OpenOffice: Worth $21 Million Per Day, If It Were Microsoft Office

http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/02/12/1753224/openoffice-worth-21-million-per-day-if-it-were-microsoft-office

by caffeinewriter • 13 years ago

16 30 13 years ago

news.slashdot.org

fleitz2• 13 years ago

Yes, and if a Chevy Malibu could be sold for what BMW 5 series sells for then GM wouldn't have gone bankrupt. Also like the 'street value' of drugs quoted by cops, no one ever pays retail for MS Office so the number is even more meaningless.

I'm really not sure what this savings number means because for anyone who uses office to make money open office is most certainly not equivalent to MS Office. You only save money with open office is your needs are very limited, your time is worth nothing, and everyone you might ever send a document to is also using OpenOffice.

I'd gladly pay $150 for MS Office just so my documents are readable. Yes, I know that if only everyone switched to OpenOffice etc than all would be well, but the problem is people who write big cheques use MS Office, therefore if your document looks like shit and a competitors looks good you don't get cut a big cheque.

_ea1k• 13 years ago

  "You only save money with open office is your needs are very
  limited, your time is worth nothing, and everyone you might
  ever send a document to is also using OpenOffice."

You do make some good points, but this sentence doesn't fit at all. There are quite a few scenarios where LibreOffice can be a $$$-saver, and it certainly doesn't require your time to be "worth nothing".

fleitz2• 13 years ago

For sure it's a bit of hyperbole, but I think its essentially true.

Lets say you make min wage, or $10/hour...

Lets say Open Office costs you 5 minutes per day in horrible interface, making docs work with office, etc.

Lets say MS Office actually costs $150...

  ($150 / ($10 / hour)) / (5 minutes) = 180 days

Basically after 1 year you've paid for MS Office.

olegbl• 13 years ago

"Yes, and if a Chevy Malibu could be sold for what BMW 5 series sells for then GM wouldn't have gone bankrupt." This is probably the best product quality analogy I've ever read.

I remember the days of using LibreOffice on Linux. I always gave up after 5-10 exceptionally frustrating minutes and just went to Google Docs instead (though now, MS Office Web Apps would likely be my choice on Linux).

Shorel• 13 years ago

"Note: There are various ways to estimate value. The commercial value of alternative goods, which we used above, is only one approach. But it is the same approach used when estimating revenue lost to software piracy, when they assume that if users did not use software illegally they would pay for commercial licenses at the prevailing rate. So there is some justification for using the same approach here."

davidw3• 13 years ago

Ah, another open-office thread. I'm always amazed at the quantity of people that show up on these to piss all over what is a pretty amazing project.

Granted, OpenOffice may well never surpass MS Office, but to even be playing in the same league is a victory of sorts, given the incredible disparity of resources behind both projects.

And for your average person writing a letter, trying to calculate something with a spreadsheet, or put together a simple presentation, they absolutely are in the same league.

For me, OpenOffice wins hands down, because it runs on Linux, which is the OS I choose to use, and is much more versatile and repurposable, being open source. I use bits of it for LiberWriter.

brudgers2• 13 years ago

Open Office falls short compared to Office for the average user in the same way that Linux falls short for such non-technical people - poor documentation and support. My mom can go to the public library and choose one of several books. She can even take classes on Office at the senior center.

The support for FOSS alternatives just doesn't compare in terms of diversity or ease of use for a lay person. The bookstore has shelves of books on Office. When there are three books on LibreOffice, I'll consider buying a lottery ticket.

I wish things were different. But they aren't.

davidw3• 13 years ago

There's a difference between saying that for many things, MS Office wins and some of the spittle-flecked rants about OpenOffice that one sees.

lumberjack2• 13 years ago

>The support for FOSS alternatives just doesn't compare in terms of diversity or ease of use for a lay person.

Actually I've found the exact opposite. FOSS tends to have very active and very engaging communities that actually provide answers. Whereas on most win/ms software forums, there are usually a ton of people who are just parroting each other without understanding how completely far of they are from the crux of the problem. Of course this is all just a bunch of anecdotes.

overgryphon2• 13 years ago

Could you explain what about Open Office makes it a pretty amazing project?

The entire mission of the Open Office suite seems to be to copy Microsoft Office as much as possible. It isn't trying to change the way people think about document editing, or provide more meaningful ways to express ideas. Microsoft created Visio, so let's go make Draw. What is the point? What value does recreating successfully developed and supported applications provide?

jiggy20113• 13 years ago

So that you can exchange documents with people who are using MS Office without having to pay a fee to Microsoft and without being tied to Windows.

I primarily use a Linux machine to develop, so not having to dual boot or use a VM/Second computer every time someone sends me a .xls is very useful.

The interface mimics (older versions) of office precisely to make the learning curve for previous office users as shallow as possible.

buu700• 13 years ago

Why rewrite applications that already exist?

Microsoft Office for Linux did not and does not already exist.

trbs3• 13 years ago

You make it sound like rewriting MS Office is a bad thing. At its core, MS Office is a very solid piece of software, so why spend resources and divert focus to try to improve on something Microsoft has already made near-perfect? And rewriting it under the GPL license (so it's free) adds value to the project as well. Not to mention that by rewriting it, you make it easy for people to pick up your project easily.

davidw3• 13 years ago

It's good that other car manufacturers did not throw in the towel when they saw how successful Ford was. Sadly, they mostly copied the cars and production techniques. Although some have dared to innovate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8

What is amazing is that an open source project comes anywhere close to keeping up with what is one of the flagship products of one of the largest, most profitable companies the world has ever known.

lumberjack2• 13 years ago

The point is to have a free alternative.

octix• 13 years ago

I think it's more about letting people know about alternatives, which may turn out an option for their needs...

It's similar to IE era, when majority thought IE is the internet and couldn't imagine other browsers.

bathat• 13 years ago

> I'm always amazed at the quantity of people that show up on these to piss all over what is a pretty amazing project.

Well, I'm not here to piss all over the project (which is amazing). However. There are about four or five things I need a spreadsheet to do, which OpenOffice does not do and which MS Office does do (one example off the top of my head is generating polynomial regression lines on charts--I specifically need to generate quadratic fits). I've found that many people are in a similar situation, but the things they need are slightly different from the ones I need.

So when someone posts a story about how OpenOffice is "just as good" as MS Office--or at least strongly implies that by claiming the value of a copy of OpenOffice is the same as MS Office retail--those people (like me) tend to come out of the woodwork and tell the other people (like you) the following: Although OpenOffice is a fantastic project, it just doesn't do what I need it to do. Which means that I am going to continue to forking over $90 to MS to get a spreadsheet (and word processor and presentation software) that does what I need it to do.

jiggy20113• 13 years ago

Does the downloads number include people who pulled it out of the Ubuntu repo? People who got it preinstalled with their distro? What about people upgrading from one version to the next?

trbs3• 13 years ago

(This should be obvious without saying it.)

As the first commend on /. mentions, there's no point in trying to make an accurate estimate of a free piece of software's worth because it's FREE. Everyone that is interested will download it, but you can't tack on a competitor's value to that download because they didn't pay for the download.

mmanfrin• 13 years ago

Some sincerely hopeful numbers there.

xentronium• 13 years ago

This is typical RIAA/MPAA accounting logic in action.

If OpenOffice cost actual money, it'd be probably worth somewhere about zero because nobody would use it.

iso-8859-1• 13 years ago

There are always people that will mistakenly pay for something they don't have to pay for. See http://flightprosim.com/

frozenport• 13 years ago

Question: is 21*365=7665 smaller or greater than MS Office revenue?

testimoney2• 13 years ago

I wouldn't spend 5$ on OpenOffice!

OpenOffice: Worth $21 Million Per Day, If It Were Microsoft Office

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