Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Engaging Users in the LibreOffice Project

Hi Ken,

> Before you can say any program *is* serious competition, you have to 
> determine which products, or product levels, you are going to
> compare. Office is available in many forms, similar to the different
> levels of comfort/convenience packages in automobiles.  LO comes in
> just one flavor.  Kingsoft Office in 2 flavors.  Chocolate and
> Vanilla.  OK, that's not quite right.   LOL
Ok, granted, but when someones says MS Office (like you did) I happen
to think primarily of Word and Excel. I'll even normally consider that
Powerpoint and Access are in there. I don't consider OneNote (never
used it, no idea what it is), Outlook or Publisher to be part of that
package. That may be old fashioned of me, but I don't recall ever
having an MS Office version that came with Publisher. That was always
in one of the premium, too-expensive-to-even-consider packages. And
I'd never even heard of SkyDrive till now.

I'll grant you that a lot of people do use Outlook as part of the
package, and it is more than just an email client, but for me it's a
different application altogether, and not what I typically think of
when I think of an office suite.

So I finally see your real argument (the bugs and stuff, as I said,
being a red herring): No other office suite, LO included, can compete
against the full spectrum of software provided by the premium version
of MS Office. I have to agree with that.

That said, personally, I would still regard LO as serious competition
to MS Office. The mindset of "must use MS Office, because everybody
else uses it" is the greatest barrier to uptake of *anything* but
MSO, but I believe enough people are starting to shift out of that
mindset. So that aside, enough people will consider LO as an
alternative to MSO, because it does everything they need. Yes, there
are some people that need the advanced features of MSO, and yes even
more people need Outlook, but enough people don't need the advanced
features only available in the premium editions, and prefer a third
party email application anyway, so for them LO provides all they need
as an alternative to MSO, and it does that job well. That for me makes
it serious competition.

But that's a difference of opinion on what the statement means. And now
that I understand what you meant, my question is answered. Thank you.

> And you aren't competing against *just* MSO, you are competing with 
> every other office package out there.  Ford doesn't just compete with 
> Chevy, they compete with Honda, Toyota, BMW, Volkswagen, Mini-Cooper, 
> ET. AL.
This is just confusing the issue. You *are* competing against *just*
MSO when the question is about a viable alternative to MSO. None of the
other packages are relevant to the discussion of "is LO a viable
alternative to MSO"

Paul

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