On 20 Aug 2014, at 18:29, pavithran <pavithran.s@???> wrote:
> On 20 August 2014 16:16, Joseph Bennie <jay@???> wrote:
>> Its interesting that most people are not citing complaints about linux. The
>> actual complaints are about applications and specifically office
>> productivity and collaboration.
>>
>> document exchange with companies.
>
> Basically it boils down to exchanging MS Office documents with other
> groups in government which haven't shifted yet. The sad thing here is
> the attitude of Libre Office developers in not writing or pushing
> OOXML compatablity in Libre office. Their main priority is ODF and for
> me and all our LUG members we are happy with that stand .
> Kingsoft office apparently is a chinese software team which had
> written an office program which offers perfect compatiblity with the
> newly published OOXML standards.
>
> Libre Office has some serious lessons to learn if it really wants
> people to migrate.
>
yep
> 1. Fix the OOXML compatablity issue.
Agreed - just because you support a good thing, is no reason to be ignorant of other good things… ( being ignorant also belittles your own position! )
> 2. Improve the UI to atleast look cool / modern
I actually think its a good thing to keep an interface consistent. ( some of the recent changes in office/windows smack of people changing stuff for the sake of it, not because it makes it better… how often do you hear phases such as “small iterative improvements are better” )
>
> 1 has its own reasons but 2 Libreoffice in 2004 and 2014 almost look
> the same while MS office has changed , though I wasn't suggesting that
> there be huge UI / workflow changes it should be comparable enough to
> MS office.
>
chasing Ms office isn’t the right mentality … the team need to chase user needs, the team that do this best will win the user over. (Rule 1)
> Why bother about MS office - I dont give a darn about it.
and this is exactly why it fails. you and me both are technical .. we know how to solve our own problems, but unfortunately the vast majority of people as lazy and expect things to just integrate. and when they don’t they whine like little piggies! unfortunately some of those little piggies are influential, and the minor inconvenience of having to use two steps vs one step is a big deal when they are dealing with higher order issues such as which topping for their cafe latte, while arranging after work drinks!
so if you want to win … you have to care. (Rule 2)
> but people in
> govt offices work on them all their life and they care.
the first point is more important then the second. when people learn something it makes them very productive, they care when someone is making them less productive …. the funny thing is the office 365 is so different they really will cry, I bet they will have real tears!
Rule 3 : don’t move the cheese
> The other issues are all with "Exchange" being advertised as superior product
> which is just bollocks they could get a decent mail/communication
> platform with GNU/Linux
They might get a superior product on any platform, but last I checked Outlook with an Exchange backend was vey usable and with lync and Active directory integration its nearly omnipresent!
For the record, I dislike outlook a lot and prefer the simpler world of mail on my mac and ical with gmail as my server side. On linux I’m undecided … I usually resort to sylpheed on windows and linux but here’s the difference. I and maybe you think clean elegant mail client, we are also a small, possibly, single entity that needs to be agile with our choice of app and can use gmail in the background.
…. Outlook, Lync and Exchange is a communication juggernaught! and the people who use it expect it to hold 10+ years of email securely and reliably for 200+ people and it be accessible everywhere! … that takes a lot of energy and a lot of trust!
so when you look at the need that exchange+outlook solves I really don’t see a clear open source alternative, that is less work, more reliable and costs less to implement.
and that is the real problem! when you need big reliable systems onsite … you need to trust it - and it needs to work perfectly.
… but if exchange is that important … it could be implemented in insolation, and use the gnome/Evolution client as a substitute for Outlook … so either someone internally is being a zealot or someone forgot to point out it's ok to mix and match!
hell they could even put it on Azure in a few mouse clicks! and a few more to enable IMAP4 with TLS!
Rule 4: not all problems are solved with the same solution. Identify which problem you want to solve and built/use the right tool of the job.
>
> Regards,
> Pavithran
>
> --
> Please post to: Hampshire@???
> Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
> LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk
> --------------------------------------------------------------
--
Please post to: Hampshire@???
Web Interface:
https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
LUG URL:
http://www.hantslug.org.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------
