Those of you in the "IT" business....what is your take on this issue? I personally use OpenDocument on my personal machines just because I refuse to support M$ in more ways than I have to.....and I am very VERY happy with OpenOffice.

Unfortunately, M$ (as usual) is going in a direction completely opposite as the rest of the development community (as touting that it "is good for consumers").

I am curious as to how many of you are considering switching your end-users to the "FREE" OpenDocument products instead of continuing to support the giant M$?

 

We use OpenOffice on a small number of machines but it's more a cost issue rather than sticking it to the man. We tried to use it on a few more but the users of these machines needed to access a MS Word based order form and it simply wouldn't display right in OpenOffice so we shelled out the cash for Word.

 

I cant see us switching to OpenOffice. My users are quite stuck in their ways and the owners are even more so.

The packages tie together nicely and we have small apps written for Offiice apps. The money saved from switching would be eaten up in labor costs to make sure everything else works the way it should.

 

Our IT dept sticks to MS. Sure does cost a lot!

 

I hate M$ as much as the next guy. But we have been using office since it was only a single computer in the entire company and all documents are now made in it. Where we are now we'd be looking at a couple hundred thousand dollars in labor just to convert all documents over. Then we wouldn't be compatable with our customers either. So I don't see us switching any time soon.

I am just the local IT my boss is at our company head quarters a few states away. So I really have no say in what we use, they send me the stuff or tell me what to go get and tell me to install it.

 

Have you ever used OpenOffice? You can open MS Word docs, you can save MS Word Docs. The only thing I've had problems with, as I explained, was a complex form that wouldn't display the same.

 

Actually no I don't belive that I have. I have tried a few others and had problems I didn't feel like contending with. I am downloading it now, I'll try it on my personal laptop and then I'll take it in and open several documents with it and see how it does. We are getting ready to set up 30 more computers locally when our new building is finished. So if it works we might can save on our bundles, maybe this will be raise worthy.

 

My point EXACTLY!!!....

...I have been using OpenOffice on my personal computer since they release v1.0 (now on v2.0).....I could not be happier with it.....

....The only things I have seen issues with are some of the complex proprietary options that M$ uses.....but these are all things that can be worked around....granted that takes time....but there is no way in hell tht I am going to purchase $500+ worth of productivity software when I can get something that is 97% the same for free....

I use all "free" programs on my personal computer:

OpenOffice
Firefox
Thunderbird
CD BurnerXP Pro
Gimp
Picasa
Winamp

with the above programs I am able to do everything I need as far as my personal computing goes....If I was any better at Linux....I would be running that as well....but since XP Pro came with my laptop....I use it....

 

So far not so good.
Downloaded it went to install it and I can't find it, did as earch and it's no where. I even had created a folder in my downloads folder just for it. So I'm downloading it again. This one is much larger file so maybe something was messed up with the first one.

 

Sounds like a user error to me......

 

Probably is.

Got it now, palyed with it for a few minutes, it will take some time to get my key board shortcuts set up. I'm already tired of searching thru menus with it. I also hope to find somewhere to import my macros from M$. But other than that seems to do the basics well. If I can figure out how to make it maintian the documents page lay out. If I can't do that then it will never fly in the office. They won't spend time trying to guess how customers have thier documents laid out. Also want to disable the quick starter that comes on everytime I open the program. I hate a cluttered task menu, stupid things that pop in there with out me telling it to annoy me. Quicktime ticks me off with that all the time even more becasue it also loads it's self in the start menu to load when windows starts everytime you open it. So I have to go in and disable it til the next time someone opens it. If I dont tell you to do something for me, then dont assume that I want you to.