ChrisH Posted October 24, 2005 Posted October 24, 2005 I have finally managed to get a good listing of what software licences we have ands some totals are to my suprise. Most computers have Office 2000 on them and about 60 have 2003. I dont have many good experiences with office XP but that was a while back. So basically would you say put Office XP on or just leave them with 2000 on?
Dos_Box Posted October 24, 2005 Posted October 24, 2005 Neither. Office 2000 is dead and Office XP just about to be, and with a new Office release due next year it drives further nails into the coffin. TBH OOo 2.0 would be a far better choice, but if you had, I mean REALLY had to install an old Office product then I would choose XP as it has a smaller footprint. Publisher 2000 is far to evil to put on any platform.
ChrisH Posted October 24, 2005 Author Posted October 24, 2005 Would have to be XP as they wouldnt pay for new licences. Hmm I will have an experiment.
Ric_ Posted October 24, 2005 Posted October 24, 2005 @ChrisH: You could always go for StarOffice if the powers that be don't like the sound of OpenOffice. Sun's a pretty big company after all If you don't have enough XP licenses, surely you should baseline on 2K so that everything is the same. You then tell them that you are running unsupported Office software which is 5 years old and the software release 3 generations on is due out next year. This then makes a reasonable case for using a free alternative - reducing security risks, providing enhanced features, etc.
nawbus Posted October 26, 2005 Posted October 26, 2005 StarOffice and OpenOffice are great, especially as both are free (SOffice to education), BUT they are not MS Office. That is the reason that management will use for not getting either of them. 'Everyone' uses MS Office don't they? Irrespective of the fact that most are illegal copies and you can get legal OO or SO for free. That's the big brick wall you are up against!
Geoff Posted October 26, 2005 Posted October 26, 2005 Problem with MS Office is that you need to run the same version everywhere otherwise you run into interoperability problems. Ironically the same sort of problems you would have with OO.org. I agree for the moment MS Office is probably the safe bet for 'admin' machines/networks. However on the educational side of things I don't think you can really dismiss OO.org as a non-starter. At least give them a choice and install both. OO.org 2.0 makes a network roll out so easy.
Ric_ Posted October 27, 2005 Posted October 27, 2005 Some very good points were made about MS Office at the conference yesturday. 1. All government computers will have to support the Open Doucment Standard in the near future - OpenOffice, StarOffice, WordPerfect... all support this but MS Office does not. 2. The chances are that the kids will not be using the version of Office that you have in School when they finally get a job. The kids in year 7 have at least 5 years before hitting the job market and MS Office 2006 is to be released next year so what you've got now is going to be out of date! 3. The curriculum does not teach the kids how to use MS Office - it teaches them how to use IT effectively (i.e. transferable skills). 4. Business is slowly moving away from MS Office as alternatives become a cost effective and viable alternative.
russdev Posted October 27, 2005 Posted October 27, 2005 arr so you were listening it... I am about to test oo 2.0 here to make sure it is ok and then going to roll out across the board.. Russ
ChrisH Posted October 27, 2005 Author Posted October 27, 2005 I have been looking at it the past few days. Cant find anything in the suite that does templates for leaflets and stuff like Publisher is it hiding/something to download/not there?
Ric_ Posted October 27, 2005 Posted October 27, 2005 Publisher is nasty and evil. Just had to get that out the way! You could design a leaflet template (and, since you'll be really proud of it, submit it for inclusion in the next release) and drop it into the install. I'm sure that somebody must make available free templates for openoffice - admittedly I cannot find them at present.
MkII Posted October 27, 2005 Posted October 27, 2005 We have deployed Staroffice7 and MS office 2000 across our network. [2003 on some rebel technology dept PC's too]. We couldn't change to StarOffice at the time because relational database instruction was part of the curriculum here. However the newly released StarOffice8 does have a relational database built in so that's no longer a problem [when the teaching staff get familiar with it]. It also supports the Open Document standard and has extra bonusses such as direct export to PDF from many of the apps. I've read the next version of MS office does support Open Document but it's not out yet. Powys County Council [the biggest employer hereabouts], along with a growing number of businesses, have standardised on OpenOffice, so you couldn't easily argue that kids won't see it in the workplace. And as was said at the conference - you're required to teach wordprocessing, not how to use Word. As was also said , providing the option of another office suite is a way to show users everything doesn't necessarily have to be done with M$. Publisher is a permanent thorn. I'd love to find an alternative. We were using Macromedia Freehand as part of the MX Studio Suite - but it's been discontinued in the new version of Studio .
Geoff Posted October 27, 2005 Posted October 27, 2005 Wait patiently for the Win32 port of scribus perhaps? http://www.scribus.net/
russdev Posted October 28, 2005 Posted October 28, 2005 ok so what is better star office or open office Russ
Ric_ Posted October 28, 2005 Posted October 28, 2005 @Russ: Download them both and install them. I did this yesturday and (other than the splash screens) there is no discernable difference between OpenOffice 2 and StarOffice 8.
MkII Posted October 28, 2005 Posted October 28, 2005 StarOffice is officially suported by SUN, if that counts for anything!
MkII Posted October 28, 2005 Posted October 28, 2005 Gotta correct a statement I made. Just checking the wikipedia - Microsoft isn't actually adopting the Open Document standard at all - but it's own standard that will open the format but save it in a way that other programs won't be able to open - is my understanding. M$ were invited to the process but failed to attend, check the wikipedia fo the sordid details I think this thread needs splitting mods
Ric_ Posted October 29, 2005 Posted October 29, 2005 @Mark: I knew that - I think people want to know the functional differences though. I don't think we need to split it for another couple of pages - It's all related to choosing which office productivity software to run.
Sirbendy Posted November 8, 2005 Posted November 8, 2005 I disliked O2000 and OXP personally. Too damned bloated, and felt/acted flaky. O2003 is much better, but I use OO 2.0 at home.
MkII Posted November 8, 2005 Posted November 8, 2005 hmmm - MSOffice is so damned expensive, and OpenOffice not familiar enough to use by teaching staff [i'm thinking databases here]....
Geoff Posted November 8, 2005 Posted November 8, 2005 Have you acutally tried introducing them to OO.org Base? I suspect they'll figure it out. Don't forget there's plenty of documentation, howto's and samples you can get for them too. http://documentation.openoffice.org/
MkII Posted November 8, 2005 Posted November 8, 2005 Thanks, i'll pass that on Geoff. They don't even want to move from 2K to 2K+3 because access 'looks different'. I'll let the Head and the Resource committee know tho' that huge savings could be made. £40 per copy of MSOfficePro times 250 = £10k ...wow!
Dos_Box Posted November 9, 2005 Posted November 9, 2005 As was pointed out ot the confernace by the Cutter Project people. Will M$ Office 2k still be around when you new year 7's hit the workplace? You have to upgrade sometime, and now is as good a time as any, especially as Star Office is nice and free. Show them this picture to allow them to compare the difference.
Sirbendy Posted November 9, 2005 Posted November 9, 2005 thats a good point...! Hah. "Welcome to Office 2012", bloatware edition...hmm..
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