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Re: [News] British Government Determines: Open Source TCO Much Lower

__/ [ Robert Newson ] on Monday 05 June 2006 09:51 \__

> High Plains Thumper wrote:
> 
> ...
>> <sarcasm> I guess there is a factored in with some expressed
>> TCO numbers, an assumption that people are in general
>> incredibly stoopid, and thus require considerable training.
>> </sarcasm>
> 
> I dunno...just thinking about the [old] trailers for the Classic FM drive
> time show (I think): "The computer crashed - typically"
> 
> Why do people think "computers" typically crash?  Because that's their
> experience of their Microsoft Windwos powere computer.
> 
> So what's people's experience of other Microsoft software?
> 
> Every time a new version comes out there's "training" involved; in fact,
> there's probably big business wonga to be made from the "training in using
> Microsoft [business] products".
> 
> Recently a large UK retailler moved head office and the staff on the
> "induction" to their new offices were going on "XP" training.[1]  If
> Windwos is so easy, why did this staff /need/ any training for the new
> version of Windwos?
> 
> [1] Windwos XP had just come out at the time.
> 
> And what about the new version of Office?  The major concern point I've
> noticed is that the user interface has changed quite significantly that
> most users[2] are going to require some sort of "training" or time to get
> used to it.
> 
> [2] Possibly someone who just writes and uses very little features beyond
> *bold* /italics/ and _underline_ won't need much, if any training.
> 
> The conclusion I come to is that MS software requires training[3], but MS's
> marketing confuses the buyers that it doesn't require it.  And IT depts are
> going to budget it in regardless of what MS says, but MS higlights that
> *nix options are going to be different and require "retraining" (which is
> possibly true, but not to the extend that MS preaches).
> 
> [3] What else explains all the courses, and 3rd party books, available for
> using Microsoft Software?

I really appreciate that point which you make. Software should be rhetorical,
much like Web sites, for example. No software should require training if it
addresses expectations (rather than opposing them) and if built sensibly.

As for Office 2007, I believe that fairly radical changes were made only to
defend 'innovation' argument and urge customers to upgrade. You will always
struggle to sell an upgrade if your new(er) product looks almost identical.
Perhaps it is merely Office 2003 in a new gift wrapping. That's what I
suspect, but I have not explored it in depth (many of the new features are
utterly-useless cruft). So better to just upgrade to OpenOffice 2. It even
has ODF support (ISO standard, yay!), which office still lacks (boo!).

Best wishes,

Roy

-- 
Roy S. Schestowitz      |    "Yes, I know, but does it run Linux?"
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