Posted on 12/08/2001 5:32:04 PM PST by Texas_Longhorn
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:58:56 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The brouhaha surrounding Microsoft Corp.'s new volume licensing plans has apparently been good news for companies like Sun Microsystems Inc., which last week announced the beta release of its free StarOffice 6 office productivity suite.
Iyer Venkatesan, the product line manager for StarOffice, told eWEEK in an interview Tuesday that there had been more than 200,000 downloads of the software from Sun's Web site over the past week. Some two-thirds of those downloading the software had indicated on the download page that they were Windows users, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at eweek.com ...
Microsoft gives away a free browser, and it's "unfair competition" with Netscape (who also gives away a free browser).
Sun gives away for free an Office application suite that is directely and unabashedly targetted at MS Office (a bread and butter product that supplies beaucoup employees with roofs over their heads) -- and according to the same folks who damned MS for giving away a browser, Sun's stunt is the best thing since sliced wrists.
Do we have a bit of a hypocrisy problem here? Or is disdain for dual standards just so 2000?
What is the fascination of having your email integrated with your spreadsheet?
There are lots of other mail clients, calendaring clients and contact managers out there. I own a power drill, but I don't expect it to drive nails. I use the right tool for the job.
Under Linux, I have replaced MS Office, IE, Visio, FrontPage and OutLook with Kmail, Kaddressbook, Korganizer, Koffice, StarOffice, AbiWord, KPilot, Quanta, Kate, Konqueror and Knode. All of my files are saved as XML, HTML or DB compatible files. Anyone can read my files. I don't worry about worms and viruses. I can open files from anyone, at least today. When Microsoft changes their file format, I usually have a week or so before Koffice has a patch out.
As a networking engineer, Kivio MP is fantastic. It let's me flowchart networks and processes like Visio, but with the stencil editor, I can make my own stencils when needed...and the people that build Kivio will even buy them from me.
Kmail integrates LDAP, PGP encryption and email into one solid, fuctional client. Korganizer, being a specialized calendaring tool, beats OutBreak's functionality.
Moving away from Microsoft requires thinking outside of the Microsoft provided box. Just because Microsoft makes LookOut work a certain way, doesn't mean that's the only way to do something.
Knitebane
- 602Text - New Mail Merge Organizer with an instant view of the merged database was added. The Organizer enables you to easily find and select records in the merged data source.
- 602Text - Creates HTML e-mail in a mail merge (available with Microsoft® Outlook Express). The following e-mail formats are available: HTML e-mail, document as attachment, document as unformatted text, document as unformatted text and attachment).
- 602Text - Text-to-Speech support was added.
- 602Text - Document export to RTF was added.
- 602Text - New properties can be set for bar code objects.
- 602Tab - It is possible to create a mail merge with a 602Tab worksheet as the mail merge data.
- 602Tab - Tex-to-Speech support was added. 602Tab enables reading cell contents, formulas, selected cells, comments and worksheet names.
- 602Album - Print multiple pictures per page. Multiple template formats are available.
With Sun I have the choice, either StarOffice 6 or OpenOffice 6. Basically the same product, except for proprietary code from other companies that is included in StarOffice is not in OpenOffice.
Anyone can look at the code for OpenOffice, and therefore I know for the most part what is in StarOffice. But not Office XP or IE.
And why not? It's not like they are making any money on IE, it's no cost, right? So why not let everyone see what's in it?
What are they hiding?
Knitebane
I liken it to what it would be like if Shaq were his current size and speed, but 12 years old attending sixth grade. If I were the basketball coach for that grade, I would be telling the class runt to go all out, play 100%, and be delighted if he did. But if Shaq went all out, I'd have the cops arrest him for manslaughter.
The rules for the big kid on the block are just plain different. It's not hypocrisy. It's the Sherman Anti-Trust law.
Frankly, I've got Office Nightmare too, and I use the two interchangably. But if Nightmare went away tomorrow, it wouldn't bother me.
The SO desktop was a pain to work with, IMO. I didn't need two desktops. Do the have a complete database or is it still just a DB engine?
Oh dear, I was afraid something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
I'll try to break this to you gently. It's a "caveat emptor" world out there. I'll spare you the boring song and dance about what happens, and why it happens -- especially why it happens to nice folks like you -- and cut to the chase.
Are you sitting down? OK, here it comes: that guy who convinced you to buy a copy of Internet Explorer? Well... how can I put this? He saw you coming.
Yes, KB, it is free.
I'm truly sorry for you, but there's not much that can be done at this stage, sadly.
Take the penis waving contest out back please. ;)
Err, I run win2k, and I can assure you that it has "limited game compatibility" all by itself ;)
It's not too bad, really, but I thought the point of XP was that the game compatibility was supposed to be somewhat less limited....
;)
Oh, now I get it.
It's like when Mosaic created a nifty browser, but before they had managed to market it to the hilt, along came Netscape, who used Mosaic's codebase, without benefit of license or payment, who then proceeded to wipe Mosaic off the face of the Earth by casting free copies far and wide, until they -- Netscape -- were the monopoly in the browser trade.
And then, when they finally faced real competition for the first time in their history, it came in a form they could recognize from a mile away. Yes, it was that ol' Mosaic code base comin' right at 'em, only this time it was licensed and paid for.
So what did the squirmy weenies at Netscape do? They cried Unfair!, of course, and ran right to the ever lovin' -- and I do mean "lovin'!" -- arms of the Clinton Regime for help protecting their monopoly.
The Most Corrupt Administration in History, desperate for any diversion capable of giving them cover to pull their irons out of the fire jumped at the opportunity.
Naturally, they were able to feign "bipartisan" support for their jihad by bring the Senator from the Great State of Novell on board.
I'm really surprised, Mr. Cow. I had no idea you saw the situation so clearly!
But what you describe might be like one runt coming along and kneecapping the first, stealing the ball and scoring. Perhaps illegal, perhaps you're well justified in being angry about it.
But not a Sherman Anti-Trust violation. Netscape was no monopoly before it eclipsed Mosaic. It didn't exist then.
I wasn't defending Netscape (nor supporting them).
I was attacking MicroSoft, and defending that attack against allegations of hypocrisy, on the grounds that Sun should be found just as guilty of the same crime, undercutting someone elses livelihood with a freebie.
It remains the case that I agree with the courts that MicroSoft was guilty of Anti-Trust violations. Nothing you've said about Sun or Netscape, even if accurate in letter and spirit, suggests that they violated that particular law.
If you, and others, find the application of existing law to MicroSoft so outrageous, as clearly many do, including Rush, with whom I agree more often than not, then why in tarnation don't you criticize the dang law??.
The real example of hypocrisy I see here is this -- when the law is applied to MicroSoft, it's an outrage, but when it's not applied to Clinton, that's also an outrage.
In other words, if you'd like a chance to turn this subthread back around in a constructive direction, then how about commenting on whether you find the Sherman Anti-Trust regulations to be good law or not?
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