OpenOffice 2.0 will likely put a hurt on Microsoft 13319

Buford,

Look at it this way. I think that OO is a pretty darn good app. And you certainly can't beat the price. I run it on one of my machines (dual-boot for both the Win32 and Linux version) so I am familiar with it.

But the fact remains that despite being free and capable, OO is a niche player while Microsoft continues to sell well over $10 Billion dollars worth of MSO each year. (That's more than one sale per second, every second of every day 24x7.)

There has to be a reason for this... wouldn't you agree? It's not like nobody has heard of OO because most people have heard of it and there have been articles and reviews written about it. Yet the overwhelming majority of businesses continue to buy and use MSO by a wide margin.

If you have a theory of why this is the case then let's hear it.

My theory is that MSO is currently the standard. It's what companies know and use and there needs to be a compelling reason to switch to something different. OO needs to offer a compelling reason to switch. Being "the same as MSO" is not enough reason because companies will not switch to something that is essentially the same thing.

Price is not enough of a factor IMO. Do the math and the cost of using MSO is roughly $60-user per year. If MSO improves productivity by 0.1% then it pays for itself. If switching to OO reduces user productivity by 0.1% or more then switching was a mistake.

So cost isn't going to be the factor. My theory is that OO needs to be significantly better at something that matters in order for it to gain widespread adoption. It's an excellent package but that isn't enough.