Re: [libreoffice-marketing] LibO in Business

> > * It is ugly
>
> This is a very subjective call, so not worth consideration outside a "UX
> needs
> improvement in some areas"


UX can make or break a product, just ask Steve Jobs and therefore IS worth
consideration. Someone even brought up this point on the first conference
call (sorry I cannot recall your name but you were correct)

> > * It is slow
>
> Define slow, I have 3.2.1 on clients machines and is grease lightning fast,
> certainly faster than opening up all 4 of MS applications at the same time.
this is "subjective" as not everyone has the same machine as you or tour
clients, I was merely summerizing the responses form my own personal polling
of why people  use M$ office over OO. performance is an issue, this is
known. compared to MS, it is comparable, but they are the team on the field
right now...




> > * It is clunky
>
> Define "clunky" in specific terms

clunky and refined are in fact subjective terms, but once again Steve Jobs
and his buddies over at Apple understand this.

I wil try though:
windows95: clunky
OS X: not so much

terminal:clunk
gnome: not so much

another example of clunky, I can insert page numbers by clicking 1 button in
MSO,

 OO, not so much.



> * It has issues with MS doc and docx files (yes I know MS formats in
> an insane way and does not follow standards)

 Not as many issues as MSO has with ODF, and LibO/OOo is standards compliant
>
yes but the world uses MSO so that point is moot if were are trying to get
them to use LO/OO..... and the average user or business IT person usually
does not even know what  "standards compliant" even means. All they care
about is their employment agency only accepts a resume in word format



When someone using OO/LO tries to save in a docx format and gets this:

[image: LibreOffice 3.png]

hosted link of pic in case the pic does not come through:
http://imm.io/1NCo


they will not use LO/OO in the future.

As a professional writer, I cannot use OOo because my clients only accept M$
word docs, they don't care about standards, they care about what they can
use to get their business done and most of them use MSO. And since we are
trying to take their M$ world away form them, we have to play their game for
now.



> > unrefined
> Subjective again define
> >
if you want people to use your product, you must take subjective ideas into
account. look what refinement did for the iPhone




>  >
> > As someone who has worked in corporate IT in the U.S., and now in
> > ecommence for a major U.S. corporation,
>
> This is the problem, :)  I'll get to this further on.
>
> not sure what you mean, is it a problem I work there or is corp America the
problem (in either case I agree, nonetheless I am not sure your point)



> >  here are my recommendations:
> >
> > * LO needs to match every single MS Office function, and then provide
> > what MS Office is missing
>
> It does that already,  Forms and PDF functionality just an example.
>
> not 100%, saving in MS format is huge,also  there is no reliable  grammar
check (yes people in the U.S. use it) the review system is not as refined as
MSO
and as previously discussed in this list, there is no bibliography/reference
manager, included in MSO 2007 and 2010, important for academia




> > * The interface needs to become refined (think iphone refinement),
> > maybe even adding the dreaded ribbon or option to switch between the
> > two types)
>
> I agree with this, except for the ribbon. Iwould suggest that LibO/OOo
> still
> has greater market share than MSO2007/2010 ouside of Educational
> institutions

I agree the ribbon is ugly (more subjectivity, sorry) and menus are better,
but if we are trying to capture market from business users who just got used
to the ribbon, it should be an option to have.



> > * MS Office filters and converters need to be perfected
> "Perfect" is non achievable and a moving target


no but compatible should mean "compatible"  and agian we are trying to take
market form them, this is not a technical wish it is a marketing wish.



> > * Investigate  a revision control system like such as Sharepoint or
> Google
> > docs
>
> This I agree with, I'd like to see a function in the installer of a
> business
> version that gives the option of calling up an install of O3 spaces


> Not sure why this, OOo is available in many more languages than MS and I'm
> pretty sure LibO will be there soon as well, spell check works well as far
> as
> I can see, grammar checkers are bad voodoo and are more often wrong than
> right, however they can serve a purpose.  If you study document production
> work flows by someone who is a professional at the game, not an IT person
> who
> rarely has any idea about producing richly formatted documents, you will
> find
> that grammar checkers are more often than not used as suggesters of
> alternatives which a writer either ignores or adapts to suit their own
> style.



yes i agree, but there are a few functions in the MSO gram. checker that are
very good, but lacking in LO/OO. this is a sticking point for some,
especially students.


> As for formatting tools, Stylist kicks the arse of any similar tool in any
> version of MSO, once you have climbed the learning curve and unlearnt the
> really bad habits that using MSO has created.  The only change I would make
> is
> having stylist docked and open by default and on file>new a "select or
> create
> template" dialogue opens

the magic word you used is learning curve, business does not like to
retrain, because that means money. A major point of using OO/LO is cost.
matching what they know will make LO adaptability that much easier




> > We could institute some kind of feedback program such as the test
> > pilot model that Mozilla uses
> >  with Firefox 4. We can also look at how MS destroyed Word perfect in
> > market share to dominate the World Office suite business market.
>
> Read Clayton Christensen, MSO was cheaper and good enough and easy to get.
> LibO/OOo is in fact in that same position right now.  The tipping point is
> coming, some would argue that in Europe it is already there and given MS
> recent marketing, it seems they may agree .
Agreed, but if TDF can hit 30% in the States, imagine the worldwide affect
it would have for FOSS and M$ stockholders.






>  >
> > Then LO needs to innovate new features and stabilize its current
> > feature set, this is how Firefox, and later Chrome won the browser
> > wars (in my opinion at least)
>
> A browser is an entirely different beast,  the only thing they share is the
> fact they are software. It's like comparing going to the movies to driving
> a
> truck.  Forget that, they are tools to specific audience


stop comparing apples and oranges when I am talking about fruit. it is the
idea and motivation behind the idea I was referring to, not the actual
product.
moz is trying to make their product better by gathering feedback from people
who are using their product in that very instance (if you have used the
pilot extension you know what I mean)




> The biggest barrier to adoption in business is the advocates themselves,

 I am sorry to say it is not as I have been screaming about OO since
ver.1.0, yet many corps are still using MSO 2003 to this day.

the barrier is what will be the most cost affective transition, does corp A
switch to OO and ODF knowing their documents will not be compatible or do
they stick with a product they have literally used for over a decade (and
some place it is the same version for over a decade)



Problem with OSS projects is we go after geeks, or the IT department,
>

yes and since the average user just wants their product to work and does not
care about standards, they will use what they know. My brother for example
will not upgrade to MSO 2007 because he knows 2003. OO? all he knows is it
is different than what he is used to and does not have the time to relearn
software; the menus are completely different and so is half the
workflow...an example of the average user.




> I tell you what, we must be doing something right.
>
> well when you only have 20% of the market by giving the product away and
the 700$ suite has 60%, you need to do better.

Android is a good model to look at, it is killing the iPhone and is open
source, but they got the UI right, and, to take a quote form apple,  it just
works. This is what LO needs to do, work, for the avg. user for the CEO, for
the IT guy


and for the record, I am not a MS fanboy (as I write this on an ubuntu 10.10
system in minefield4 prebeta8).
The real longterm goal is to get the business world to adopt Oasis file
formats. once that happens, OO will win more market


FOSS forever!
 ciao
-fe

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