[THIN] Re: OT: OpenOffice 2/3

sorry to reply to my own post.  IBM is calling it Symphony.  http://symphony.lotus.com/

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 8:31 AM, Greg Reese <gareese@gmail.com> wrote:

I ran NeoOffice at home for about a year or so on a Mac.  NeoOffice is a port of OpenOffice for the Mac.  It was ok.  I never found myself at a loss wishing i had MS Office.  it had a neat little predictive text feature that i liked and wished Microsoft had.  I never had any issues sharing documents with MS Office when sending or receiving documents.  I eventually ditched it for iWork for no better reason than I could and I wanted to try it out.

IBM has also branded Open Office under the IBM logo.  Same product but the perception is an easier sell when it's IBM.  Some people still think of open source as unclean and the realm of hackers and hippies.

I also agree with the path your taking.  I think MS Office has become to big, too bloated, and too expensive for most users.  Sure, there are power users out there that will need MS Office.  But the front line users who are just typing the occasional memo, letter, or something basic, things like Open Office, and Google Apps are powerful enough.  Server apps like Zimbra are even worthy alternatives to Exchange. I think exchange is better, but for the money, Zimbra gets it done well enough for most people.

Greg

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 8:14 AM, Evan Mann <emann@tpcflorida.com> wrote:

Has anyone spent any up close and personal time with OpenOffice 2 or 3
(now at RC1).  I need to seriously look at the product as an alternative
for basic business users.  It has the potential to save up to $10,000 in
licensing costs.

My basic business user runs e-mail and web based applications, and a lot
of PDF viewing.  Some of them may not even open up any office app aside
from Outlook more then once or twice in a week.  If they open
Word/Excel/PowerPoint, it's usually to view and print, or generate an
extremely low end document in terms of complexity.

I have Outlook 2003 licensing through my SBS 2003 R2 Premium licensing,
and all the desktop licensing is purchased OEM with that equipment, so
the core needs of the basic business user are covered.  I need to
evaluate, and get real-world feedback on cross-compatibility of Office
2003 docs with OpenOffice 2, and Office 2007 docs with OpenOffice 3.
Focus is on Word and Excel with this compatibility

Power users will still have MS Office suite. I may setup a dedicated
workstation or VM for the basic business users to have access to MS
Office suite, should a compatibility issue arises.  However, I don't
want that to be a daily occurance, that needs to be a once a month type
thing.


************************************************
For Archives, RSS, to Unsubscribe, Subscribe or
set Digest or Vacation mode use the below link:
http://www.freelists.org/list/thin
NEW! Follow Thin List on Twitter!
http://twitter.com/thinlist
Thin List discussion is now available in blog format at:
http://thinmaillist.blogspot.com
HOT! Thinlist MOBILE Feed!
http://thinlist.net/mobile
Thinlist quick pick
http://thinlist.net
************************************************