Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On 10/28/2010 04:21 PM, Drew Jensen wrote: >> Religious organizations are another are where costs and document portability >> might not be a major concern because everyone is using the Small non-profits tend to have big issues with compatibility, because they typically use old software that is no longer supported. Those microsoft grants are not all that they are cracked up to be. So much so, that even with a grant, the costs involved in complying with the terms of the grant are such, that the organization would be better off refusing the grant. >> same thing so there are no problems > have met many people from small congregations in the forums One of the big hurdles that FLOSS advocates have to face, when trying to migrate religious organizations to FLOSS, is the lack of usable software that is functionally equivalent to their (usually pirated) Windows product. The significant software there is the one that handles membership data, scheduling, sermon preparation, service co-ordination, lyric presentation, and any number of church stuff that nobody but the church secretary, the board of elders, and the pastor know about. jonathon -- No human will see non-list, non-bulk, non-junk email sent to this address. It all gets forwarded to /dev/null -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On 10/28/2010 05:14 PM, Drew Jensen wrote: >> Or get a port of LO/OOo to cell phones! > is someone working on that? :) I've been giving it some thought. The first issue/stumbling block is rewrite the code in a more portable language. (Objective C looks like the best candidate, simply because both Android and the iPhone/iPod/iPad can share the same code base.) Symbian wants code in Java. The second issue/stumbling block is that the LGPL is incompatible with iPhone App store rules. jonathon -- No human will see non-list, non-bulk, non-junk email sent to this address. It all gets forwarded to /dev/null -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On 10/28/2010 11:40 PM, Inge Wallin wrote: >> the fastest growing (Cell phones) MSFT is nowhere but unfortunately neither >> is LO/OOo :-( > But KOffice is! So ODF is still strong on cell phones, There is nothing at http://www.koffice.org/download/ or http://www.koffice.org/ that even hints that it is available for any cell phone. Using their search button, there are no results for "symbian", "windows mobile", "iphone", "ipad", "ipod", "blackberry". The only hits for "nokia" were about it sponsoring KOffice development. That is not the way to market your product. jonathon -- No human will see non-list, non-bulk, non-junk email sent to this address. It all gets forwarded to /dev/null -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
Le 2010-10-29 04:18, Ian a écrit : On Fri, 2010-10-29 at 01:40 +0200, Inge Wallin wrote: Hi, Or get a port of LO/OOo to cell phones! Is that really possible? Nothing is impossible, but it will probably be very difficult! We are planning a certification for LO/OOo based on the European Qualifications |framework. Do you think there would be interest in a similar certification for Koffice? We have pretty well all the facilities in place, government and industry endorsement, on-line technology for recording evidence, quality assurance and certificate delivery. It would not be a lot of work to make this fit Koffice as well as LO/OOo. I think if an Office Suite dominates cell phone technology it will become the next MS Office or something close to it. I believe a certification for LibO is an important step and that the same should be done for the N. American market and others. Is there a way to certification on this side of the pond? Certification would help with establishing LibO in the educational and business fields in N. America. Marc -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On Fri, 2010-10-29 at 14:48 +0200, Inge Wallin wrote: > On Friday, October 29, 2010 10:18:20 Ian wrote: > > On Fri, 2010-10-29 at 01:40 +0200, Inge Wallin wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > > > Or get a port of LO/OOo to cell phones! > > > > > > Is that really possible? > > > > Nothing is impossible, but it will probably be very difficult! > > > > We are planning a certification for LO/OOo based on the European > > Qualifications |framework. Do you think there would be interest in a > > similar certification for Koffice? We have pretty well all the > > facilities in place, government and industry endorsement, on-line > > technology for recording evidence, quality assurance and certificate > > delivery. It would not be a lot of work to make this fit Koffice as well > > as LO/OOo. I think if an Office Suite dominates cell phone technology it > > will become the next MS Office or something close to it. > > I think there would indeed be interest in such a certification. > > But I must admit that I know nothing about it. What is the purpose of the > certification and what advantages do you get by having it? And how much work > is involved in getting it? The certification really tells people that the holder of the certificate is competent at a particular level in the applications. Some governments use it to make sure training providers do provide the training because the certification company is effectively providing independent quality assurance. There are already vendor certifications for MSO (several) and more general certifications such as ECDL. ECDL certificated 9 million people last year in 43 countries. That would provide enough revenue to employ 100 or more developers for K-Office (Or OOo or odf). Our certification is based on the UK Qualifications and credit framework which is government regulated and referenced to the European Qualifications Framework which is only a couple of year old. It is competency based so if the candidate can provide evidence that they meet the assessment criteria they can be certificated. We authorise assessors to do this subject to us sampling their work for consistency. The evidence is provided via a customised Drupal CMS. There are some videos showing how the system works at www.theingots.org/community/kl -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications A new approach to assessment for learning www.theINGOTs.org - 01827 305940 You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On Friday, October 29, 2010 10:18:20 Ian wrote: > On Fri, 2010-10-29 at 01:40 +0200, Inge Wallin wrote: > > Hi, > > > > Or get a port of LO/OOo to cell phones! > > > > Is that really possible? > > Nothing is impossible, but it will probably be very difficult! > > We are planning a certification for LO/OOo based on the European > Qualifications |framework. Do you think there would be interest in a > similar certification for Koffice? We have pretty well all the > facilities in place, government and industry endorsement, on-line > technology for recording evidence, quality assurance and certificate > delivery. It would not be a lot of work to make this fit Koffice as well > as LO/OOo. I think if an Office Suite dominates cell phone technology it > will become the next MS Office or something close to it. I think there would indeed be interest in such a certification. But I must admit that I know nothing about it. What is the purpose of the certification and what advantages do you get by having it? And how much work is involved in getting it? -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On Fri, 2010-10-29 at 01:40 +0200, Inge Wallin wrote: Hi, > > Or get a port of LO/OOo to cell phones! > > Is that really possible? Nothing is impossible, but it will probably be very difficult! We are planning a certification for LO/OOo based on the European Qualifications |framework. Do you think there would be interest in a similar certification for Koffice? We have pretty well all the facilities in place, government and industry endorsement, on-line technology for recording evidence, quality assurance and certificate delivery. It would not be a lot of work to make this fit Koffice as well as LO/OOo. I think if an Office Suite dominates cell phone technology it will become the next MS Office or something close to it. -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications A new approach to assessment for learning www.theINGOTs.org - 01827 305940 You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
Le 2010-10-28 23:28, Marc Paré a écrit : Hi Drew et al: There is a "master" document on the advantages of using the ODF. It is on the ODF site. We could, from there create different versions and perhaps consider donating these back to the ODF Alliance. You can find it here: http://www.odfalliance.org/resources.php Marc There is also an .odp presentation file but it is a little out of date. I would not use this but perhaps use some parts that are relative to our marketing projects. Marc -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
Le 2010-10-28 10:02, Marc Paré a écrit : Le 2010-10-28 09:55, Drew Jensen a écrit : On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 09:51 -0400, James Walker wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Anthony Papillionwrote: Who would be the primary consumers of this information? Is it targeted towards end users or companies we are hoping will adopt ODF? Anthony Acutally we should consider doing more than one, maybe one toward business, one toward individuals, and then education. Hi Anthony, James, et al I think targeting to an audience would be great - I think picking one, and getting that one done is the key. My suggestion, given the folks here would be Educators. drew In my opinion, I would create a master ODF advocacy document and from there tailor it to the different groups. That way the language would be the same for all of the other tailored groups except for the sections where the language is set for the target group. We could even try to get the ODF people involved in this and see if they would be interested in collaborating. They could then take back the documents to their site for posting. Marc Hi Drew et al: There is a "master" document on the advantages of using the ODF. It is on the ODF site. We could, from there create different versions and perhaps consider donating these back to the ODF Alliance. You can find it here: http://www.odfalliance.org/resources.php Marc -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On Thursday, October 28, 2010 18:55:48 Ian wrote: > On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 11:21 -0500, Frank Esposito wrote: > [deleted] > It's a MS world on the desktop in most places but it's a world in which > MS is losing ground. If you look at the dominant computer technology and > the fastest growing (Cell phones) MSFT is nowhere but unfortunately > neither is LO/OOo :-( But KOffice is! So ODF is still strong on cell phones, and it's growing fast. Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker is putting in much money and energy to get an ODF-capable free office application on their phones. I know several other vendors that do the same, but I'm not allowed to talk about that at this point. > > so maybe we should concentrate on ODF benefits and then market towards > > businesses who are still running MSO 2003 and cannot afford the upgrade > > and training to MSO 2007/2010 (which is considerable thanks to the > > ribbon). > > Or get a port of LO/OOo to cell phones! Is that really possible? -Inge -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
Le 2010-10-28 13:24, Anthony Papillion a écrit : The marketing angle could be: "LibreOffice: Upgrade from MSO 2003 with full compatibility and no retraining costs." People would come over in droves. I like this! That would be definitely good idea. We are not bad mouthing MSO and we are offering ourselves as natural upgrades from MSO 2003. Neat! We are the upgrade option for the MSO 2003 orphins who were left behind and ignored. Wow, this thread has been really busy! Nice ideas! My take on all of this is we should try to get adoption where it counts the most. If we can get kids to adopt the distro, well then they will have their parents interested who will get their employers interested who will then get their IT interested ... and then we could take over THE WORLD! From what I can see there are really 2 groups: === For the younger members and regular users, we need to make the distro snazzy. We need: * make the menus themable -- if you are a younger user, a menu theme which offers less buttons (all the rest are still available of course); if you are a church member user then a menu theme that would reflect the most used buttons for these members; if you are a business member, then a menu theme for buttons best for this member; if you are a teenager, then a menu theme with perhaps added buttons to social networking items. etc. * templates should be constructed in such a way that when a member chooses a menu theme category, the templates that are compatible with the menu category would be installed for the member. * we need to make the distro "persona" compatible with the Firefox personas, they are already made on the net, they are OSS and MSO would not be able to use them due to the nature of most OSS viral licences (we would still need to look into this) * we need to have different cool contests for teenagers / junior grade students and have competitions of some sort at the city/state (province)/national levels. Get the kids involved and create some buzz for our LibO product. Very important to get teachers interested in these contests and make these very high profile in the media. * have a snazzy LibO on-line store with cool T-shirts and cool products. LibO chewing gum and the whole kit. === For the serious users, we need: * a serious menu theme option (the menu options would be built on consultation with the college/university/researcher/business/SOHO/legal/dev etc. members) * bibliographic / endnotes plugins (they have clamoured for this for quite some time now. How many more years should go by before we take notice?) * have LaTex compatibility! for mostly the university/research members. This would really sell the LibO suite to this group. They are really interested in FOSS and not really MSO which is why they are using LaTex. * serious templates (in consultation with the same groups) Encourage these groups to share their templates * same snazzy LibO store, they and we are all geeky over LibO *ODF compatibility and PDF compatibility === Marc -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
Le 2010-10-28 10:25, Drew Jensen a écrit : On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 10:02 -0400, Marc Paré wrote: In my opinion, I would create a master ODF advocacy document and from there tailor it to the different groups. Sure. I understand - but I would really like to see one finished one early - if it feeds back to the generalized one, or comes out of it, to start things off is not so important, IMO, but getting one finished is again IMO. Too often, personal experience, one can get caught in the 'perfection' trap and never get the good-enough part done. So - right now, we need to keep awareness up - we need quick little one page items, with some useful information, not made up from whole cloth, but made quickly - so that we can broadcast out that URL - both for direct viewing but with a little luck it spurs a few blog entries, that use it as a reference - more links, more chance to broadcast our LibreOffice, TDF, ODF...etc This is my thinking at this point.. drew No problem. We should be able to throw something together. I'll put it on my to-do list. Marc -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On 10/28/2010 11:21 AM, Frank Esposito wrote: > > Very good points and I agree, at least in the States, it is a Microsoft > world. > so maybe we should concentrate on ODF benefits and then market towards > businesses who are still running MSO 2003 and cannot afford the upgrade and > training to MSO 2007/2010 (which is considerable thanks to the ribbon). I think users of MSO 2K3 and MSO 2K7 are excellent targets for LibO! I've been talking to a lot of people making the upgrade and really feeling the pain. I've also talked with some who's simply resigned that they will have to stick with older versions since they just can't afford the move. It's an excellent time to push LibO. > Other options could be getting the Microsoft file converters in LO work work > perfectly to import old documents and then save in ODF, and also give the > option to reconfigure the menus and toolbars to mirror MSO2003 (for ease of > conversion). MSO actually did something like this early on when they were competing with WordPerfect. You could tell MSO to emulate WordPerfect and it would turn your text area blue and make your menus look like the ones WordPerfect had. It was a *very* effective strategy in their effort to bring over WP users as painlessness as possible. As for the converters, they are an essential part of this whole plan. No, they aren't going to work 100% of the time because LibO is different in many respects (particularly when it comes to spreadsheets with macros) but that can be worked around. SOME user modification will be needed in some cases, but there is a lot of room for improvement yet. > The marketing angle could be: > "LibreOffice: Upgrade from MSO 2003 with full compatibility and no > retraining costs." People would come over in droves. > Essentially an updated, FOSS drop-in replacement for MSO. Once that happens > we can then build brand-loyalty and users will continue with LO instead of > MSO and LO can then create its own path, just as Microsoft did to > WordPerfect and Quatro Pro. Exactly. We have to ease users into LibeO. When Microsoft entered the word processing market, they knew that users of WordPerfect weren't going to suddenly jump ship and run on over the them. They made it painless, easy, and focused on 'we're not that much different but we're still better in x areas'. Once they won, they defined their own path. I think LibeO could learn a lot by studying early Microsoft tactics. Just remember to take a shower afterwards. :-) Anthony -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 17:55 +0100, Ian wrote: > Or get a port of LO/OOo to cell phones! is someone working on that? :) -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 11:21 -0500, Frank Esposito wrote: > > > > Last year, I pushed hard to get a few of my area rural municipal > > governments to adopt OpenOffice. I met with representatives of about 15 > > small Oklahoma towns and did a few presentations (all designed in > > OpenOffice - eat the dog food!) In the end, none of them really saw any > > value in migrating. > > > > Their points were: > > > > 1. Microsoft provided us the software through a grant, we didn't have to > > pay anything so money isn't an issue. Drug pushers will give you the first fix free ;-) There is a clear risk as some national governments are now finding out. > > 2. Document conversion isn't 100% accurate in many cases and we have > > regulations we have to follow that require that they be accurate. So you have some legal licenses for MS Office, so keep these in case something breaks or really requires something complex. In probably 99% or more of documents, the document is a simple letter or something that converts well or is non-critical. The fact that this is made out as an issue demonstrates the risk in being locked into a proprietary file format. > > 3. Retraining costs would be extremely high. Everyone knows MS Office, > > nobody knows OpenOffice. We're a small government and can't afford > > retraining. Did you retrain all your staff when upgrading from MSO 97 to XP, to 2003 to 2007 etc? The changes between some of these are bigger than the differences between OOo and MSO. We will soon have very low cost certification for OOo skills and free on-line support and courses. There is already very good support from the mailing lists and it is all free. > > 4. There will be massive pushback because the skills aren't transferable > > and make people effectively useless in other jobs that use MS Office. If skills really are not that transferable you are in big trouble because the one thing that is certain is that current IT systems are going to change. Even if you stick with MS there is change. All employees need to realise that being flexible and willing to learn new things is going to be an essential for future employment. If they don't do it, other people will and in a massively connected world that means people in developing countries who will also do the work at much lower cost. > > > > > > Very good points and I agree, at least in the States, it is a Microsoft > world. It's a MS world on the desktop in most places but it's a world in which MS is losing ground. If you look at the dominant computer technology and the fastest growing (Cell phones) MSFT is nowhere but unfortunately neither is LO/OOo :-( > so maybe we should concentrate on ODF benefits and then market towards > businesses who are still running MSO 2003 and cannot afford the upgrade and > training to MSO 2007/2010 (which is considerable thanks to the ribbon). Or get a port of LO/OOo to cell phones! > Other options could be getting the Microsoft file converters in LO work work > perfectly to import old documents and then save in ODF, and also give the > option to reconfigure the menus and toolbars to mirror MSO2003 (for ease of > conversion). > > The marketing angle could be: > "LibreOffice: Upgrade from MSO 2003 with full compatibility and no > retraining costs." > > Essentially an updated, FOSS drop-in replacement for MSO. Once that happens > we can then build brand-loyalty and users will continue with LO instead of > MSO and LO can then create its own path, just as Microsoft did to > WordPerfect and Quatro Pro. > > -Frank -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications A new approach to assessment for learning www.theINGOTs.org - 01827 305940 You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
> > Last year, I pushed hard to get a few of my area rural municipal > governments to adopt OpenOffice. I met with representatives of about 15 > small Oklahoma towns and did a few presentations (all designed in > OpenOffice - eat the dog food!) In the end, none of them really saw any > value in migrating. > > Their points were: > > 1. Microsoft provided us the software through a grant, we didn't have to > pay anything so money isn't an issue. > > 2. Document conversion isn't 100% accurate in many cases and we have > regulations we have to follow that require that they be accurate. > > 3. Retraining costs would be extremely high. Everyone knows MS Office, > nobody knows OpenOffice. We're a small government and can't afford > retraining. > > 4. There will be massive pushback because the skills aren't transferable > and make people effectively useless in other jobs that use MS Office. > > I think we should address a few of these points in whatever evangelism > we do towards local or national governments. Federal government in the > USA has historically been suspicious and wary of open source software. > That's dramatically changed over the last few years but, in some > agencies, it's still there to a degree. > > Religious organizations are another are where costs and document > portability might not be a major concern because everyone is using the > same thing so there are no problems and, in many cases, Microsoft has > donated the software or provided it under a grant for no out of pocket > expense. > > We're dealing with a very savvy competitior in Microsoft that is willing > to do whatever it takes to win. Whatever we come up with is going to > have to be just as savvy and beat them at their own game. > > Anthony > > Very good points and I agree, at least in the States, it is a Microsoft world. so maybe we should concentrate on ODF benefits and then market towards businesses who are still running MSO 2003 and cannot afford the upgrade and training to MSO 2007/2010 (which is considerable thanks to the ribbon). Other options could be getting the Microsoft file converters in LO work work perfectly to import old documents and then save in ODF, and also give the option to reconfigure the menus and toolbars to mirror MSO2003 (for ease of conversion). The marketing angle could be: "LibreOffice: Upgrade from MSO 2003 with full compatibility and no retraining costs." Essentially an updated, FOSS drop-in replacement for MSO. Once that happens we can then build brand-loyalty and users will continue with LO instead of MSO and LO can then create its own path, just as Microsoft did to WordPerfect and Quatro Pro. -Frank -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 10:59 -0500, Anthony Papillion wrote: > On 10/28/2010 09:39 AM, Frank Esposito wrote: > > > > We should also include government as well, that seems to be where adoption > > is currently high. how about religious organizations? > > > > > > So we have: > > Government (local and National) > > Business > > Non profit organizations > > Education (all grades) > > Personal users > > Last year, I pushed hard to get a few of my area rural municipal > governments to adopt OpenOffice. I met with representatives of about 15 > small Oklahoma towns and did a few presentations (all designed in > OpenOffice - eat the dog food!) In the end, none of them really saw any > value in migrating. > > Their points were: > > 1. Microsoft provided us the software through a grant, we didn't have to > pay anything so money isn't an issue. I would say these are precisely the folks that we need to emphasis using to - to be honest though I would de-emphasis working to try to change these folks - meaning not all organizations get grants, if one does I would say something like. By all means use the software but consider switching to the supported an open standard, ODF, so they can not only take advantage of Microsofts generorsity but gurantee themselves easy access to move to other platforms down the road, so that future budgetary concerns are freed from counting on future actions of the donor. If at that point all you did was get some new users of ODF it is still a win, IMO. Then I would move on... > > 2. Document conversion isn't 100% accurate in many cases and we have > regulations we have to follow that require that they be accurate. > > 3. Retraining costs would be extremely high. Everyone knows MS Office, > nobody knows OpenOffice. We're a small government and can't afford > retraining. In this last ooocon there were two speakers, both from IT departments at municipal govs. in Hungary - shops of a few 100 users each, IIRC - they both put it quite plainly - We didn't pay to train anyone on MSO, why would we do it for OO.o. > > 4. There will be massive pushback because the skills aren't transferable > and make people effectively useless in other jobs that use MS Office. > > I think we should address a few of these points in whatever evangelism > we do towards local or national governments. Federal government in the > USA has historically been suspicious and wary of open source software. > That's dramatically changed over the last few years but, in some > agencies, it's still there to a degree. > > Religious organizations are another are where costs and document > portability might not be a major concern because everyone is using the > same thing so there are no problems and, in many cases, Microsoft has > donated the software or provided it under a grant for no out of pocket > expense. Yes, I have met many people from small congregations in the forums and on the mailing lists, OO.o has a strong usage in this part of the population in the US and Aus, NZ or at least so it seems from my personal experiences. > > We're dealing with a very savvy competitior in Microsoft that is willing > to do whatever it takes to win. Whatever we come up with is going to > have to be just as savvy and beat them at their own game. > > Anthony > > > -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On 10/28/2010 09:39 AM, Frank Esposito wrote: > > We should also include government as well, that seems to be where adoption > is currently high. how about religious organizations? > > > So we have: > Government (local and National) > Business > Non profit organizations > Education (all grades) > Personal users Last year, I pushed hard to get a few of my area rural municipal governments to adopt OpenOffice. I met with representatives of about 15 small Oklahoma towns and did a few presentations (all designed in OpenOffice - eat the dog food!) In the end, none of them really saw any value in migrating. Their points were: 1. Microsoft provided us the software through a grant, we didn't have to pay anything so money isn't an issue. 2. Document conversion isn't 100% accurate in many cases and we have regulations we have to follow that require that they be accurate. 3. Retraining costs would be extremely high. Everyone knows MS Office, nobody knows OpenOffice. We're a small government and can't afford retraining. 4. There will be massive pushback because the skills aren't transferable and make people effectively useless in other jobs that use MS Office. I think we should address a few of these points in whatever evangelism we do towards local or national governments. Federal government in the USA has historically been suspicious and wary of open source software. That's dramatically changed over the last few years but, in some agencies, it's still there to a degree. Religious organizations are another are where costs and document portability might not be a major concern because everyone is using the same thing so there are no problems and, in many cases, Microsoft has donated the software or provided it under a grant for no out of pocket expense. We're dealing with a very savvy competitior in Microsoft that is willing to do whatever it takes to win. Whatever we come up with is going to have to be just as savvy and beat them at their own game. Anthony -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On 10/28/2010 08:59 AM, Marc Paré wrote: > > Hi Anthony: > > Sorry to send you this note but ... the mailists on TDF have all agreed > to bottom post. It is easier to read the thread of the conversation. > When you top-post we have to scroll up-down to remind us what the > conversation (AT THAT POINT) is all about. > > Could you please bottom post? You can configure your mail agent to do > this automatically. Hi Marc, My apologies. I am totally in line with bottom posting. Unfortunately, when I was participating in the discussion this morning, I was doing so from the GMail client on my Blackberry and I am not given the choice to top or bottom reply. No biggie though, I'll just wait until I'm in a proper mail client to reply. Thanks for the heads up! Anthony -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
> > Acutally we should consider doing more than one, maybe one toward > business, > one toward individuals, and then education. > > James Walker > > We should also include government as well, that seems to be where adoption is currently high. how about religious organizations? So we have: Government (local and National) Business Non profit organizations Education (all grades) Personal users -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 10:02 -0400, Marc Paré wrote: > In my opinion, I would create a master ODF advocacy document and from > there tailor it to the different groups. Sure. I understand - but I would really like to see one finished one early - if it feeds back to the generalized one, or comes out of it, to start things off is not so important, IMO, but getting one finished is again IMO. Too often, personal experience, one can get caught in the 'perfection' trap and never get the good-enough part done. So - right now, we need to keep awareness up - we need quick little one page items, with some useful information, not made up from whole cloth, but made quickly - so that we can broadcast out that URL - both for direct viewing but with a little luck it spurs a few blog entries, that use it as a reference - more links, more chance to broadcast our LibreOffice, TDF, ODF...etc This is my thinking at this point.. drew -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
Le 2010-10-28 10:11, Frank Esposito a écrit : There is a wikipedia page concerning ODF adaption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_adoption After reading it it seems there is a fair amount of adoption in Europe and virtually none in the U.S. Yes, and there lies the problem. the MSO and MS know this and want to keep it this way. We need to convince the groups that count, education and business. Once we have enough people convinced and using it on a daily basis, then the governmental agencies will be forced to look at it and to even adopt the format for themselves. Marc -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
Le 2010-10-28 09:58, Anthony Papillion a écrit : Good point. But would our efforts be wasted targeting individuals? Most people don't care about formats. They just want their documents to work and be properly formatted. They don't understand format lock-in. I propose our efforts might be better spent concentrating on business (interoperability where needed and adoption), education (adoption), and government (adoption). When we've won those sectors, individuals will go wherever their work,s schools, and governments do. Anthony On 10/28/10, James Walker wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Anthony Papillion wrote: Who would be the primary consumers of this information? Is it targeted towards end users or companies we are hoping will adopt ODF? Anthony Acutally we should consider doing more than one, maybe one toward business, one toward individuals, and then education. James Walker -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted The ODF is part of the heartbeat of the LibO suite. It is built around the ODF formats. I think that it is a very important part of the process and it should not be pushed back. It shouldn't take long to write up a note on it. I also think that it should be sent to the SC for them to look at. It is an important philosophical stance for the LibO community. Marc -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
There is a wikipedia page concerning ODF adaption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_adoption After reading it it seems there is a fair amount of adoption in Europe and virtually none in the U.S. -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
Le 2010-10-28 09:55, Drew Jensen a écrit : On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 09:51 -0400, James Walker wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Anthony Papillionwrote: Who would be the primary consumers of this information? Is it targeted towards end users or companies we are hoping will adopt ODF? Anthony Acutally we should consider doing more than one, maybe one toward business, one toward individuals, and then education. Hi Anthony, James, et al I think targeting to an audience would be great - I think picking one, and getting that one done is the key. My suggestion, given the folks here would be Educators. drew In my opinion, I would create a master ODF advocacy document and from there tailor it to the different groups. That way the language would be the same for all of the other tailored groups except for the sections where the language is set for the target group. We could even try to get the ODF people involved in this and see if they would be interested in collaborating. They could then take back the documents to their site for posting. Marc -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
Le 2010-10-28 09:48, Anthony Papillion a écrit : Who would be the primary consumers of this information? Is it targeted towards end users or companies we are hoping will adopt ODF? Anthony On 10/28/10, Drew Jensen wrote: On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 08:07 -0500, Frank Esposito wrote: I would like to start a discussion to solve the problem of Open Document Format adoption. Currently (at least in the U.S.) the most prevelant document format is the Microsoft Office Open XML Forma and older doc/xls/ppt format. I believe if we can somehow market the benefits of ODF over Microsoft, then adoption of LibreOffice could increase dramatically. Thoughts? yes I would like to rephrase that - and challenge us to take Frank's prompting and turn into something. How I would rephrase is simply this: I would like to see the group produce a single page of text, with a statement of some of the benefits gained from using the ODF. The product would be 1 - a single page on the wiki 2 - text copied to color pdf, made available for download from a link on the wiki page 3 - a single page flyer, suitable for printing (grey scale), for hand out at SCALE 9x, in February. (but there are other people going to other shows first, so getting this put together sooner would be great) so - there you go - more thoughts? drew -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted Hi Anthony: Sorry to send you this note but ... the mailists on TDF have all agreed to bottom post. It is easier to read the thread of the conversation. When you top-post we have to scroll up-down to remind us what the conversation (AT THAT POINT) is all about. Could you please bottom post? You can configure your mail agent to do this automatically. Thanks Marc -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
Good point. But would our efforts be wasted targeting individuals? Most people don't care about formats. They just want their documents to work and be properly formatted. They don't understand format lock-in. I propose our efforts might be better spent concentrating on business (interoperability where needed and adoption), education (adoption), and government (adoption). When we've won those sectors, individuals will go wherever their work,s schools, and governments do. Anthony On 10/28/10, James Walker wrote: > On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Anthony Papillion > wrote: > >> Who would be the primary consumers of this information? Is it targeted >> towards end users or companies we are hoping will adopt ODF? >> >> Anthony >> > > Acutally we should consider doing more than one, maybe one toward business, > one toward individuals, and then education. > > James Walker > > -- > E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to > unsubscribe > List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ > All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be > deleted > > -- Sent from my mobile device Anthony Papillion Lead Developer / Owner Advanced Data Concepts - "Enabling work anywhere" (918) 919-4624 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cajuntechie My Blog: http://www.cajuntechie.com -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 09:51 -0400, James Walker wrote: > On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Anthony Papillion wrote: > > > Who would be the primary consumers of this information? Is it targeted > > towards end users or companies we are hoping will adopt ODF? > > > > Anthony > > > > Acutally we should consider doing more than one, maybe one toward business, > one toward individuals, and then education. > Hi Anthony, James, et al I think targeting to an audience would be great - I think picking one, and getting that one done is the key. My suggestion, given the folks here would be Educators. drew -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Anthony Papillion wrote: > Who would be the primary consumers of this information? Is it targeted > towards end users or companies we are hoping will adopt ODF? > > Anthony > Acutally we should consider doing more than one, maybe one toward business, one toward individuals, and then education. James Walker -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
Who would be the primary consumers of this information? Is it targeted towards end users or companies we are hoping will adopt ODF? Anthony On 10/28/10, Drew Jensen wrote: > On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 08:07 -0500, Frank Esposito wrote: >> I would like to start a discussion to solve the problem of Open Document >> Format adoption. Currently (at least in the U.S.) the most prevelant >> document format is the Microsoft Office Open XML Forma and older >> doc/xls/ppt >> format. >> >> I believe if we can somehow market the benefits of ODF over Microsoft, >> then >> adoption of LibreOffice could increase dramatically. >> >> Thoughts? >> > > > yes > > I would like to rephrase that - and challenge us to take Frank's > prompting and turn into something. > > How I would rephrase is simply this: > > I would like to see the group produce a single page of text, with a > statement of some of the benefits gained from using the ODF. > > The product would be > > 1 - a single page on the wiki > 2 - text copied to color pdf, made available for download from a link on > the wiki page > 3 - a single page flyer, suitable for printing (grey scale), for hand > out at SCALE 9x, in February. (but there are other people going to other > shows first, so getting this put together sooner would be great) > > so - there you go - more thoughts? > > drew > > > -- > E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to > unsubscribe > List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ > All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be > deleted > > -- Sent from my mobile device Anthony Papillion Lead Developer / Owner Advanced Data Concepts - "Enabling work anywhere" (918) 919-4624 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cajuntechie My Blog: http://www.cajuntechie.com -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Obstacles to ODF adoption
On Thu, 2010-10-28 at 08:07 -0500, Frank Esposito wrote: > I would like to start a discussion to solve the problem of Open Document > Format adoption. Currently (at least in the U.S.) the most prevelant > document format is the Microsoft Office Open XML Forma and older doc/xls/ppt > format. > > I believe if we can somehow market the benefits of ODF over Microsoft, then > adoption of LibreOffice could increase dramatically. > > Thoughts? > yes I would like to rephrase that - and challenge us to take Frank's prompting and turn into something. How I would rephrase is simply this: I would like to see the group produce a single page of text, with a statement of some of the benefits gained from using the ODF. The product would be 1 - a single page on the wiki 2 - text copied to color pdf, made available for download from a link on the wiki page 3 - a single page flyer, suitable for printing (grey scale), for hand out at SCALE 9x, in February. (but there are other people going to other shows first, so getting this put together sooner would be great) so - there you go - more thoughts? drew -- E-mail to marketing+h...@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/marketing/ All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
