Companies Using MS Word "Out of Habit," Says Forrester 367
An anonymous reader writes "A Forrester Research report has found that companies use Microsoft Word for word processing out of habit rather than necessity and are beginning to consider other alternatives as the Web has changed the way people create and share documents. The report, "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: The Microsoft Word Love Story," by analyst Sheri McLeish, suggests that businesses may still be using Word because it is familiar to users or because they have a legacy investment in the application, not because it is the best option."
Microsoft surely knows that some other options are creeping slowly into the view of even the most Word-centric users, though. User I dream about smoking writes "Microsoft is testing new capabilities for Office Live Workspace, its online adjunct to Microsoft Office, that will make it a closer rival to online application suites such as Google Docs. Microsoft will start beta testing an updated version of Live Workspace later this year that allows users to create and edit new documents online."
Googles playbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I wouldn't trust important documents to stay on the web server. What happens when google goes belly up and starts shutting down their web servers? The bigger a company gets, the bigger they fall.
Re:Googles playbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Googles playbook (Score:4, Insightful)
At least when data is stolen off servers I control I know who is to blame.
Employees who leave their workstations unattended and unlocked, or are too lax with their passwords? I doubt the weak link is often the actual administrator in charge of virtual security..
Re:Googles playbook (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt the weak link is often the actual administrator in charge of virtual security..
Surely not, but the fact that Google is now hosting business services [google.com], they are quickly becoming the information sink of the universe. They have a history of easily folding to law enforcement, which makes me uneasy about hosting corporate stuff online. I just don't like all the big brother business, and while I use GMail for personal stuff, I wouldn't start trusting Google with sensitive documents, memos etc.
Web based tools have another huge problem. You're at Google's mercy for upgrades, feature changes etc. Does anyone remember the crap they started with the iGoogle sidebar [informationweek.com]? That sort of stuff quickly discourages corporate clients.
Re:Googles playbook (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Googles playbook (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Googles playbook (Score:4, Insightful)
Good link. I think it just proves that you can't trust the competitors to defend your personal information either.
In the end, no one will defend your important documents more than you will, and that's why I doubt Google Docs will ever gain much market share in the enterprise sector until the day they allow it to be hosted on the intranet (like they do for their corporate search service).
For small businesses it might be an interesting solution though. I think most people don't know much about security in general (not just computers), so hosting things on a Google server might be better than on your spyware ridden home office computer.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is correct that you should be wary about placing all documents on-line on machines that you do not control and that may lie in jurisdiction other than the one under which your company operates.
Few other worries would be - availability of service and capability - especially the capability of service is something which makes users that want a bit more complicated documents go elsewhere. This said I can imagine a lot of companies and private people using the service either because they do not know better or
Re:Googles playbook (Score:4, Interesting)
You pretty much summed it up for me too. Aside from security risks, Google has complete control and if something gets changed there isn't much you can do about it. There's also the issue of downtime. After one of the first big RIM/BlackBerry outages, we switched to WinMo devices that connect directly into our Exchange server. Our uptime was better than RIM's last year...kind of pathetic, really. I don't want to put our word processor in the same situation.
Going into the other point of this article, there is another big (maybe the biggest) reason people stick with Word...it's part of the Office *SUITE*. While Word is pretty easily replaced with OO.o Writer, Calc and Impress are not Excel and Powerpoint...they are shy just a few too many features. And if you have Exchange, Outlook is pretty much mandatory. It's cheaper to buy the Office suite than it is to buy Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook separately. So you may as well use Word, since you will have it anyway.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Googles playbook (Score:5, Informative)
They have a history of easily folding to law enforcement, which makes me uneasy about hosting corporate stuff online.
Actually, I remember google being the ONLY web search company that stood up to the DOJ when they wanted all search data from a random sampling of users. The DOJ was arguing the constitutionality of some "think of the children" legislation about blocking on the internet...
Re:Googles playbook (Score:5, Informative)
In many cases even a underpaid, undervalued, overworked EDS 1st line worker can have access to very sensitive data on the customers servers and PC's. I certainly did back in the days when I worked/slaved for them.
Re: (Score:2)
insite:competitor.com "business_plan.doc" "business_forecast.com"
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is really whats important.
Me, I keep my data safe in such a way that it doesn't matter whether it's in some insecure "cloud", or on a truecrypted thumb drive.
The stuff that needs it that is. The other thing I've noticed about your ilk is that almost without exception, you don't have the sort of data in which no one would have
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
While the Google Docs suite is pretty limited, I managed to stay on it and a few other odd web services exclusively for thirty days without many problems. It just takes some (pretty serious) change in your work-flow. There are also some real advantages over local work. The OS is Dead [blogspot.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Besides, creating graphs on google docs is rather annoying. Also I don't happen to be on a networked connection 24/7, what do I do when I need to work on my documents and the internet is down or not available?
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Google Docs supports an offline mode. You will likely need to install the Gears plugin for your browser to enable this.
Re:Googles playbook (Score:5, Insightful)
It just takes some (pretty serious) change in your work-flow.
Ding ding!
It required you, someone who we can safely assume is fairly techie (or you wouldn't be posting to /.) to make some serious changes in your work-flow.
Multiply those changes by everyone in the organisation and throw in re-building existing business process which expect Word documents and you now know how come it takes something pretty huge to make an organisation radically change the day to day operations of their business.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I just read your blog on your experiment and one of the most striking things I noticed about online vs local install was the incredible pace of innovation. The feeling I got was that whilst living online is probably just about doable now, in a year or two local installs might seem quaint.
When online application release cycles are measured in days vs years for typical Microsoft applications then the sense of being left behind could become a factor moving away from desktop apps.
Server issues (Score:4, Insightful)
On the whole subject of collaborative document editing, I think this is the real kicker. Many companies block Google's tools since that would mean storing company info outside of the company. Add to this the "beta" caveat that Google carries, and Google no longer considers itself liable if competitors get access to the info. After all, they did tell you it was buggy and all...
Are we really moving back to a server/terminal mentality? More importantly, is it a good thing that we are adding traffic to do tasks that were done with local media? I think corporations like the idea of collaborative editing, but they would prefer it of everything stayed behind their firewalls and on their own server's drives.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm really pretty tired of the "Beta" card sysadmins keep pulling out WRT Google. I demand a link that proves that the corporate version (i.e. the paid-for version) of Google Docs is a beta. I have looked. I haven't found it. You apparently know something that I don't. Pony up the proof.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I'm not a sysadmin meself, just a lowly webmonkey. So relax. I'm just quoting what the IT types say to me whenever I inquire about it.
Besides, I personally prefer Pages for formatted texts, and TextWrangler for editing raw texts. I'd rather keep the copies of my data on physical media, so I can access it without net access, personally.
"Beta" Label Doesn't Avoid Liability (Score:3, Insightful)
Putting a "beta" label on a product doesn't, by itself, relieve you of legal liability. That language goes in the terms of use that no one ever reads. In the end, your liability is whatever the courts say it is when you are sued.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Googles playbook (Score:4, Informative)
Personally I wouldn't trust important documents to stay on the web server. What happens when google goes belly up and starts shutting down their web servers?
You are aware that all Google Docs can be backed up locally with Google Gears and also converted into a number of popular formats?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Googles playbook (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Googles playbook (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
You download a copy, and keep it stored on your own system. A competitor will normally gladly import the data from your old service to theirs. If it is a paid service make sure your contract has a data export clause/feature.
Predicting problems in the future doesn't make you smart. Being able to solve thos
I use Microsoft to fight the evil G$$Gle empire (Score:5, Funny)
I am against huge monopolies controlling everything we do on our computers with their close sourced spy crapware. Down with the G$$G-borg! Fight for Microsoft! Up with freedom!
Microsoft Word is an amazingly innovative and capable program. It does everything I need with an intuitive interface that even your grandmother could use, but is l33t enough for the geekiest power user. Plus, it's free! All power to Microsoft, fight the evil corporate empires!!!!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
And when did it's interface become intuitive?
Re: (Score:2)
Where did you find MS Word for free? (I mean, besides torrent sites)
When they embraced free and extended that freedom to cover Office.
And when did it's interface become intuitive?
When they replaced the ribbon with a nipple.
Nipple mouse? (Score:2)
And when did it's interface become intuitive?
When they replaced the ribbon with a nipple.
What makes the pointing stick on a ThinkPad [wikipedia.org] any more intuitive than any other way to choose an item from a GUI menu? And why would it require replacing a tabbed toolbar [codeguru.com]?
Re:I use Microsoft to fight the evil G$$Gle empire (Score:5, Funny)
And when did it's interface become intuitive?
Press a key on the keyboard and a similarly shaped glyph appears on the screen. That's pretty intuitive. It's also about as far as most people make it.
Re: (Score:2)
MS Word comes "free" with many systems, or is allowed for employees to use at home (yes, legally, with some hoops).
And.. what about its interface is non-intuitive? What obscure thing are you trying to do which you think requires a prominent interface for all the 99.9999% of people who will never use that function?
If you're trying to do print work with MS Word, you've got some problems, yeah. But that sentence could be repeated anyway.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Where did you find MS Word for free?
There you go. Word 5.5 for DOS for free directly from Microsoft:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/word97win/Wd55_be/97/WIN98/EN-US/Wd55_ben.exe [microsoft.com]
MS Office has been online for years (Score:2, Informative)
MS has had online capability for years now where multiple people can open and edit documents at the same time. It was just over the corporate network.
Re:MS Office has been online for years (Score:5, Insightful)
And it doesn't work very well. We're always playing musical chairs with documents whether they're on a sharepoint or file share.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the GP talked about WebDav: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDAV [wikipedia.org]
In Word, you can access files from an URL, with any server supporting WebDav. It adds CVS capabilities to the files.
However, it's quite different from MS' offer, which is to provide online access to Office.
I guess they are using downloadable dotNet components, and use a local cache to speedup access (at least that's how I would implement it).
Why did it take them so long for that ?
The way I write (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd like to confirm that the internet has not changed the way I write word documents. It's still a mouse and keyboard for me. I don't tend to share documents that much - I email them and that's that. I'd imagine this is true of most Word users, or at least, most Word documents.
Re:The way I write (Score:4, Informative)
Here's a video explanation of why you shouldn't e-mail documents [youtube.com]. I completely agree with it. Creating twenty-five copies of the same document at various revisions is an error-prone habit.
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
analyst Sheri McLeish, suggests that businesses may still be using [insert-any-application-here] because it is familiar to users or because they have a legacy investment in the application, not because it is the best option
What an amazing insight! Who would have suspected such a thing?
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
I work for a large international IT research firm and I just comb Slashdot, filtering for only +5 comments, and then plagiarize what I see and put it in my report.
The sucky part is, when I first started, I forgot to filter out the "+5 Funny" comments. So, in my reports, you'd see "In Soviet Russia, Ms Word You!" and "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of MS Word" and so on. I got fired from my first job. But I got it down now.
I have never liked word. (Score:5, Funny)
I always feel I am fighting it to get it to do what I want. If I wanted to fight computers, I would buy computer games.
Re:I have never liked word. (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently it's not just Word. I've been having that experience with Windows 7 since the beta was released. I installed it in VirtualBox and have spent the last two days trying to find a way to:
I also despise the Ribbon the more I work with it. Luckily my work hasn't upgraded to the latest Office yet and are still using Office 2003.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's all kinds of ways to please me.
None of them involve adding features for feature's sake and making everyone relearn the most prominent OS on the market by removing those features that people are used to. If MS would have made an "easy button" that turned the interface back to a more sane time without puffy windows and such, then I'd be happy. If they split the kernel/drivers from the interface and let me run the Win2K interface on the Win7 kernel, then I'd be happy. If they let me run the latest g
File Compatibility, not Habit (Score:2, Insightful)
If OpenOffice/etc. are guaranteed 100% compatible with Word documents, they aren't promoting that fact very well. If they aren't compatible, they're not serious competition.
Re:File Compatibility, not Habit (Score:5, Informative)
Shee-yit, Word isn't 100% compatbile with Word documents ! I frequently need to 'repair' Word 2007 documents before I can re-open them. This of course begs the question, if Word can repair it, why doesn't it just open it ? This question is left as an exercise for the reader.
Re:File Compatibility, not Habit (Score:5, Interesting)
Somebody has to do it. (Score:4, Informative)
Go ahead, mod me offtopic, but somebody has to do it. http://begthequestion.info/ [begthequestion.info]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:File Compatibility, not Habit (Score:5, Insightful)
You're already paying that... (Score:2)
Any company has a large number of existing documents. To switch to a different file-incompatible program would be silly; the cost of converting would far exceed any possible savings, not to mention the IT cost of changing every user simultaneously.
Your existing office suite isn't going to magically stop working.
And the IT cost of changing every user simultaneously is one you pay every few years with Office *anyway*.
Once the activation server goes down (Score:3, Insightful)
Your existing office suite isn't going to magically stop working.
It will once the activation server goes down. See all the problems with broken "purchased" tracks from DRM music stores. It also will once new copies of the non-free operating system for which the existing office suite was designed are no longer available, or when newly purchased hardware no longer comes with drivers for the operating system for which the existing office suite was designed.
And the IT cost of changing every user simultaneously is one you pay every few years with Office *anyway*.
But at least Access 2007 can run Access+VBA applications designed for previous versions of Access. OpenOffice.org Base
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If they aren't compatible, they're not serious competition.
If they aren't compatible? Do you mean "if OOo is 0% compatible" or "if OOo is not 100% compatible" as there is a rather large difference between the two. Saying that you must be either 100% compatible or 0% seems like a false dichotomy.
It seems to me if it were an acceptable level of compatible (say 99/100 documents) that might be serious competition depending on the company.
Re:File Compatibility, not Habit (Score:4, Insightful)
Moving to online Office may kill Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
The first time the file serving cloud takes a nosedive, everyone will scream and run away.
Sure, Microsoft already eats files on a regular basis, but not in a coordinated mini-apocalypse.
And yes, Google Docs could do(has done) that too, but people aren't yet using it on the same scale. (Plus it is in beta, ha-ha, not their fault)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Strangely, my paid-for Google Docs account doesn't say "Beta" anywhere. I guess it must be only the free version that's beta. Shock! No other company does that. ::rollseyes::
Re: (Score:2)
No one will run away. Not even people who say people will run away, will run away.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, Microsoft Office (especially Powerpoint, but also Excel and Word) are "better" than Open Office. There are readily available training materials. In fact, if you've got certain classes of Microsoft licensing, you can get the on-demand online training for your entire organization for next to nothing. And the integrations with 3rd party applications are a key feature. It doesn't matter if Open Office does 95% of what Microsoft Office does, if those key connectors that important departments or divisio
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
its faster to teach someone to use a specific program then to teach someone a generic way of thinking that can be applied again and again...
think of the modern education system as programming biological robots and one get a nice mental image of what both government and big biz wants us to be...
Re: (Score:2)
its faster to teach someone to use a specific program then to teach someone a generic way of thinking that can be applied again and again...
This is true, but software is different from other areas in that the method of doing something is constantly in flux. There's also an enormous amount of software that anyone will encounter over their lifetime. So much that you can't possibly teach each program individually. People wind up learning the conventions used through osmosis anyway.
It may be easier to teach
Re:Of course its out of habit (Score:5, Interesting)
I found that recompiling OO.o (it's a major BITCH! to do BTW)
and changing things to say "word" and "excel" and the icons... in other words faking it to be the office suite was enough to fool a large swath of the office to believe they were using microsoft word and excel. just a different "version". we called it a service pack upgrade and swallowed it whole.
It's mostly physiological with users. The same thing happens when you IE skin Firefox.
Birds of a feather integrate together. (Score:2)
"The report, "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: The Microsoft Word Love Story," by analyst Sheri McLeish, suggests that businesses may still be using Word because it is familiar to users or because they have a legacy investment in the application, not because it is the best option.""
There's two other things as well. How well MS products integrate with each other and all the third-party software written for MS software.
Re: (Score:2)
or office systems written using MS office as a RAD package...
Duh! (Score:2)
Sheri McLeish, suggests that businesses may still be using Word because it is familiar to users or because they have a legacy investment in the application, not because it is the best option."
Well yeah...
How much do these people charge to provide such pearls of wisdom? And who'se paying?
Pete Boyd
Google Docs (Score:2)
Correction (Score:2)
"From the no shit! dept."
--from the Grow A Pair dept.
Re: (Score:2)
You forgot to append "Sherlock" to the title.
How hard can it be to switch? (Score:5, Insightful)
How hard can it be to switch? This post will neither debate the advantages or disadvantages of word or wordprocessors. Just the latter... of users.
Having recently had to interact with the "real world" and wordprocessor documents, I must say that I was astounded at the quality of output of wordprocessors. The main problem is that even technically capable people seem to refuse outright to make any effort to actually learn how to use a tool that they spend hours per day sitting in front of. They treat a wordprocessor as a typewriter with font effects and images.
People still can't embed images properly. Either they're linked to some program which noone else has or a bitmap of a vector drawing so noone else can edit them. People still refuse to make even the most basic use of styles or cross referencing. It is absolutely astounding.
People will happily put in HOURS per document on a daily basis, fiddlind around with font dialogs, instead of spending 1 our learning how to use styles, for instance.
How hard can it be to switch? Users would go from not knowing how to use word to not knowing how to use openoffice.
But it really does amaze me how people can use the same tool all day, every day for weeks at a time, or even more and still not know many of the most basic features. Sure people want to "get work done", but that is best achieved by becoming an expert in the tools of the trade. When was the last time you heard a carpenter refusing to learn how to use a power saw because he "needed to get work done"?
Re: (Score:2)
I think the answer to your last question is that Word is *not* perceived as a tool of the trade-- people need to communicate, not necessarily write long documents, and that's it. I know plenty of people who refuse to switch to office 2003 because the interface is so different that they don't want to spend the time to learn it, and to some extent, I get their point. They are just trying to communicate, and Word in their case is just a replacement for pen & paper, so why should they spend time learning an
Re: (Score:2)
BS (Score:4, Interesting)
Sore spot with me. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is timely in that I just had a 'run-in' of sorts regarding MS Word usage and its consideration as a standard. My son is in sixth grade and, of course, has to write about 2 papers a month in his English class. He had his first official type-written paper this past couple of weeks and since we have no Windows computers and no MS Office/Word at home (all Linux, Solaris and Mac OS), we could not comply with the teacher's requirement for using MS Word with a Times New Roman font. Instead I had my son use Google Documents (which is what he's used since he started typing papers of any sort) with a Verdana font. He ended up receiving a D on the paper for not following instructions. The school has a computer lab, with Windows and MS Office, but that lab is only available to him during his assigned lab hours or after school. If he wants to use it after school, I have to pay for "After School Care" program. This kind of nonsense infuriates me. It's as if he can only write a reasonable paper if done so using MS products. Anyway, I just wrote the teacher last evening regarding coming to an agreement on things so that he doesn't suffer due to the school's devotion to MS products (a recent change as the entire school used to be Linux/OOo/etc.).
Re:Sore spot with me. (Score:4, Informative)
Now, if the students were submitting something for publication (some in-school publication that would not require electronic submission), I can see violating exact formatting specifications being a disqualifier, but that should be handled seperately than any grading that should be examining the student's writing, logic, grammar, and syntax, with only a fraction of points hinging on format.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't get anywhere with the teacher, you should definately ask the school board to put the topic on your agenda.
Or maybe you should point out that the teacher has required a name-brand file format and font that are proprietary, and you don't have a license for them. Suggest that if these are required, then the school should pay for your child's computer with license to use such proprietary products. Mention that if they refuse to pay for your child's computer, you know some lawyers that will help y
Forced MS Usage Is Economic Discrimination (Score:4, Insightful)
Mandating use of Word or any other commercial product for homework seems to me a form of economic discrimination. Lots of families still can't afford a PC, much less Office.
Re:Sore spot with me. (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't Open Office support .doc files and Times New Roman font?
Re:Sore spot with me. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Times New Roman is still part of the Microsoft TrueType Core Fonts. Microsoft removed the download from their site, but they can still be downloaded in an unaltered form.
Sources:
http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I understand your frustration, and if it were me, I would probably have called the teacher (calmly) to explain that we simply don't have MS Office, and ask her not to punish my child for that reason. If she wasn't responsive, I would take it up with the principle.
On the other hand, it seems like things probably could have been handled better on your end. Did you know about this requirement ahead of time? You could have tried to contact the teacher at the time, or else sent your son in with a note explai
Re:Sore spot with me. (Score:4, Informative)
The point being why should he be required to go out and purchase a $500 Office suite to comply with a sixth-grade teacher's demands?
What if he didn't have MacOS in the house, only Linux?
As long as the paper meets the content & formatting requirements, the application used to create it should be irrelevant to the teacher. Marking a kid all the way down to a D just for having the wrong font used is petty.
Excel (Score:4, Interesting)
Although this might seem an unfair blow, trying to replace Word is probably considerably less important than trying to replace Excel. In finance, for example, everyone uses Excel out of habit (and due to a lack of a good replacement, too), but in many cases because replacements do not support the add-ons they are used to (e.g. Bloomberg add-ons), without which many would be useless.
This is the exact same type of hurdle that Linux faces with support for hardware. Companies don't want to support it, and it's taken a really long time to write drivers. If Excel is replaced with a good alternative, I think Word would easily follow, even if the interface were radically different.
Just a thought
The MS Office Habit (Score:4, Insightful)
I avoid MS Word out of habit (Score:3, Insightful)
Excel is a much bigger issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Word is mostly used for churning out throwaway documents. Excel is used for long term storage of data - and there's a _lot_ of VBA code out there pulling data out of ancient spreadsheets.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Where did you see that in the manifesto? I suspect you are in for a big disappointment.
The problem with Word competitors is that they are all pretty much carbon copies of Word. So there really isn't much to be gained from switching It costs a minimum of $50,000 w
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Every one of the competing clones has the same broken idea that spreadheets, documents and databases are different things
A spreadsheet is a reactive program [wikipedia.org] with its expressions in a cell grid. A document is a tree containing text and markup. A database is a set of relations with constraints on them. What do you consider "broken" about the differences between these data types?
Re: (Score:2)
The company for which I work used MS Word for document production for years. Then MS swooped in, told us we were violating the licenses we owned and told us to pony up a ton of dough. We changed to Open Office.
That said, OO doesn't meet our needs as well, and has some memory issues (20000 PDF conversions later, it crashes). Since it is open source it is harder for us to get timely issue resolution. Currently we are stuck on OO 2.1, as "improvements" in 2.3 exacerbated the issue, and 3.0 doesn't appear to su
Re: (Score:2)
I hope you reported your problems. At least with OOo bug reports can actually be useful.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Next up: (Score:4, Insightful)
That is a HUGE number of conversions to be doing with a GUI based program. I do not know what your workflow is, but it sounds like you really need to be invoking ghostscript through some sort of shell script, or maybe in a Perl or AWK program. It is possible that you will actually see efficiency improvements, as this approach may allow for greater automation. As I said, I do not know your workflow, but this really sounds like a case where a little bit of shell scripting can go a long way.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since it is open source it is harder for us to get timely issue resolution.
What kind of timeliness in issue resolution were you getting from MS?
Re:Next up: (Score:5, Interesting)
What Obama should do is mandate the use of open standards on certified systems. Let state and local governments figure out the cheapest way to implement such a standard. Really, it is irrelevant whether or not the government uses a free software operating system, as long as government documents are not in a proprietary format and as long as the government is not wasting money paying for its software (proprietary or free). What is needed is easier communication between different government departments and between the government and the people; the operating system that is used is not as important, as long as an open standard is in use.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
the operating system that is used is not as important, as long as an open standard is in use.
I definitely agree with this. People get so wrapped up in the question as to whether the source code is free/open (which admittedly can be an important issue) that they forget about the issue of "standards". If you use open standards and open protocols, then it gives everyone the freedom to use whatever software they want without fear of vendor lock-in. Even if some particular person or group is using software that's completely proprietary and secretive about its inner-workings, you'll still be able to c
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What Obama should do is mandate the use of open standards on certified systems.
That's a great start. The problem is that Microsoft will simply subvert the standards process to its own ends and become the de facto standard. They've done it before.
Microsoft only likes standards when it can define the standard.
Other than that, I would highly support the concept.