Plea for help: The detriment of using Microsoft products

[smith at missioncriticallinux.com (Jeffry Smith)]

On a related note, when we ran the LBS, I was amazed at the number
of people who wanted to see how to do stuff on Linux, as in editing
Word Documents, Excel Documents, etc, but didn't seem to care about
interoperability with Windows.  In fact, it was more on the order of 
"how do I do this without Microsoft?"  Admittedly, anyone at the
Linux Business Show probably was looking for alternatives anyway,
but the clear message I got was that whatever replaced current
Microsoft stuff, they didn't want it from Microsoft.  

just my 2 cents

jeff

On Mon, 15 May 2000, John
Chambers wrote:

>  Paul Lussier wrote:
> 	 
> 	 > >Currently, you run Linux, because you recognize that MS products have
> 	 > >serious issues.  Do you plan to change your mind suddenly when MS releases
> 	 > >Outlook for Linux?  I didn't think so...
> 	 > 
> 	 > I'm not saying *I* will change my mind.  What I'm saying is that the current 
> 	 > argument for *not* using Linux on the desktop is "Lack of apps" which loosely 
> 	 > translates to "Lack of MS Office".  ...
> 
> Hmmm ...  In my experience, a very simple question has usually  shown
> this  to  not  be  quite  true.  When people tell me that they use MS
> software because what they need isn't elsewhere, I often ask them how
> many other systems they actually investigated. Invariably, the answer
> is "None." They are usually somewhat embarrassed by  this  admission,
> of  course,  since  it is belies what they just said.  But they never
> seem at all apologetic. If anything, they become more assertive.  The
> real  message is "I have no intention of looking at anything else, so
> don't bother me with nonsense about other computer systems."
> 
> When and if MS Office becomes available on linux, it is  unlikely  to
> convert  more  than  a  handful of users.  Some people will use it on
> linux, but you'll find that they're mostly people who used linux  for
> other  things already.  The MS-only crowd will simply find some other
> "necessary" piece of software that isn't yet supported on linux,  and
> insist that this is their reason.
> 
> You can't win this game.  At least, you can't win  it  by  trying  to
> catch  up  with  someone  who is always ahead of you because they are
> allowed to define the goal line and change it at will.  If I  can  be
> the one to say what direction is "ahead", then I will always be ahead
> of you.
> 
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffry Smith      Technical Sales Consultant     Mission Critical Linux
smith at missioncriticallinux.com phone:978.446.9166,x271 fax:978.446.9470
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thought for today:  There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking
about.
		-- John von Neumann


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