps. Buy 20 licenses and we'll give you them all at 1/2 price or something. The discount is retarded.

scorp123
June 5th, 2009, 08:42 PM
this sort of transition wouldn't happen easily or cheaply. You'd be surprised. :D

But yeah, I know what you mean. But still ... those "frontlines" are always moving a bit. It's all about "tipping the scales" in the right moment and you'd be surprised how "easily and cheaply" some people and companies can be made to move :D

NFblaze
June 6th, 2009, 03:42 PM
VB sucks anyway. Python > VB :p

you go ahead and present that to corporations.


Lol..I dont know when I was using it in high school. I kinda thought it was pretty cool. Really, only because you could design the GUI and click events all in VB 6.0 or whatever. Though, it did seem waaaaaaaay underpowered cause at that time I had delved into C and little bit of Java. I'm in the middle of re-learning Python. I must say that VB still seems underpowered minus the GUI thing.

DeMus
June 7th, 2009, 10:26 AM
Why don't corporations use openoffice?

It is simple.

1. Create a new spreadsheet.
2. input text or anything into cell A1
3. copy cell A1 (ctrl+c)
4. double click on any cell. Press enter. It will paste copied cell (I have no idea how to get rid of this behaviour, it was not present in 2.4.1).
5. undo twice (ctrl+z)
6. openoffice crashes.

This happened with 3.0.1 and 3.1 on ubuntu.

If you can't undo without OOo crashing, then no reason for corporations to use it.

EDIT:
When reporting if you have this bug, please state ubuntu version, 32/64 bit, 3.0.1 or 3.1

Here (http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=102456) is bug report.

I just did what you wrote and OOo is crashing. I use Jaunty 9.0.4 with OOo 3.1.0 on a 64 bits system. It just crashes when entering the copied text using the double click and the enter-key to enter the text (or whatever). When simply use ctrl-c and ctrl-v like I always do it does not crash.

uberdonkey5
June 7th, 2009, 12:03 PM
lucky me.. I use open-office 2.4 :D

I suppose a problem with alot of 'open source' software is that it seems that the end users are the ones that do the testing

gradinaruvasile
July 10th, 2009, 11:25 AM
Why don't corporations use openoffice?

It is simple.

1. Create a new spreadsheet.
2. input text or anything into cell A1
3. copy cell A1 (ctrl+c)
4. double click on any cell. Press enter. It will paste copied cell (I have no idea how to get rid of this behaviour, it was not present in 2.4.1).
5. undo twice (ctrl+z)
6. openoffice crashes.

This happened with 3.0.1 and 3.1 on ubuntu.

If you can't undo without OOo crashing, then no reason for corporations to use it.

EDIT:
When reporting if you have this bug, please state ubuntu version, 32/64 bit, 3.0.1 or 3.1

Here (http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=102456) is bug report.

Not crashing and not copying with enter either. OpenOffice 3.1 (from the website, not the one from ubuntu). 32-bit version.

andrewabc
July 10th, 2009, 12:52 PM
Not crashing and not copying with enter either. OpenOffice 3.1 (from the website, not the one from ubuntu). 32-bit version.

Thanks for reply. Pretty sure it is ubuntu (go-oo) specific. I wonder if go-oo windows version crashes as well (for those who can get it to crash in ubuntu).

R_U_Q_R_U
July 10th, 2009, 12:58 PM
+1

We have many Access based applications. No way management changes anything.


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.

R_U_Q_R_U
July 10th, 2009, 01:00 PM
In the old days there was a saying "No one gets fired for buying IBM"

Today all you have do is replace "IBM" with "Microsoft" and you know why.

Paul41
July 10th, 2009, 01:03 PM
Thanks for reply. Pretty sure it is ubuntu (go-oo) specific. I wonder if go-oo windows version crashes as well (for those who can get it to crash in ubuntu).

I am surprised that the bug was filed over a month ago and it hasn't even been acknowledged by OO yet.

Grant A.
July 10th, 2009, 01:11 PM
Wow, we have a lot of members practicing the dark arts of necromancy in this forum.

Anyways, a lot of corporations aren't using OpenOffice.org because Microsoft has gone hostile lately concerning patents. In my opinion, we shouldn't give in to such terrorist-like ideals.

I remember that a member named swoll1980 said something along the lines of this one time:



Terrorism only works when you give in to it.


Simply put, if every corporation switched to OpenOffice, then Microsoft couldn't pursue patent suits, because there would be too many to go after. In a way, it's the same reason why Microsoft doesn't sue end-users. If Microsoft did do something so foolish, then they would be weakened to the point where the Open Invention Network could swoop in and finish them off with the so-called patent "nuclear option" where Oracle, IBM, NEC, Philips, Barracuda Networks,TomTom and possibly Novell sue Microsoft into oblivion. Not only that, but one could assume that the same thing that happened to the Aztecs would happen while Microsoft is in a weakened state. The Spanish (The OIN) would attack (sue) the Aztecs (Microsoft) and all of the satellite tribes (oppressed IT companies) would join in to destroy them.

It's really a wonderful and masterful plan. Oracle and IBM themselves could destroy Microsoft with just their patent portfolios.

chuckn
July 10th, 2009, 01:34 PM
This is a very interesting thread. I work as an accountant and a consultant. All of the reasons that have been mentioned so far are all valid reasons why businesses don't want to change from Microsoft Office to Open Office.

I am currently working with a fairly large company, and they are seriously looking at converting to open source.

The biggest resistance is that Open Office Calc has terrible accounting formats.

Grenage
July 10th, 2009, 01:37 PM
The main reason we cannot swap over is due to our main system being hardcoded to export to MSWord and it's counterparts.

tomynho
July 31st, 2010, 08:36 PM
I don't know if I'm the stupid one, but... when saving presentations (impress) / word documents (writer) it won't save images inside it like MS Office does, but I have to link my images...

rjbl
August 1st, 2010, 10:31 AM
MS Office may well dominate the US but, even there Star Office has considerable penetration into corporate space. In Europe Open Office / Star Office is, and has been, the major player in the business and governmental OA sector for many years. The UK Government tends to be rather tied to MS, but this may well change over the next 5 years or so. There are very real cost and inter-version inter-operability issues with MS Office which hurt the corporate user in ways which don't arise with StarOffice/Oo

ATB
rjbl

Elfy
August 1st, 2010, 12:39 PM
Closed

Xianath
August 1st, 2010, 07:50 PM
Outlook, Sharepoint, VBA, and of course existing Office documents (especially presentations) that don't import properly. Throw Visio and Project in the mix and you can see why Microsoft has the corporate market to themselves.