I feel the need to correct myself, and to avoid tampering with my original post, I post another.

When I said that Office has been hardly replicated in feel and behavior, I'm saying what users have told when I install OpenOffice 2 onto their systems and start using it. At first they go [iWow[/i], but that wears out as they start to look for an MS-Office only feature that has no yet been implemented or the like (and it is surprising the number of users that expect to find exactly the same button layout of the toolbar and menus). I'm aware that most of these are educational issues and with little training are solvable, but sadly also reflect the psyche of an average computer illiterate user, whose more worried about getting his/her work done by 5 pm than pressing F1 and finding out what is s/he doing wrong or how can s/he do what s/he's wanting to do... and worse, these users need baby sitting and constantly call the help desk. These users, of course, have a geographic distribution directly proportional to the degree of exposure to new technologies by the populace, so developed or developing countries are less likely to show these signs as poorer countries, however it is a challnge for globalization. Even though those kinds of users can spawn on every society.

duplicate - deleted

Gee.. I seem to be repeating repeating posts posts here here

what? not again...

ooh, what a talker..

fourth time's the charm? guess not..

la de dee, this is fun..

wibble wabble wooo...

fa la la la la, un-til next year...

As you correctly said, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," and for many users there is no compelling need to change anything about their computers. Change, when it comes, will happen from without ... it might for example be a $100 Linux-equipped computer at Wal-Mart.

There is no question that Microsoft Word is a good product .. a damn good product that has rightfully earned its position. But change will come, and once users spend a few days with a new environment they settle-in to it and use it. This is where Microsoft most runs the risk of being "caught out." Don't confuse inertia with loyalty...

In this competitive environment, I think that it would be smart for Microsoft to split itself into essentially-competing business units. Microsoft should take the position that, no matter what environment you run, "Microsoft is there." (And that should be a very sobering thought for anyone!) They should drop the requirement that every PC that's sold must be sold (essentially) with a copy of Windows: if Windows can't win the bid, it shouldn't win. (Very, very often it will win.) The Office Products division ought to be free to post its division earnings, its successes and its failures, alongside the Operating Systems Division. It might even be spun-off as a completely separate company.

This is what (former IBM chairman) Lou Gertsner set out in no uncertain terms in Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? (Highly recommended.)

imho, they should be doing all of this right now, as soon as humanly possible, and they should fire those lawyers that have been skimming off millions of dollars in legal-fees all these years with such puny results.

Otherwise, when that $100 Wal-Mart machine does arrive, and I have no doubt that it will, Microsoft will find itself unable to play ... when it ought to be able to be free to play and win, and it does not win by "cheating." The present pricing structure, with its "compulsory" license, will put MS at a dis-advantage by handing powerful, un-stoppable competitors an "instant" price advantage that's more than 100% of the list-price of the machine itself. It also puts every one of its present licensees to the same disadvantage, greatly increasing the chance that they will break those licenses just to save their own skins. Because, once a $100 machine is available at Wal-Mart, not only individuals but businesses will buy it in droves. Circuit City or Best Buy might be ten or fifty miles away, but Wal-Mart Is Next Door in every podunk town. WM can put infomercials all over, even in their in-store TV networks, teaching people just how easy it is. To them it's just another piece of consumer electronics. And, if that machine has OpenOffice ... bingo! ... now Microsoft is in a world of hurt.

"Geek Stores" are one thing ... Wal-Mart is entirely another. The machine that they will deploy will not be a "toy." And, as things stand now, it won't run Microsoft Anything.

What the heck, can you post that six MORE times? Surely at 894 posts, you know you can go back and edit a post, right?

Something wrong there, sundialsvcs?

You seem to have already said that... eight times!

Please stop spamming these forums. One post is participation, nine identical coppies is a spam attack.

I don't think sundialsvcs is the type to intentionally spam the forums; looks like technical difficulties to me.

Uh huh... sure was. And those copies weren't there as far as I know when I posted.

Anyhow, back to your regularly scheduled postings!