Mozilla (Re: [H-GEN] What can i use instead of SSHD?)

[Raymond Smith]

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Hi Anthony,

On Fri, 28 Jun 2002, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 11:56:55AM +1000, Raymond Smith wrote:
> > Me too! Do you have a good come-back to the 'desktop support' issue?
>
> Have you had a look at the differences between Office 97 and Office
> XP (and the corresponding differences between Windows 98 and Windows
> XP)? They're pretty significant, and if you want to use Office effectively
> you really do need some training.

This issue is rather tangential to my original question which, rephrased,
was "what arguement may be made against large organisations specifying
particular applications?". I wasn't thinking about Microsoft Products at
all.

Also, it is important in this context to remember that Standard Operating
Environments (SOEs) usually specify a particular version (or very few
versions) of a particular application for each task. Witness the
reluctance of Big Business to move from Windows 95 to Windows 98 (most
didn't).

> > see that for a large company with relatively-less-skilled workers there
> > would be savings to be made by standardising applications in training and
> > help-desk costs.
>
> So I wouldn't consider this a major stumbling block: instead of paying
> to train everyone on the latest Office release, pay to get them trained
> in OpenOffice, or similar. Heck, if you're not getting bulk discounts on
> licenses you can probably use your licensing budget ($500 ea for Office
> XP OEM) for this, and consider it a 100% saving on training costs.

Large businesses definitely take this into account when planning upgrades.
I know of several large MS Office installations still at Office 97 and
only moving because they can no longer get ongoing support or new licenses
from Microsoft.

Nevertheless, I agree that major-version changes of MS Office would be a
great time for competitors to sell their product into organisations. It is
a shame that OpenOffice isn't perfect or this would be a great time to
destablise things.

> Tuesday's FinReview had a lawyer character singing OpenOffice's
> praises too.

That is a good sign because it is my observation that lawyers are more
likely than many people to try different word processors. I suspect this
is because, like programmers and their editors, lawyers make a great deal
more and more complicated use of the wordprocessor than the average office
worker.

> Of course, where you lose out is all the places that specifically
> cater to the Microsoft majority: Internet banking, the ATO, online
> movie previews... Paying (usually in US dollars...) for all the
> proprietry i386-only tools to let you emulate all that nonsense seems
> to go a fair way towards using up your licensing savings.

Yes -- this seems to be an ongoing problem. "Everything is a VAX".
"No one ever got fired for buying IBM". All these reflect a certain
protect-my-arse-by-following the flock mentality.

Cheers,

Raymond
---
raymond at humbug.org.au     "Try, or try not. There is no do." -- said during
                          a linux.conf.au 2002 organising committee meeting


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