Re: VDQ M$

On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 14:49 -0400, Beartooth wrote:
>
> In the course of discussion with an unenlightened good friend, I'm looking
> to refute the contention that linux can never hope to amount to anything
> because of M$ market domination particularly with office apps; he says you
> have to be able to copy & past between Excel and Word, etc.
>
> I rarely use any word processor, and then only for the most elementary
> purposes; I've never had to use any M$ office app whatever, nor ever will,
> now.
>
> I know Abiword can do a lot of things I've never even needed to know about
> -- like what a spreadsheet is, or a power point, let alone a slide show
> (if there's now a computer thing called that). And I assume that at least
> one reason Abiword opens so much faster than OOo is that it doesn't have
> to prepare itself for all sorts of things too fierce to mention.
>
> The friend however, poor soul, is condemned to such work for a few more
> years. Otoh, he runs MS mainly just because it's not Apple, which he
> detests even more. He might be interested in trying linux if I can find
> knowledgeable assurance that he can do what he must with it.
>
> Can anyone help?
>

You raised a few points, I can give you an opinion on some of them:

You can copy and past in both Linux and Windows. Linux has the neat
"Middle-button paste" feature, but in Windows you can "Paste Link" in
any Office app.

As a former Microsoft Office support person, I can tell you that there
are many more "features" in the Microsoft Office. For years I cursed
the confusing tangle of features that none of my users ever used and
never would use. I was tempted to replace MS Office with MS Word so
that my users could at least complete a simple document without my
help. :-)

I was initially excited by Sun's OpenOffice suite, but I got tired of
waiting for things to happen. It appears to me as more of a "we can be
as bad as Microsoft" kind of venture. I have abandoned my OpenOffice.

Abiword and Gnumeric have replaced Microsoft Office on all of my
client's desktops because of the easier learning curve, faster load
times and better standards compliance. (not to mention cost).

And it would be a complete mistake to leave out the risk of virus
infection. You will not get a virus on a Linux system.

Sadly, I cannot comment on the ability of Abiword or Gnumeric in a
Windows environment - I just don't know.

The downside is that there are likely less people around to support an
individual Linux user. So if you are not a power user and you run into
difficulty, you have a more significant problem.

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Received on Wed Jun 7 21:59:27 2006