Re: [tdf-discuss] Is Microsoft getting worried about free Office suites?

I think libreoffice needs to create or adopt cloud technologies. Microsoft
will most likely try to go into the cloud area. With sky drive. My scary
thought is what apple might do with iWork if it were to turn its code base
into the adoption of cloud technologies like or better than google docs.
The problem I think consumers are dealing with are inconsistency of
features in cloud based technologies which are in normal office suites.
Such as having a default font for text. Which Microsoft office and
libreoffice have. But not google docs. Microsoft have to contribute their
code only to the windows os. With google they have the power of making
changes that suit apple windows and Linux users. With libreoffice I believe
it has the real advantage of being cross platform. At the end of the day.
Microsoft do have office on apple computers. It won't last for long because
Microsoft and apple are two different companies with different objectives
and goals. Office on the Mac will most likely become Internet explorer on
the Mac. Because IWork I believe will be heavily marketed by apple over the
next two years. Libreoffice has one thing. It's for free. You can't beat
that price. Consumers will use a product like google docs because it's free
and easy to use. It's the exact same for libreoffice they just need mobile
and cloud adoption and a little more advertisement in marketing to stay in
the game.
Lj.
On Tuesday, 29 November 2011, Ian Lynch <ianrlynch@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 28 November 2011 20:16, Robert Derman <robert.derman@pressenter.com
> wrote:
>
> > Olav Dahlum wrote:
> >
> > > On 28/11/11 13:13, Pedro wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > > Ian Lynch wrote
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > Google should do a version of Office based on the
> > > > > OOo/LibO code base and embed ads and search links, make it available
> > > > > freely
> > > > > and brand it Google Office.  Given their brand strength and marketing,
> > > > > that
> > > > > would probably do more to frighten MS than anything we can do.
Slightly
> > > > > surprised they haven't already done it.
> > > > Interesting concept. But I think they are investing a lot on the
"Cloud"
> > > > with the Chrome Book laptops that investing time on an offline suite
> > > > doesn't
> > > > make much sense...
> > > >
> > > > In the same line of thought: Google Docs is fine in the "Developed"
> > > > countries where working in the "Cloud" is a reality. This is not so for
> > > > more
> > > > than 2/3 of the world's population
> > > > (http://www.**internetworldstats.com/stats.**htm<
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm>
> > > > )
> > > >
> > > > I do believe that currently LibreOffice is the leading alternative to
MS
> > > > Office (but would love to see some numbers :) )
> > > Just a couple of observations here.  First, most businesses do not and
> > probably will not in the near future,  go to cloud computing.
>
>
> I sort of hope not, gives us competitive advantage but realistically, most
> businesses are SMEs employing less than 10 people so I should think "most"
> will migrate at least to partial use of cloud services. Like us, it
doesn't
> have to be all one thing or another.
>
>  there are several reasons for this, foremost, security.
>
>
> If cloud security was an insurmountable problem, I doubt we would have
> on-line banking.
>
>
> >  Companies do not want important documents with proprietary information
> > flying back and forth on the internet where they could be intercepted.
>
>
> That misunderstands Cloud. We have content types that are secure to the
> people that need to see them. Some pages on the web site can only be
viewed
> by people with certain permissions - eg the qualifications regulators and
> us. If there is something that is really, really top secret we can make a
> special arrangement for it but sending as an e-mail attachment is probably
> worse security. In fact, Cloud enables us to authenticate certificates
> directly on-line without a charge so it increases security in our most
> important business activity. If we change our policies and procedures, the
> regulators get them immediately, we don't have to remember to send them an
> updated file and they don't have to have a management system for different
> file versions.
>
>
> > Second, reliability.  Remote servers and the infrastructure between local
> > computers and them have been known to go down.  Most companies don't want
> > to have to rely on vulnerable remote connections.
>
> We all have 3G mobile phones here. In the rare occasion of an outage, we
> can still access all our files via wireless. Ok, its a bit slower but its
> certainly good enough. It also means I can access everything when abroad.
> Its a bit like saying relying on electricity is relying on vulnerable
> remote connections. If its critical you have back up batteries or a
> generator, if it isn't you live with the odd power cut because overall the
> benefits outweigh that.
>
> > Another thing, most companies would like to own the resources that they
> > depend on for day to day operation.
>
> We own all our resources. Cloud does not mean you have to give up
ownership
> of your resources, it means you are buying a hosting service.
>
> I hear a lot of people talking about how tablets are taking over, but
> > somehow I just don't see a corporate steno pool using tablets or
> > smartphones to produce their important documents.
>
>
> I don't see corporate steno pools at all. We all do our own admin because
> its quicker and more efficient than hiring typists. Personally I don't use
> a tablet but then maybe I'm just a bit set in my keyboard ways. I/o
devices
> is a whole different issue, but cloud enables you to choose any that suits
> you irrespective of the OS, hardware or local apps.
>
>
> >  Desktop (tower case) computers will continue to dominate all serious
> > corporate computing applications.  That means MS Office or suitable
> > substitutes will continue to be the most important applications in the
> > business world.
>
> Actually laptops are already taking over. Once Android starts saturating
> mobile devices that massively out number conventional computers now, I can
> see it moving up and displacing most of the existing Windows desktops. So
> for Linux domination, its most likely to come via Android. But that will
> take time - after all some people still use typewriters. I'd be surprised
> though that if in 5 years we don't see some radical changes in dominant
> apps. Look at web browsers who would have guessed IE would be down around
> 50% of the market 5 years ago?
>
> The biggest reason, as far as I can see it that MS Office will continue to
> > dominate is not because of file format tie up, at least not from 2014 on,
> > but because of quality shortcomings in all competing products.
>
>
> More simply habit and brand strength. Coca Cola dominates mainly on the
> brand strength. How hard is it to make something tasting like CC? Not that
> hard. Marketing it and branding it is the difficult bit. That is why the
> best thing that could happen to OOo/LibO would be adoption of the Code
Base
> by Google. Look what Apple did for getting users for the BSD code base.
>
>  Face it, LibreOffice Writer doesn't have anywhere  near as good a spell
> > check function as Word does.
>
>
> Which probably makes a difference to less than 1% of the users. It's not
> about technical details, its about marketing. If it was all about
> technology, DOS would never have got off the ground in the first place. It
> was simply the adoption by IBM.
>
> Writer's spell check dictionary is woefully short of compound words.
> >  Writer doesn't have a good grammar checker function built in.  Also
Writer
> > is very much lacking in templates and clip art compared to Word.  Now
home
> > users and students might well overlook these shortcomings because of the
> > rather large difference in the cost to obtain the software, but
businesses,
> > never.  Now these things can be fixed, and many of them won't even
require
> > a lot of effort from our developers.  Many of us users who may have added
> > thousands of words to our spell check dictionaries could contribute them
to
> > the project if some developers showed us how.  Also, the auto correct
> > function as it currently exists can be turned into a fairly good grammar
> > correcter  by simply adding a lot of functions to it using its current
> > customization capabilities.  I have made mine able to automatically
> > capitalize all the days of the week, all months except March and May,
since
> > these two also exist as other words.  The program can be trained to
> > capitalize most proper nouns, to correct most common typos, etc.  With a
> > little more effort in such areas we can bring Writer much closer to the
> > basic quality of Word.
>
> Even if you achieve that why change for something that is simply as good
in
> a feature that will bother few people?
>
> I never use spreadsheets, so I really can't comment on any shortcomings of
> > Calc.
>
>
> Main shortcoming for me is that I need to share sheets with colleagues all
> over the world and for that Google Docs knocks the spots off Excel and
> Calc. I don't care if some obscure functions I'll never use are not there.
> I need to share straightforward data efficiently and that applies to
> probably 90% of the population.
>
>
> >  But I do know that a word processor is the core of any office suite.
>
>
> I find we put more an more direct to web pages. Most of that information
> will never be printed. What is really needed is better web page editors.
> Since I can produce pdfs directly from my web pages why would I worry
about
> print layout, especially for most documents that are better kept simple.
> There is massive misuse of Word Processor documents (eg for data
> collection) mainly because of the workflows people are used to. That will
> take time to change but it is a human thing not a technological one so
> cramming more features and refinements into "old" technologies is going to
> have a limited life time.
>
>  If some of the developers will help me and a few other users who might
> > volunteer to help with some of these things, that don't actually require
> > the specific skills of a programmer/developer, I think that we could do a
> > lot to make LibreOffice a much better office suite, in particular much
> > better than OOo was at the point of the fork.
>
> A competition between LibO and OOo for features is entirely missing the
> point. It will be a waste of resources and achieve very little. A
> competition for making the code faster, more efficient and suitable for
> mobile technologies would be a much better strategy given industry trends.
> It might already be too late but every day delayed is a day nearer to
> missing the boat entirely.
>
> I know that the developers have done much to improve the code base, but I
> > am sure that some of us non developers could also help to improve the
> > useability of the suite.
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> --
> Ian
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