On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 12:07:08PM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > > >Be pragmatic and realistic as possible. Admit shortcomings Start small > >and focus on one area that you *know* you can excel in. Once you have > >success there, move up to something a bit bigger. > > There are two issues here: a) using open source applications and b) > using open standards. > > Why not use OOo but with .doc and .xls as the default Save options until > such time as a more urgent need to move to open standards appears on the > horizon. >
For a lot of businesses this is a perfectly reasonable choice. It's insane to try and do a clean cut to OpenDocument or any other document format without piloting it first. You wouldn't do a clean switch to MS Office and MS formats from OpenOffice and OpenDocument, and vice versa. You build familiarity with the software, and then focus on changing data formats for the right reasons. Small moves. However, there is an urgent business need for open standards, and that's vendor lock-in. (that's a topic for a whole other thread though :-) Lindsay -- http://slug.org.au/ (the Sydney Linux Users Group) http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ (me) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
