[Pc_Support] Re: OpenOffice v2 beta usage in production setting?

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Tue, 2005-07-05 at 13:01 -0400, Damien McKenna wrote:
> Excellent.
> Have they fixed the problem with pasting in images from the clipboard
> whereby the pasted image didn't get saved in the file?  That was a
> show-stopper back when I tried some early builds in March-ish.

Don't know, I didn't adopt it until May.  I'm also using Linux, so
that's clearly an issue where the codebases differ between Linux and
Windows.

> I'd love to migrate the entire company to OOo/Oasys files but I'm not
> sure this is the right time to fight that battle.

Then I honestly don't see why you'd go OOo then?  The "cost" of MS
Office has _never_ been the software, but the loss of "investment" in
documents that are 3+ years old and can no longer be edited verbatim, if
at all.

Figure $400 for a typical MS Office, spread over, say, 2 years.
$200/year "cost" for the company in the license.

Now figure just the typical clerk at a measly $10/hour -- a very
_conservative_ rate -- who puts 25% of his/her work into creating
documents -- another _very_conservative_ rate.  Now figure just 25% --
yet another very _conservative_ estimate 25% of that contend is lost
when it is retrieved at a latter date.  Over 2 years, that is a cost of
$20,000 * 0.25 * 0.25 * 2 = $2,500!  And that is a "best case scenario"!

This is typically due to binary data alignment of MS Word's save
routines and changes in the OS/compilers that break on x86, which has
_no_ alignment requirements.  It is so bad that it's the driving factor
in Microsoft's switch to XML, which they have _always_ planned for
Office 11.  Now they are just promising to open all meta-data.

That move is going to _break_ compatibility.  <assumption=on>It would
not surprise me one bit if one of the major portions of the Microsoft-
Sun alliance is Microsoft's licensure of the OOo/SO import/export code
for Office 11, something that _is_ under Sun's copyright.</assumption>
So you're already going to "run into" the loss of data in the future
anyway.

And you're already flopping between DOC 8 (MS Word 97) and OOo, that's
only going to make it work.

IN A NUTSHELL (IMPO**):  Pick 1 and stick with it for maximum
compatibility.

[ **In My Professional Opinion, if I was selling to someone -- even if
it meant they stuck with MS Word 97, which it often does. ;-]

Now I've have argued (IMHO -- now I'm "humble" on this) that this should
be OOo for longevity.  But if you're going to stay with DOC 8, I would
recommend you'd just stick with MS Word 97 itself.  If anything ... "in
the worst case" ... it _looks_ like WINE is able to "emulate" the
"binary/data alignment" required.

> I had figured that giving the service reps some better software than
> the 9-year-old Office 97 would give us a step in the right direction,
> then once management saw how the software worked well introduce them
> to the concept of using the improved file format for internal
> documents.

You're going to get stopped before you even get started.  Why?  Because
between the conversion to/from OOo's features and MS Office's
attributes, you're going to lose _more_ than if you just stuck with one
or the other.

You're going to give management the "worst case scenario" -- a non-
native program converting _all_ the time.  ;->

You want to show the _native_ format and features, and _limit_ the
conversion _only_ when necessary.  If it is your intention to show
management that OOo is a "better DOC 8 editor than MS Word 97," then you
are going to _fail_ as _bad_ as "MS Office 98 for MacOS" did.  ;->

> It would save us a fortune long-term, and only create minor headaches
> along the way with either new or forgetful employees.

Again, IMPO, I would choose to use the _native_ format for the program
you stick with -- be it MS Word 97 for DOC 8, or a switch to ODT for OOo
1.9.x/2.x.

And IMHO, if you really want to address document longevity _now_, before
Microsoft enforces it on you in MS Office 11 anyway (possibly via what
you get in OOo/SO anyway -- see my "assumption" above), you might as
well go ODT by default with OOo.

Otherwise you're just going to show management how much of a "kludge" it
is to maintain DOC 8 with another implementation than MS Word 97 itself.
Your users will quickly learn to "Save As" for exchange with others, but
you will _not_ be putting precious "company investments" in a _dead_
format.  ;->

> I should also mention that the group of users that would be affected by
> this is our customer support department of ten people.  The majority of
> them are not very technical so ease of use is a major factor - hence my
> interest in OOo v2 versus v1 (v2 is easier to use).

Import is transparent.
Export is a matter of teaching them to "Save As."

They will quickly learn it if they send an ODT to someone.

And if you think management won't like that, don't be surprised when
management doesn't like what OOo does when a user formats something in a
way under OOo, but it doesn't look like that (or doesn't work at all)
once it is saved to DOC -- especially all the "confusion" the user will
get when OOo says "saving this to MS Word format will lose some
features" (or similar comment).

> Along with OOo each machine will also have Microsoft Outlook 2000
> installed as the email client, I had originally asked if they'd be
> willing to upgrade to Office 2003 but they weren't willing to spend
> money on that right now.

Well, I'm not going to touch the collaboration stuff.  In a nutshell, if
I was a consultant on this, I would continue to deploy MS Word 97, until
I had sold the management on a "pilot" where you are addressing the
"Freedomware desktop" in more of a "here is what it's going to cost you,
here is what you will gain" truth.

Trying to replace MS Office with OOo/SO transparently, including
defaulting to MS Office documents, _never_ works -- for the same reasons
why MS Office 98, 2001, X, etc... for Mac have the _same_ issues.

Because in the end, it will only have management believing that OOo/SO
sucks -- just like Macs -- when it wasn't the problem in the first
place.  ;->

> Along with the 10 support people there are about another ten others in
> the company that do business support & development of various kinds.
> I intend using Acronis Snap Deploy to deploy the OS installations to the
> individual workstations, I'm evaluating it at the moment but it looks
> like it will do what I need, and is cheaper & easier to use than Norton
> Ghost.
> Anyone know of a good manager-accessible article that explains the
> rationale for migrating to OOo in the first place?  Something like that
> would be a major help with my plans.

I just gave you the 1 paragraph, 3+ year document longevity reasoning --
especially given the fact that Microsoft has indirectly admitted it is a
_major_ "cost" for companies today.

But as far as "transparently" replacing MS Office with OOo/SO while
continuing to use MS Office formats, no, I don't think many people would
advocate that -- not even with 1.9.x/2.x -- and I wouldn't either.

That's in my _professional_ opinion -- sticking with MS Office 97 would
be better if you're going to use DOC, XLS, PPT, etc... by default.

As far as MS Office v. OOo/SO, that's IMHO -- only you can decide if you
should be using MS Office with DOC or OOo/SO with ODT.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                     b.j.smith at ieee.org 
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