Why Buy Microsoft Milk When the Google Cow Is Free? 409
theodp writes "Touring a high school with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt informed students they're eating Google 'dog food' because Microsoft's costs money. 'Why would we use Google Docs over like Microsoft Word?' a teacher asked the class. 'Because it's free!' exclaimed a grinning Schmidt. 'Schmidt's comment,' writes GeekWire's Blair Hanley Frank, 'highlights one of the risks Microsoft faces in the academic world. While Microsoft has started offering schools incentives to use Office 365, including free licenses for their pupils, the company is under greater pressure from its competitors. As more schools like Chicago's face budget shortfalls, free and discounted products from companies like Google and Apple, especially when attached to financial assistance, start looking better and better.' Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis said she'd rather see companies pay more in taxes and fund schools that way, rather than relying on their charity or free software."
Is Google Docs really Free? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Apple? (Score:4, Informative)
Apple recently made their iWork office suite free.
New Macs now come with it pre-installed.
That's a pretty good deal compared to the prices for MS office:
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store?Action=html&Locale=en_US&SiteID=msusa&icid=Office_4up_Link_OfficeSuites_8_2_13&pbpage=OfficeCompare
Re:Advantages and disadvantages (Score:4, Informative)
Libreoffice does not require java for most commonly used functionality. It will just complain when launched by terminal.
Three years ago I installed libreoffice without java thinking: I will put java when it's necessary. Still not happening.
A lightweight install of libreoffice (only writer and calc and dependencies, no java) is also a good idea in many cases.
Google is NOT free (Score:2, Informative)
Google treats your data(the product) no differently than Facebook. It is there to be mined for the benefit of the advertisers(the customer) and Google's bottom line.
https://epic.org/2014/03/googl... [epic.org]
It's NOT free (Score:2, Informative)
Because it's NOT free?
Because of industrial espionnage, because of NSA, because of google compiling stuff about my docs, because Google switching and suddenly deciding your Google docs and their google docs, because servers crashes, because I've seen what they did to youtube, because Google is dirty, lying and two-faced, because if it's free you're the product being sold.
Because Ooo, which IS free, for real.
GDocs, It's NOT free, at all.
Google Docs Not Free as in Freedom (Score:5, Informative)
Google Docs is not free. Ask Stallman about this. The code is closed source and off limits to anyone except the anointed ones at Google. You never know if Google will data mine your data, basically you have given all of your sensitive data over to google.
A truly free package would be LibreOffice, open source, and which does not demand you hand over all of your data over an internet connection to Google's grid.
Re:Similarly... (Score:5, Informative)
I work in K12 education trying to help teachers integrate technology. The answer to your question is more complicated than you think. Google Apps make sense for us because we have a ton of users (students) who move between different devices throughout the course of a day. With Google Drive, Sites, calendar and mail, their stuff follows them around.
Best yet, it's free. And it's actually more free than LibreOffice. There's nothing to download and nearly nothing to maintain. We have to make sure our devices have Chrome installed and we have one guy who manages the domain and keeps the database of users and passwords working for 56 schools and associated administrators, teachers and employees. As long as our network stays up, we don't have a problem, and most school systems these days have a pretty robust network connection and infrastructure, so long as they are spending their federal e-rate money wisely.
On the privacy side, Google has language in their Apps domain contracts that protects student data. Is is perfect? Probably not, but it falls in the "good enough" category.
We are still transition to Google. There are lots of teachers and students who use MS Office more than Google, but it's a process. If I had my way, we would continue the transition and then ditch MS Office completely in a few years, replacing it with Libre as a backup for those times when you have to have a workstation-based office suite. This has the potential to save a massive amount of money and yet still be MORE effective than what we were doing.
Re:Apple? (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed, I have a 2010 Mac mini and I don't get to download the latest versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote for free.
Re:Not the only reason..... (Score:4, Informative)
Although FOSS alternatives keep getting better, they are still (generally) not as easy to set up and use as commercial alternative.
I see it's been years since you used any FOSS. Installing Gimp or Open Office or Firefox or Audacity on a Windows machine is exactly like installing Photoshop or MS Office or EAC on the same machine; I have all that open source software installed on this Windows 7 machine. The installations for FOSS and proprietary are identical.
Easier to use? Yes, if you're used to Photoshop, GIMP is a pain in the ass but OTOH if you're used to GIMP Photoshop is just as big a pain. Plus, with FOSS you don't have that productivity-killing ribbon.
And installing FOSS on a Linux computer is even easier. Go to the software you want (from your distro's repository), click once and enter a sudo password, done. You don't even have to reboot.
How you got modded up is beyond me because you're 100% wrong. MS employees have lots of mod points today, I guess.
Re:Apple? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apple? (Score:4, Informative)
Use it online at icloud.com Or log into the app store with your account on a new mac and download the apps. Now theyll be forever attached to your account adn you can install them on your other devices for free, and legally.
Apple wanted to make them truly no-strings-attatched free for everyone but strange FTC laws prohibited it.
Re:Apple? (Score:5, Informative)
Apple: Sorry, iPads are not an enterprise product. It's not designed to be managed centrally.
Ahem.
http://enterpriseios.com/wiki/... [enterpriseios.com]
Citation: I used to work in Apple IT management.
Apple's device management isn't perfect, but it's certainly better than Android's and ChromeOS's (which provide little to none.)