On 02/13/2013 07:03 PM, C. Olofson wrote:
Most of the users I have seen in the corporate/academic world are not computer literate and fear any change. To compound matters they have no interest in becoming marginally literate. Try explaining how to import a csv file into a spreadsheet when the person fears Excel; lots of fun.On 2/13/2013 3:55 PM, Jay Lozier wrote:On 02/13/2013 06:38 PM, Italo Vignoli wrote:On 2/14/13 12:18 AM, Jay Lozier wrote:Interesting, if MS became aware that say few large city that currentlyuse MSO were considering LO they might make FUD attacks on LO. I do notknow exactly how the MS support agreements work (I would assume something like $x / person for a years with option to renew) but non renewal would be a very good indication someone is switching to something else.Only a few large MS Office users have support agreements, because they already spend a large amount of money on licenses, but Microsoft visits them at least twice a year to try to sell on top of licenses. They use every opportunity to provide competitive marketing materials, and the fact that several users do not want to speak about migrations is due to the fact that they would immediately receive the visit of Microsoft sales people, who - in some cases - would try to discredit the CIO with his management because of the choice to use free software. Microsoft is very effective, although they are losign grip with their market because of their attitude.What is a typical license term?Years ago I worked closely with my company's sales team. What I noticed it was better to sell your products "features and benefits" and say nothing about your competitors unless directly asked by the customer. Then be very careful what you say to avoid antagonizing the customer and be very factual. I worked with chemical equipment manufacturers and our customers where often chemical engineers.The long term problem with FUD tactics is it risks one's creditability by becoming a known liar. It may take awhile.I can't speak to licensing terms but with respect to adoption of anything other than MSO: in my (limited) experience with both companies and non-profits, most resistance to moving away from MSO comes from the workers who use MSO. It doesn't matter whether one has a better non-free app (Wordperfect), a better cloud solution (Google Apps) or whether one can articulate the beauty of free-as-in-free-speech: Change, for most end users, is to be avoided in the extreme.
I think the real issue is user attitudes are reinforced by FUD. Often you see people say you can not do something on the web unless you have Windows or a Mac but Linux usually works just as well but the FUD plays on user ignorance of how websites actually work. Once the spell is broken, then credibility is lost.That attitude, in my opinion, is the biggest barrier to LibO adoption; even bigger than MS' fud machine.
fwiw, -Craig
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