Re: [libreoffice-marketing] LibreOffice vs. MS Office

________________________________
 From: webmaster-Kracked_P_P <webmaster@krackedpress.com>
To: marketing@global.libreoffice.org 
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2013 8:18 PM
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-marketing] LibreOffice vs. MS Office
 
On 01/12/2013 01:00 PM, Kannan Moudgalya wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I would like to re-open the discussion on this topic, which was discussed a couple of weeks back.
>
> I already mentioned in a previous mail that we offer LibreOffice workshops for clerical and 
> support staff of many organisations, such as government offices and universities, free of cost.  
> What is interesting is that the participants learn advanced features of the software, for 
> example, track changes and the like.  Most of them, however, are not aware of such advanced 
> techniques in MS Office.  The reason is that no one teaches these things on MS Office - the 
> training programme is possibly expensive or only limited seats are available in a training 
> programme.
>
> Thus, even if LibreOffice is less powerful (for argument sake), it is used effectively - even the 
> advanced features are known to the users.  In comparsion, the MS Office is used less effectively, 
> even if it is more powerful, once again, for argument sake.  Thus, the LibreOffice users end up 
> being better users of the software, compared to the MS Office users.
>
> The above observation got corroborated in a blender workshop that we organised.  Here is a 
> feedback from an official of the organisation, where we conducted this workshop.
>
> /"The workshop as informed to you earlier over phone was really successful. By the end of four 
> days the participants were very happy and confident in developing 3D animation. Earlier they were 
> using licensed products which did not actually fulfill our requirements of 3 D animation. Added 
> to that they were also introduced to interactive game development using Blender. In the four days 
> they were introduced to modeling, lighting, 3D Animation and interactive games. The best part was 
> the spoken tutorials helped them get ready with the installation, interface and utilities of 
> Blender before  the physical workshop in the IGNOU campus. Spoken tutorials were really useful as 
> the participants could use them time and again as reference material even when the physical 
> workshop was on. We are very happy with the workshop and looking forward to an advanced level 
> workshop."
>
> /Kannan

I know there was a link about "spoken tutorial" for India. It was an article link.

Yes having "spoken word" tutorials can be easier for people than printed text.  Yes, we need more 
public workshops for the use [and marketing] of LibreOffice.  If I did not have a "communication 
issue" brought about after 3 strokes, I would do one locally in my library, or even in a Adult 
Education center.

It would be great if some "professional quality" presentation is created for teaching LO to users.  
That that presentation and display it in a room of users via a projection monitor system.  Have 
handout material included.  Make it all on a DVD set of disks that can be downloaded.  I was think 
about having videos along with Impress presentations and have some working examples worked through 
showing the users how to do these things.  Make these free so local marketing people can present LO 
in a workshop.  I do not know how to do many things that are not "basic" or things I have never 
needed to do, but that does not mean I would not be willing to do a workshop if someone created the 
materials for me that would show the workshop how to do these things.

MS Office is "more powerful than LibreOffice for one main reason, it is bloated with so many 
features that it takes "in-depth guides" to know they even exist.  There has been figures like less 
that 1% of 1% of the business users either know these features or know how to use them.  Do you 
really need to do things like edit a spreadsheet table inside a Word document?  Do you really need 
to do things in LibreOffice that are used by 1 out of 1,000,000 business users? Sure some feature 
are going to be used, but using a package like Word or Writer for desktop publishing of a 100+ page 
magazine with all of the fancy text and image options you can think of, might not be very useful to 
the users we are targeting LO towards.  Sure, making newsletters and other multi-column text/image 
documents under 20 pages or so is useful, but more than that may not be for our market.  I would 
not even want to try it with Word or LO, but I know there are those that do use a
 word processor for very large desktop publishing needs.  Doable but not recommended.

The key is ease of use for the "standard user" not the 1 in 100,000 user.  The key is not adding so 
many features that it takes 1 to 5 GB of disk space to install the package and 2 or 3 minutes to 
load up to the point where you then can type or edit the document.  I still work on/with desktops 
and laptops that take 3+ minutes to boot up MS Office 2003 to the point where it can be used.  
Those same system take less than 30 seconds to get LO to that same point.


I think the subject is quite an important one in a marketing perspective. Where I work, I am 
convincing people to install LO, half of the work is done, but many people don't trust (I would say 
don't know much) it.  I fight against it showing how many public institutions have adopted LO.   
there are many explanations about  (even what is reported as 'judging quality by price' or having 
mso is a mode, no matter wether the choice is rational).  yes, we may think MSoffice has a higher 
quality, but nobody asks wether such quality is necessary.  I saw MSoffice 2010 a couple of times, 
but was not impressed; main differences are about muti-user features, network and data protection, 
but maybe 2% of users wuold note the difference between LO and mso.  One thing, however, strongly 
suggesting the use of LO is the compatibility of data with other packages (while mso is hardly 
compatible among different versions, giving the idea that each version brings a
 revolution, while it is just a marketing spot making its use more confusing).   Then 2 points 
should be considered  (both have already benn considered):  1 stressing the many features which 
make LO better than mso for the average user (and asking wether people know yhe difference - 
generally no - or need really more features);  2 including slowly in the the time some new features 
which are already sometimes requested by some users.

60 milions users aren't a jock or a small number; LO is suitable for everybody and not a niche 
product.  there is still to do, but we are alredy winning  (growing faster in quality and 
diffusion).

moreover, keep in mind that many resources are alredy produced by autonomous different users: from 
the uml modules produced in UK  (which could give us a very big opportunity in the sector), to the 
wollmux.net  project develped in germany, to a lot of small tutorials, video tutorials, extensions 
and short guides available in schools and universities.  such things should be better known.




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