MS finally concedes OpenOffice is a Threat!

OpenOffice

It seems that Microsoft is finally waking up to the threat posed by OpenOffice. I’ve been slowly moving my clients over to OpenOffice for the past year, after all it’s free (which is attractive for SME), its interface is more like the traditional interface offered by MS Office in the good old days, and it’s Open Source so it’s continually improving (as a bonus at no extra cost!).

The largest obstacle I’ve found to the adoption of OpenOffice is resistance from staff, who in some instances seem wholly opposed to anything that is not labeled “Microsoft”. Then second is concern that they won’t be able to open .doc files, crazy I know, but people still seem confused. I’ve even got some people to use OpenOffice files as their standard format (usually if they don’t need to send files out).

Anyway there are many consultants like me who think that Microsoft’s days are numbered in the Office workplace, and that’s without talking about Google Docs. Anyway, others are finally cluing up to this. To read more see this article from computerworlduk.com that prompted my little comment.

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