Re: VDQ M$

What does that subject line mean?

On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Beartooth wrote:

> In the course of discussion with an unenlightened good friend, I'm looking
> to refute the contention that linux can never hope to amount to anything
> because of M$ market domination particularly with office apps; he says you
> have to be able to copy & past between Excel and Word, etc.

Microsoft have a stranglehold on the market by virtue of being installed
by default. The cost of Microsoft included in the price or paid by
someone else or not paid at all.

I'm convinced if Wordpad had spellchecking many users would not bother
with Microsoft Word. Notice how Microsoft includes a spellchecker in
outlook express but doesn't bother to hook it up to wordpad.

There will always be users who claim they need one more feature before
they could possibly switch to a different application, some users do not
want to be convinced.

Other users will be interested by things like Portable Abiword which allow
them to bring their word processor with them on a portable hard drive.

> I know Abiword can do a lot of things I've never even needed to know about
> -- like what a spreadsheet is, or a power point, let alone a slide show
> (if there's now a computer thing called that).

Not sure what you meant there but Powerpoint is a program for creating
slideshows.

> detests even more. He might be interested in trying linux if I can find
> knowledgeable assurance that he can do what he must with it.

I enjoy using VMWare player to try out different distributions. Knoppix
is also a good non invasive way to get started, and the DVD version
probably includes more software than you could ever get around to using.
If you are willing to get Wine setup properly it will give your friend a
way to run his old windows applications if he really needs to.

> Can anyone help?

I think getting users to try out various Free Software like the
applications found on theOpenCD are another good way to get started
without rushing to get rid of windows.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
Abiword http://www.abisource.com
Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org

Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

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Received on Sun Jun 11 12:22:12 2006