[OPLINTECH] Open Office Software

[Ed Liddle]

If a savvy OOo user works for an organization that uses something other
than OOo, the OOo savvy person could always ask if OOo could be
installed on their machine so they could use it. Since OOo can save
files in many different formats they could likely still share files with
their co-workers or save the final draft version in what ever the
organization's defacto standard is. The cost to the organization would
be the cost of the bandwidth for the download and higher productivity
from the OOo savvy person. This is much more cost effective than an
office 2007 savvy person trying to get office 2007 installed on their
work machine if the organization does not use it. 

A couple incompatibilities that OOo does have is with microsoft's access
and publisher programs, which I am not sure if any other office suites
have applications that will read and write the file formats these
applications use. 

We have OOo installed on the public internet stations and some staff
stations. Mostly staff uses Microsoft Office. I suspect most patrons use
microsoft office as well. I like to provide patrons with a choice of
what they want to use. If a patron mentions that they have a computer at
home without an office suite I tell them about open office and give them
the web address so they can download it from home. If they are on dial
up I will burn openoffice on one of my personal cdrs I bring in from
home and give it to them to take home and keep. By having OOo on the
public stations at least those patrons who use OOo will be able to open,
edit, and create things in the ISO/IEC 26300:2006 Open Document Format
for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0, which any other office
suite could use as well. 

-Ed Liddle 



Oas .doc, .xls, and .pptn Tue, 2008-01-22 at 16:41 -0500, Chad Neeper
(list) wrote:
> The learning curve between OOo v2.x and MS Office versions prior to 2007 
> is negligible, in my opinion. It would be considerably easier to move 
> from an earlier version of MS Office to OOo than it would be to move 
> from an earlier version of MS Office to MS Office 2007. MS Office 2007 
> is its own beast, however, and is different all across the board.
> 
> As for pure market share of OOo versus MS Office in the business world, 
> I expect MS Office is dominant. Going forward, is OOo gaining market 
> share against Office? Probably. Will that market share increase as more 
> and more companies adopt linux at the desktop? Probably. Is MS Office 
> "what they're using in the real world?" Yes. But so is OOo.
> 
> Will non-savvy people melt down if their new employer's word processor 
> is Word instead of OOo? Depends on the non-savvy person, I guess! 
> Consider that a "non-savvy person" would be using just the most basic 
> features, then they would have a fairly small learning curve. The more 
> features they use, the bigger learning curve they have.
> 
> Throw in the question of how many businesses have actually moved to the 
> latest version of MS Office and I'm beginning to come to the conclusion 
> that your questions are unanswerable except in the most general sense. 
> With three and a half major players in the office suite arena, maybe 
> it's best to simply let the patron decide or to gain skills in one suite 
> expecting that the skills will translate to the others in some degree. 
> (The three and a half major players I'm thinking are: MS Office 
> pre-2007, MS Office 2007, OpenOffice, and Corel Office as the half.) 
> Personally, I feel that if a person has skills in one, they should be 
> able to translate those skills to another, even if there is a bit of a 
> learning curve.
> 
> Any other opinions out there?
> 
> Chad
> 
> -----------------------
> Chad Neeper
> Senior Systems Engineer
> 
> Level 9 Networks
> 740-548-8070 (voice)
> 866-214-6607 (fax)
> 
> --   Full LAN/WAN consulting services   --
> -- Specialized in libraries and schools --
> 
> 
> 
> Shane Ian Hoffman wrote:
> > How much is business adopting it?  It's been slightly addressed in some
> > previous posts, but my concern has been:
> >
> > I'm trying to make sure my patrons have the skills they need to get a job,
> > go to college, whatever.  Are the skills picked up by using OO.org going to
> > transfer?  I have a lot of non-savvy people who come through my doors
> > wanting to learn.  Those that ask questions invariably ask, "Is this what
> > they're using in the real world?".
> >
> > I guess my question is, will my non-savvy people melt down the second they
> > open their word processor or spreadsheet at their new job and it's WORD
> > instead of OO?
> >
> > Shane
> >
> > Shane Ian Hoffman
> > IT Coordinator
> > Pickaway County District Public Libraries
> > 1160 North Court Street
> > Circleville, OH  43113
> > phone - 740.477.1644 ext. 232
> > fax - 740.474.2855
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: oplintech-bounces at oplin.org [mailto:oplintech-bounces at oplin.org] On
> > Behalf Of shivelri at oplin.org
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 11:12 AM
> > To: oplintech at oplin.org
> > Subject: [OPLINTECH] Open Office Software
> >
> > Hello, I am the IT Specialist at Greenville Public Library and we have 
> > started to use OO for some of our patron and staff computers. I was 
> > curious as to how many other libraries are using OO and what their 
> > experience has been with it? Do the patrons get along fine with it? Does 
> > the staff?
> >
> >   
>