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1. Comment - Mass. to Dump Microsoft Office by 2007

   (Sep 12, 2005 - 8:46 PM)

   Well, we do have different views on market economics and we will have to leave it at that.
   
   Take care.

2. Comment - Mass. to Dump Microsoft Office by 2007

   (Sep 12, 2005 - 10:03 AM)

   “I have no objections to a person or a company making money but somewhere there has to be a point where the balance sheet reaches a point where that person or company has to accept it also has a social responsibility to the greater community because by it's very nature it has become a thing greater than it's initial idea.”
   
   Companies exist to make money period. What you are asking is for Microsoft to essentially become a non-profit to ‘better’ the world by being socially responsible. That’s funny and is just not going to happen. If you don’t understand why, read up on free markets and the stock market.
   
   “Macrodollop ,instead of realising that the market WILL open up and becoming more competative has gone on the defence instead of welcoming the challenge that will be before it,and that means making ready to become a "Crossplatform" operating system.”
   
   All companies are defensive in terms of not wanting competition. Over the past 20 years Microsoft has been quite competitive in terms of adding features to its products to deal with Novell, Word Perfect and others.
   
   It seems that competitive to you means give away the source code and design applications for a competitor. The free market doesn’t work that way. If you started a little store that became a publicly traded corporation that beat it’s competitors I have little doubt that you wouldn’t want to give away your technologies and secrets to the competition – especially when the competition is on a mission to drive you out of business.
   
   “I experienced little differnce in operationg proceedures from 98 to XP except that I had to shell out more hard won cash for LITTLE improvements, why did I change ? because there was little choice”
   
   Huh? Little differences between 98 and XP? Aside from the UI changes the new more stable kernel is worth the money. And all the new integrated multimedia features makes me think you probably aren’t using XP that much if you think there’s not much difference between it and Windows 98.
   
   Again what is the problem here? Go back to a 7 year old Linix distribution and see how many people will care that you are pissed because some new application requires a new version of the operating system and you are pissing and moaning that it doesn’t work on kernel 0.1 or whatever. Get real, change is part of life.
   
   Nobody forced you to upgrade to XP – go buy a Linux box or an Apple system. There is plenty of choice in the market – you just don’t seem to like Microsoft.
   
   “Oh yes and for the record I have no idea who the heck Docer is”
   
   I have a hard time believing that since you were complaining that we we were not contributing and boring people…
   
   “…couple of people who think that they retain the right to stop contributing and start boring people”
   
   Please if you want to lie, come up with something that nobody can check as it really undermines any point you’ve tried to make so far.

3. Comment - Mass. to Dump Microsoft Office by 2007

   (Sep 12, 2005 - 12:30 AM)

   “Your Business uses Microsoft da da and why is that?”
   
   Um, because it is the defacto standard for the overwhelming majority of businesses in the world. And the variety and breadth of technologies and development tools available puts every other alternative to shame.
   
   Those who prefer the open source world may not get or they do understand but shut it out of their mind but for all its faults Microsoft products are top rate.
   
   In a previous post you denigrated Window for not being stable but provide nothing to backup the assertion. If Windows is such crap, why hasn’t Apple, Novell. Linux or even freaking Amiga taken over the world? Because Microsoft Windows and other Microsoft products do their job well – better than the alternatives.
   
   If you aren’t just complaining for the sake of complaining - state what problems you have with a modern Windows OS (2000 or 2003/XP) and someone can probably assist you. But don’t throw out your previous argument about not liking Windows 98 because you can’t get support on it. As others have pointed out, go get a 7 year old distribution of any open source product and then b**** that something doesn’t work – you’ll be told to upgrade.
   
   If you haven’t used a modern Windows OS then you don’t know what you are missing. Windows Pro 2000, Server 2003 and XP Pro (and even XP Home) are very stable operating systems that provide great value.
   
   Who is holding a gun to your head? Docer complained about the same thing. If you don’t want Microsoft products – don’t buy or use them. Dell and most other tier 1 manufacturers allow you to purchase Windows free hardware. If you don’t like the fact that Microsoft has a great market share, buy/download your ‘open’ alternatives.
   
   “Mass what ever the reasons MAY have decided to make a change based on financial PROJECTIONS”
   
   If you don’t live in MA and haven’t followed the news carefully you may make that assumption – but it’s incorrect. Certain folks in the state bet their careers on the anti-trust suit that Microsoft won. They couldn’t get over it and now as a childish response are invalidating Microsoft as a potential supplier because no matter how much Microsoft bends it won’t be good enough. If Microsoft converted over to open source with free licenses the state would probably pass a law to cut off any vendor whose company name starts with “M” and ends in “T”.
   
   The state CIO and others are being whiny childish pricks and have not thought through the financial ramifications for what they are proposing. The open source community may relish this slap in Microsoft’s face for now but when this free ‘open’ conversion begins and the true costs start coming out, the CIO will be out on his a** and the state will convert back to Microsoft Office.
   
   I am not a betting man but that’s close to a 100% probability. Why – because like other areas of the country we don’t like paying taxes. And when it turns out that we are going to have to pay lots of real money to convert over thousands of ‘legacy’ Microsoft Office applications to open office our good old state legislators will A) not want to raise taxes to pay for it and/or B) not want to cut other programs to raise the tens of millions of dollars that is going to be needed.
   
   “a blind man could reason out that Microsoft will keep upping the costs with little improvements needed whilst they have the controlling share.”
   
   Every new Microsoft OS and application version for as long as I remember (and I go back over 20 years) has had many improvements and most of the prices have remained the same if not decreased. Of course the company has a desire to hold onto its market share but business 101 says they can’t do what you propose as ‘a given’. New versions of Internet Explorer and Windows have/are adding new features from the competition to stay competitive so they won’t lose their market share.
   
   Docer complained that all those extra features are bloat and are not needed but your arguments seem to lead to the opposite conclusion – that a company must continue to add new features so the marketplace and consumers don’t pass them over for the new kid on the block.
   
   “It is interesting that Microsoft tried desperatly to hang on to the European Market and lost that Battle last year.”
   
   Um, they lost an anti-trust suit, paid a big fine and were required to provide a version of Windows that didn’t bundle the Windows Media Player so the competition could gain a toe hold. Well, from all the sales figures I’ve seen – essentially NONE of the stripped version of Windows has been sold and their market share hasn’t changed.
   
   Perhaps regular consumers are smarter than the tight-assed EU anti-Microsoft bureaucrats as people WANT integrated solutions that work well together and not crap from 10 different vendors to get the job done. We had that in the 80’s and 90’s. The market shook out and the better products won out. You may hate the fact – but the winner was Microsoft.
   
   “Microakdollar hasn't spent a few dollars in also working on a cross platform system ???? wonder why.”
   
   What planet are you on? Why would Microsoft develop something that would cause it to lose money? Get real – companies exist not to server the public needs but to make money. Microsoft has made money and also inadvertently served the public needs by providing products that have standardized the flow of information and increased productivity around the world.
   
   Hate them if you must but open your eyes wide enough to understand that Microsoft has done a pretty good job at making our lives easier. Perhaps the open source community will provide alternatives that some can use but for folks that use technologies that Microsoft Office provides that aren’t available on the open source side of things – they aren’t likely to switch anytime soon.
   
   So, as I pointed out to Docer – if you want open source to take off create better and more compatible versions of OO. Add macros, VBS, ActiveX and provide utilities to convert Microsoft Office applications (not just documents) – and I will buy into OO. But don’t expect me to spend money to convert things just for the sake of converting them so you can slay big bad old Microsoft – the world doesn’t work that way.
   
   Thanks for the comments - you are bit more coherent than Docer.

4. Comment - Mass. to Dump Microsoft Office by 2007

   (Sep 10, 2005 - 9:30 AM)

   “I have had to update at great expence to myself to stay abreast of microDollop”
   
   Excuse the lack of compassion but so what? Over the last 20+ years I’ve changes platforms, operating systems and development languages more than I care to remember But newer and better things come out all the time and if you don’t want to be a dinosaur you have to go with the flow. Right now the flow is with Microsoft.
   
   There is a large open source community and Apple is still in the game despite 20+ years of stupidity in not licensing their OS. The flow could change to open source, who knows?
   
   What Docer couldn’t understand is that while you may hate Microsoft with all your heart the reality is that its products are the dominant player in the market today. I hated Microsoft quite deeply when I was an Apple developer. In retrospect I was more upset with Apple for its mistakes.
   
   While you may dislike or treat Microsofts technologies with disdain – they are widely used and because the current OO project does not fully support those technologies you can’t convert a large number of Microsoft Office documents and applications to OO.
   
   I work with the state of MA on a daily basis and if I couldn’t send them complex Word docs with macros and Access applications it would cost us all a lot of money to replace with OO components. That’s what this thread is about. Docer kept claiming that those files could be converted and as someone who has evaluated OO (all versions) – it can’t currently do what the state needs.
   
   “Windows is NOT, I'll repeat that Windows is NOT a stable platform to operate from”
   
   Compared to what? An OS that doesn’t have as many features or and many users so hackers and virus writers don’t bother with it as much? My business uses Windows 2000 and 2003 servers and XP Professional workstations in day-to-day critical operations and it is very stable compared with Windows 95 series computers.
   
   We rarely (couple times a year) have to reboot outside of normal maintenance updates – and it’s usually related to tapes that jam. And we do quite involved application development on our systems. I’m sorry your experience with Windows wasn’t as good but I haven’t experienced those kind of stability problems since we coded on Windows 9x.
   
   We’re doing primarily client/server development, perhaps folks doing Windows kernel or device driver work have to reboot more but Windows is a very stable platform for business as well as application development.
   
   “Now why don't you both ask each other to swap info and stop haveing a dead conversation”
   
   I’ve laid out everything on my end. The conversation is dead because Docer refused to let anyone know if he’s really working in IT but more importantly couldn’t tell anyone how he managed to convert complex Microsoft Office documents and applications to OO when OO doesn’t currently support the technologies required to handle it. He got caught in a lie and rather than look ever stupider he took his marbles and went home.

5. Comment - Mass. to Dump Microsoft Office by 2007

   (Sep 8, 2005 - 11:16 AM)

   You kind of tip your hand that you aren't very fair or balanced when you start hurling insults (Micro$Loth, Meggadollar, Microdollop) before you try and make a point. What happened did Docer call for reinforcements?
   
   Yes, this is a discussion about Open Office and Microsoft Office and how converting Microsoft Office documents and applications to OO may or may not be very easy.
   
   One or two of the younger crowd here can’t seem to understand that some people use Microsoft Office for more than just plaintext editing and OO isn't quite compatible for complex documents or Microsoft Office based applications.
   
   Do you have anything to contribute to the discussion?