On Tue, 2006-05-09 at 13:38 +0200, Charles-H. Schulz wrote: > Hello, > > I agree with Jacqueline here. While I believe that the theory according > to which ODF, if implemented inside MS Office, would help the adoption > of OOo, is tempting, it is jut not what I hear from customers, members > of the administrations, and CIOs of the private sector. To them it would > be, in contrary, their best excuse for *not going OOo*, actually. > Remember, people hate to change.
Which is why lowering the barriers to change is a key strategy. Its why OOo on Windows and not just Linux/Solaris is a good strategy. It could be argued just the same that this will prevent people from migrating to Linux but in fact it makes the transition more likely, especially in the longer run. In applying theories of management of change, I came up with the following transition steps from easy to difficult change. Awareness Education Minor technological hassle (Data Interoperability) Medium technological hassle (Cross platform programs) Major techno hassle (Switch operating systems) Any large population will make the transition from one step to the next more easily than jumping two or three even though some individuals will go straight to the last one. In a world where there was 100% interoperability and all programs ran on all operating systems it would be a no-brainer to use the operating system that had no license hassle and had no significant virus problem. The same would be true of office software. There wouldn't really be much of an issue of change at all. But of course they would be unlikely to make the change until they came to a point where they were going to upgrade so being able to open ODF files might make it seem like it had no effect because it probably wouldn't have an immediate effect, it would raise awareness, improve interoperability in preparation for cross platform then switch of OS. When the choice is upgrade and pay more or upgrade and its free, all other things being equal there is no contest. > CIOs do even more :) . Office suites > are a crucial part of the infrastructure they have to deal with and at > the same time, it's a commodity. You can tell them whatever you want and > show them the fanciest technology, at the end of the day their job is to > keep the IT working, if not the entire corporate processes running from > the production facilities to the accounting dept. You forgot that they should also save the company money and if all the risk is taken out of the transition that is what any sensible CIO will do. Some of the risk is more fear and fear is born out of lack of familiarity. So reduce the fear by increasing familiarity and confidence. Its more a confidence issue than a technology issue. > So I think it should be clear that, despite the respect we have of the > OD fellowship's work, the interests of the two, OOo and the fellowship > converge on many points but do not match exactly. To me this is nothing to do with any differences in these two groups. The analysis is to show why its good for OOo, not why its good for ODF and bad for OOo. Ok, some people will have a different view but its nothing to do with differences between OOo and ODF advocacy. > I don't see how this statement could be hostile toward one or another, > by the way. But it may be good and useful to draw lines, sometimes. > > Besides, I don't think that allowing MS to have access to ODF is a good > thing. Its an open format so if they are motivated how would you stop them? The fact that they are not motivated tells us something. > Let's isolate them increasingly rather than give them the stick > they'll use to beat us down and the whole community. So why are we supporting their operating system? It just doesn't seem very logical to support Windows with OOo on the one hand then say we shouldn't touch anything MS with ODF on the other. > Me, I'd rather have no ODF plugin for MS Office, unless it's an absolute > customer's requirement. Its certainly seen as desirable by the UK department for education. Now that is a fairly big customer ;-) > As I said, customers hate to change, and the > more they stick with MS Office the happier they will be. When you prove > them that OOo is as feature rich than MS Office, they'll tell you that > macros can't be implemented in a similar way. When macros don't matter > after all, they'll tell you about the format. And so at that point, I'd > rather go on showing them what is possible and what brings them value > with OOo and ODF. But an ODF plugin, whatever the technological interest > it might create, is not wishable, for OOo, for SO, for KOffice, for > Workplace and for FOSS in general. Any customer that is as entrenched as that would not make the transition anyway. There has been a lot of demand for and ODF reader so we could send ODF E-mail attachments. While this might be better, a good MSO import filter would effectively give the same result. Being able to send ODF mail attachments routinely would be a big plus in marketing OOo. Regards, -- Ian Lynch www.theINGOTs.org www.opendocumentfellowship.org www.schoolforge.org.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
