The OpenOffice website explains why you should switch from Microsoft Office. The answer is certainly intended to frighten…
Is your office software legal? According to figures published by Microsoft, 35% of the software in the world is thought to be counterfeit or otherwise illegal.
After years of unofficially tolerating piracy as a means of securing market share, Microsoft is now going on the offensive to make sure copies of its software are legitimate.
* It has just bought a software company specialising in detecting what software is installed on PCs.
* It is now using the internet to put piracy detection software into copies of MS-Office on people’s PCs.
* around the world, the Business Software Alliance is setting up schemes to prosecute offenders – for example, in the UK it is offering large cash rewards to anyone who informs against organisations.
* Microsoft’s licence agreements are complicated – it’s easy to break them by mistake.If you have a copy of MS-Office at work, at school, at home – are you sure where it came from?
Fortunately, there is a completely legal and free alternative. OpenOffice.org 2 is a fully-featured office suite, similar in functionality to MS-Office.
I don’t have a problem with MS wanting to get heavy with piracy but this new campaign from OpenOffice isn’t a good tactic to get people to switch in my opinion. No one, at least most people, like to be ‘scared’ into using a product (which even though open source this counts as).
On a side note, I actually like OpenOffice but it isn’t completely compatible with Office in my experience. The Excel equivilent in particular doesn’t have the same functionality and opening word docs in OO is often dissapointing in my tests. I’ll try it out when V3 comes out or if some major updates are made in compatibility.
Everybody knows that OpenOffice is free, so that has only a limited appeal to people.
But the BSA is a hammer held over people’s heads. It’s the bogey-man, it’s the DCFS (that’s the government department that takes children away from their parents at the drop of a rumor). It’s what business people fear. Freedom from the BSA is an excellent way to sell OpenOffice.
Scare tactics? Yes.
FUD? No.
Having worked for a small computer firm were we did many of the things that MS says small computers firms, these are viable concerns to small business owners.
That company has since went under partially as a result of the BSA scare tactics. People who bought systems from us started asking were their license was, and we had to rush and buy some to give to them.
Maybe this wouldn’t be a problem if office didn’t cost so much. $400 is way too much for this product. $200 would be more reasonable. As for open office, I’ve downloaded it and am trying to use it as much as possible.
I use OO.org almost exclusively (I also use Gnumeric and Abiword). It helps that I’m a Linux user, but the main reason is that I neither trust closed-source software nor like it. (I’m a programming geek who likes to tinker)
M$ said that winxp couldn’t be pirated and it did. What makes them think that there will not be patches to nullify that anti pirate software?
Within the last two days, my XP machine’s AutoUpdate feature tried to install a new “Genuine Windows” verification utility. I don’t know if this was related to this new push by M$ but I think it would be wise for people with questionable software installations to turn off the feature that automatically installs all updates M$ without your review or approval.
Mark, great idea, especially if your cousin Huey set-up your computer for you.
I have both Open Office and MS Office 2000. I use OO 99% of the time just on general principle, but I can’t get OO to print envelopes very well. Also I think MS Office has a much better dictionary. But OO has a much better price.
I don’t know many ppl who actually own a legit copy of Office.
#9, My cousin Huey does.
“I don’t know many ppl who actually own a legit copy of Office.”
I own a copy of Office 95 and Office 2000.