[Leaplist] MS Office vs. OpenOffice -- Guys, get your *FACTS* straight (and stop marketing for Microsoft) ...

[Chris]

William Warren wrote:

> Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> No community solution is going to solve it for you.
>
> And that's one of the primary things limiting Linux on the desktop 
> IME.  For you that may not be a large problem.  For me(being a one man 
> shop) and my clients(mainly shops less than 10 employees)is huge.  I 
> speak from my experience with my clients.
>
I can empathize more than you might think. My business is
within 0.0% of your staffing, and my customer base is similar.

----------
Case study 1: A small (6-8 person) business, doing mostly
wholesale with some retail individual web sales.

Initially running a VB Order entry and shipping App with Access
and NT server. Web and email hosted offsite.

Within the same month, the business was hit by a workstation-
acquired virus that spread to the server and crippled it - The
owner recieved a nasty letter from the BSA, probably initiated
by a ticked-off employee, and some critical documents he had
were damaged by bouncing them between him and his office
manager, who were running two different Office versions.

He was highly motivated to NOT find a replacement, but to
find something better. Somewhere in that time, he wanted
some changes to the VB app - only to find that the previous
developer, who learned well from working with hostage-ware
never left certain key files with the customer. Oops.

Status today: The VB/Access app is replaced by a Python/wxPython
app running against a PostgreSQL server. Their Web and
email services are now in-house, after numerous failures
on the part of their old provider. There is no more NT anything
in the server closet - all FOSS. Their workstations are still Windows,
except for the shipping machine, which is Linux (ancient piece
of equipment powered by Compaq sqirrels - just booting Win98
was a strain for it - Linux runs fine). And, they are using mostly
Open Office, and exclusively (except for Win updates) Firefox.

It helps that the owner was a Harley rider - he understood the
crucial difference between "Ride Free" and "Ride for Free",
once I put it in those terms for him. In the past three years,
they have had less than fifteen minutes of server-related
downtime (ice storms that knock out power for three days
don't count!) and some of those fifteen minutes are due to
my incompetence.

-----

Case study 2: A two-person Real-Estate office, with repeated
problems due to owner's kids seeing who could collect the
most viruses.

They needed to access specific websites, send and receive
e-mails and make brochures, and schedule appointments.

Status today: Pure Linux. But the owner's kids are ticked
that they can't play some games on Mom's PC. Oh well.
The kids don't sign my check.

--------------
Case study 3: "Mom and Pop" video business with four
locations and an amazingly kludged Access-based app
that did a pretty poor job of keeping the stores in synch.
Actually, it did a pretty good job of spitting out cryptic
errors, losing customer rental records and misplacing
inventory. Kudos to the developer for that.

Status today: Unknown. They wanted me to make the
existing product work. I declined the contract, as the
existing platform was fundamentally broken. Yes, I
needed the work. Yes, I wanted the money. Some
business is just bad business. I hope they're doing well.
--------------

I understand the need to pay the landlord. But it's far
from impossible to treat your customers to something
that is better for them - education has to be part of the
job for anyone that works with small businesses. It can
be a little too easy sometimes to let risk slide by, because
after all, if it screws up, it's not your fault as a consultant -
it's just something that Microsoft does, and we all know
Microsoft is as good as it gets.

As far as not being a developer goes... it's a shame you're
not plugged in to an organization that has lots of development
talent.... ahem ;-)

Cheers,

Chris