RE: FLASH: OT Post

[Kevin Jackson]

ERIC said

Sorry to send an OT post, but I need some real world opinions on an office

> suite.......> The CIO of my company wants to ditch Microsoft Office and

wants to go with StarOffice by Sun.  My question is are any of you using

StarOffice and what do you think of it in a corporate environment?



Eric,


Some people hate Microsoft so much that they will go to any length to get

them away from the "evil empire" IMO, a pretty stupid way to make corporate

decisions. Years ago, I worked at IBM doing their business proposals and

they dumped Corel and Pagemaker to use AmiPro and Freelance. (Lotus

products) The programs (for the most part) sucked and they were not even in

the same category of software. But they weren't using Microsoft so some

short sighted idiot was happy. The results were fourfold, 1) People like me

left. (I didn't think it made much sense to use lower level programs that

had no market future for me); 2) Some things just couldn't be done anymore;

3) Jobs that could be kluged took twice as long or longer; 4) When they

needed outside help, they were hard pressed to find it because no one uses

the products.


I teach software and have taught all levels of Office as well as some Corel

Office and some Lotus. The reason I don't have more experience with Corel

and Lotus is that the other programs never had any students in them. I have

never seen anything offered for Star Office.


I have heard great things about Star Office but that isn't the point. It's

user base is miniscule. IMO, it makes no sense as a corporate platform

unless they are willing to 1) Bet against Microsoft and 2) Retrain everyone

and be willing to not have the ability to staff outside at all.


Kevin Jackson

Triskelian Design

kjacksontriskelian [dot] com

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