[PLUG] Rumors that Windows 7 will kill Linux...

Paul Heinlein heinlein at madboa.com
Mon Mar 16 20:39:13 UTC 2009


On Mon, 16 Mar 2009, Quentin Hartman wrote:

> I was talking about local apps which have effective[1] feature 
> parity with the incumbent. In the case of MS Office, the obvious 
> competitors are Open Office and iWork. All of which can exchange 
> documents well enough[2], making platform less and less technically 
> relevant and more and more preference / aesthetic relevant.

"Well enough" is a good metric when the document's recipient only 
needs to read the document, or when changes to it are kept locally.

When full read/write compatiblity is the key, then "well enough" 
starts to approach 100%. Most organizations which which I've been 
affiliated don't want to spend staff time testing compatibility break 
points. The compatibility problem is magnified by differing release 
cycles between MS Office and, say OpenOffice.org.

Even when alternative apps are acceptable, there's the question of IT 
support, both for installation and ongoing maintenance.

Finally, a note about iWork. I use (and like) a Mac at work and at 
home. I'm no anti-Apple bigot. I rule out iWork, however, because it's 
the most platform-tied office bundle in mainstream release. There's no 
iWork for Windows, much less one for Linux. Apple has no native 
remote-display protocol (and VNC isn't multi-user in OS X), so IT 
can't provide Windows or Linux users a mechanism to edit iWork docs. 
At least MS Office is available for OS X, and RDP is a reasonable 
remote-access solution. Regardless of its usability or features, iWork 
is the embodiment of vendor-lock-in and only has a place in a Mac-only 
shop.

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> http://www.madboa.com/



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