Re: [libreoffice-marketing] LibreOffice's role in a MS Office world

I believe that Office 365 is now at 5 devices [desktop, laptop, tablet] 
for $100 a year, with some limitations.  Renting an office package is 
not my cup-of-tea.  MSO 2013 seems to be $130 to $400 per device to buy.

For this economic times, getting a good working at a free price makes 
sense.  Cross-platform between Windows, Mac OSX and Linux systems can be 
a good point as well.

Real world, if a company has MSO deployed already, then not having to 
buy another licenses with any new computer might be a good point.  
Saving $100 or more per new system can really add up.  MSO is getting 
really expensive to buy since MS wants the yearly income renting their 
products will generate in the long term.

ODF vs. MSO formats, well since LibreOffice reads and writes MSO 
formats, except for the most complex documents, well, then you do not 
have to choose anytime soon.  Since ODF seems to be growing and MSO is 
loosing market shares worldwide, in a few years more and more 
International and regional businesses will be moving to ODF as their 
default file formats.

It is all region based.
Canon USA ands Canada does not support Linux drivers, but MOST other 
regional Canon sites do offer Linux Support.  That is because there are 
as great a percentage of Linux users in the USA/Canada as in other parts 
of the world.  That may change.

Same with LibreOffice and other FOSS packages.  Some regions will have 
more percentage of users using it over others.

Some regions and markets may take a lot of push to get them to accept 
and use non-MS products, while others will be easier.

For me, getting users to notice that a free office suite that uses MSO 
file formats is not easy.  They just do not trust free.  The saying "you 
get what you pay for" is to well a part of our being to realize that 
there are free things that are as good as or better than similar paid 
packages.


On 02/02/2013 01:25 PM, Jay Lozier wrote:
> Reply inline
>
> On 02/02/2013 11:18 AM, Ma Xiaojun wrote:
> > Hi, all.
> >
> > I have experience as a college student in China, Hong Kong, US.
> > All these three regions seems to be MS Office based; people assume
> > others have access to MS Office.
> > China, in particular, generally use MS Office documents even in the
> > cases that PDF is a better choice, for example, announcements often
> > use doc format.
> > I haven't seen any ODF files distributed around except those found in
> > SFD or LUG events.
> >
> > Let's consider some real world cases.
> > 1. An organization has Windows + MS Office deployment already, which
> > is at least very common in universities.
> > Then for whatever reasons, the organization is considering some
> > alternative options.
> > A. Apache OpenOffice
> > B. Google Docs
> > C. LibreOffice
> > D. Office 365
> > I'd put an honest question: What's the advantages of LibreOffice in 
> > this case?
> Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice are free/no charge for all users. 
> Google Docs is free for personal use. Office 365, I believe, requires 
> a subscription which can get expensive over time.
>
> AOO and LO are installed on the users machine(s) and do not require 
> any Internet access to use. You may need access to sync files with 
> Dropbox or some other similar service. I rate this as major advantage 
> - you are not dependent on an Internet connection.
>
> Google Docs and Office 365 require an active connection to use. The 
> main advantage of this is with collaboration with others in theory at 
> least. The major problem is the quality of the connection.
>
> LO is ahead of AOO currently in terms of development due the problems 
> AOO had in the transition from Oracle to Apache. Google Docs and 
> Office 365 being "in the Cloud" should always have the most current 
> version available.
> > 2. A non-geek bought a PC for her own use, the OS is Linux/Mac OS
> > X/Windows, and she is considering which productivity suite to use.
> > A. Apache OpenOffice
> > B. Google Docs
> > C. LibreOffice
> > D. MS Office
> > E. Office 365
> > Still the same question, what's the advantages of LibreOffice here?
> > You may exclude the Linux case since LibreOffice is often
> > pre-installed by various Linux distributions.
> >  From my own experience, the fact that LibreOffice releases seems to be
> > a disadvantage.
> > If I help someone else install a particular version of LibreOffice,
> > that software would never get upgraded without my participation.
> Installing LO or AOO is no more difficult than installing any other 
> software on Windows or a Mac. The problem is user updating/upgrading 
> on Windows and Mac. LO is addressing this with a notification that a 
> newer version is available in 4.0.
>
> The issue of updating software particularly on Windows is thorny one 
> because there is no central Windows database or easy method to update 
> all the installed software. MS only supports their own and all 3rd 
> party software is generally ignored. This is why many vendors have 
> nagware to remind users to update in Windows.
>
> The major advantage of LO is it installs a broader suite than many of 
> the MSO groupings.
>
> Also, do not forget that major version upgrades of MSO cost money. MS 
> only offers free service packs and patches for the currently supported 
> versions. Also, MS appears to be pushing Office 365 because of its 
> subscription based model. My analysis is for many individuals the 
> subscription is a horrible long term deal because over time you will 
> spend more than if you bought it.
> > I understand "free and open source", "free of charge" are big
> > advantages for some people.
> > Are they enough for general marketing? I guess not.
> If your have budget problems then price is major issue. Being able to 
> afford a good office suite is important to many. So the price point 
> ($0) is important for LO and AOO for any and all versions. With either 
> one can upgrade to the latest version with only a time investment.
>
> The marketing problem for LO and AOO is that neither can afford 
> massive advertising campaigns which MS or Apple can do. Our 
> advertising is more word of mouth.
> > For me, less bloated, available as portable app seems to be the
> > biggest advantage of LibreOffice.
> > I'm also expecting LibreOffice being available in Android and Web world.
> One issue to remember is that most users will not use all the features 
> available in any office suite. Unless you need a very specific 
> feature, IMHO all the options will have the features you probably need.
> > Cheers,
> > Ma Xiaojun


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