Slashdot | NZ Outfit Dumps Open Office For MS Office

Of course the comments on Slashdot were rife with people claiming that the switch was motivated by money or some other kickback. I'm not at liberty to say anything about the terms of the deal, but I applaud the organization for actually trying OpenOffice and seeing if it will work or not for them. Apparently it didn't work in their situation. Good for them. At least they tried. Too many organizations are stuck in this mentality of not pushing the boundaries and determining if there is a better way to do what they're doing. I'm happy they actually gave OpenOffice a chance. I think their reasons for switching back are disingenuous, though. Sure, there's probably an order of magnitude less trainers for OpenOffice than Microsoft Office, but over time they will come. That's part of the chicken / egg problem of any new software - there isn't any (training / support / outside development) because few people are using it. I do hope that the NZ outfit is open to trying OpenOffice again in the future when the support mechanisms are in place, but I fear its another case where the opportunity to release themselves from Microsoft Office has passed. And I'm sure this one instance will be trumpeted by the marketing folks, both paid and amateur, for Microsoft as another failure of OpenOffice, but I don't see it as a failure. Years ago people made their money training WordPerfect users how to use the software to the fullest. I hope someone out there is paying attention so they can take advantage of the OpenOffice training requests out there.