On Thursday 16 May 2002 00:19, Frank Shute wrote:
On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 06:10:45PM +0100, Malcolm wrote:
<snip>
There are more costs than just the initial purchase fee, though, all agree. Gartner puts the price of switching a Microsoft Office user to StarOffice a $1,200--costs that include factors such as retraining, lost productivity and the difficulties of translating StarOffice files to and from Microsoft formats.
I think Gartner must have a method similar to this for generating their figures:
Think of a number, think of another number, find the product and then fantasize wildly & unreasonably.
Total bunkum. Just how difficult is it to use SO instead of MO? My experience: not very. In fact I think the `gain' of no paper clip is probably equal to the `loss' of $1200....
Besides, a one off investment to free yourself from ever paying again is good economics. If the cost of office upgrades is say $300 every two years, and there is some training involved with them it doesn't take long to pay for any initial training on SO. Gartner tends to be pro MS and IDC pro Linux from what I have read. Ask IDC about the economics and then we'll get some sort of balanced view ;-)
They mention Suse & a few other Linux outfits shipping SO with their distros. Would this be 5.2 or 6.0? The article wasn't clear.
Mandrake already do if you are a club member.I have been running the Star Office 6 full version for a couple of weeks now. Regards, -- IanL