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Re: [school-discuss] StarOffice in Edu.



Chris wrote:
>I read today in a release on zdnet "Sun expands StarOffice giveway"
(see link
>below) that Microsoft has 90% of the office suite market in Edu.
>I'm curious why a free product like StarOffice is not more prevalent
in
>education. Is it an issue of support? Usability? Laziness (people
don't want
>to switch ffrom MS Office)? Or other?>
>I appreciate your thoughts.>
>Chris
Chris,
    It's mainly ignorance and politics.
    First, the ignorance. Most teachers are too swamped with classwork
to want to learn a new product; they don't realize there is almost no
learning curve with StarOffice. Very few are tech savvy enough to try
another product besides the ones their school districts have trained
them on. At the level of the school district, many decision makers are
pencil pushers rather than tech people. They just believe what
Microsoft tells them.
    Now, the politics. I just have to suspect that something is not
kosher when one of those decision makers finds out that his district
could save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on licensing fees
by switching to Star Office, yet sticks with MS. This happened in my
district. Why? Your speculation is as good as mine.
Dave Prentice
prentice@instruction.com