Why Do People Keep Buying Microsoft Office?
July 6th, 2008 by ComputerBob
The subject keeps coming up, especially for those of us who’ve been using OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office for a few years:
Microsoft Office is muscle-bound with hundreds of features that hardly anyone ever uses.
OpenOffice.org has every feature that nearly everyone needs in an office suite.
Microsoft Office costs hundreds of dollars. And you have to pay for it again and again. Every few years. And Microsoft is reportedly trying to move it to a licensing system that will make you keep paying for it every year.
OpenOffice.org has always been and will always be completely free.
So What’s Holding OpenOffice Back?
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July 12th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
The same question could be asked, why do people still use Windows?
The office suite question is much more cut and dried, however, since it is “just” an office program. It runs well regardless of operating system, and opens all the same files.
So why would anyone pay $150+ for something they can get for nothing?
Name recognition, fear. “But everyone I know uses MS Office. So I have to.”
I’ve had people say things like, “You mean I just spent $150 for nothing?” but that was the _most_ positive response I’ve gotten. Mostly, people just look at me like I’m crazy and then they won’t even try it.
But I burn copies of TheOpenDisk.com with OOo, Firefox and other F/OSS, and I give them out, but honestly I don’t think anyone has used them. Even Firefox, they don’t believe me when I hand them the disk. They only use it if they get told by someone else about it too. Even my own sisters ignored me, who’ve been working “in computers” since 1981, and instead have been hacked and virused and all the other agonies of Windows and I.E. until someone _else_ said to use Firefox.
I cannot solve this problem. It’s mass insanity.
July 12th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
@BobRobertson,
That’s been my experience as well. I used OOo in Windows long before I became a Linux user. Haven’t been able to convince anyone that it’s ok to use!