Re: [school-discuss] Shocking news about Microsoft's ability tokill

[ian <ian.lynch2@ntlworld.com>]

On Fri, 2003-10-31 at 15:58, George D. Holmes wrote:
> Absolutely right, Les.
> 
> A case in point, office suites. With licensing costs, migration costs,
> security problems, etc., MS has made adoption of more recent versions of
> Office difficult to stomach. Hence, MS hasn't been able to reach the
> critical mass or "tipping point" (when folks decide they must upgrade in
> order to be share files with others) as in years past.
> 
> So, with an opportunity created ... the "quirky" alternatives like
> StarOffice 5.2, OpenOffice beta, etc. have seen continual development, and
> now SO 6 OO.o 1.0, have helped grow that leak in the dam.

Er, OpenOffice 1.1 is now released and a significant improvement. 2.0 is
scheduled for next year and it will be a lot, lot better. You can check
the details at www.openoffice.org. IMHO OO.o is the best chance of
seeing off Office2003 in the short term leaving the way open for all
flavours of office suites in the aftermath.

It does need marketing though which is why there is a very active
marketing project. We are looking at the Klingon/Vulcan localisation
with the aid of Will Wheaton alias Wesley Crusher from Star Trek who is
a GNU/Linux and OO.o fan. Publicity is important.
-- 
ian <ian.lynch2@ntlworld.com>