Linux.com

Oh never mind.

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Conveniance and support

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Because they don't know any better. Ignorance costs.

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Or because they don't have a broadband connection, or because they aren't geeks who have heard of OOo.

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"Its because they don't know about it."

"Or its because they haven't heard of it!"

Thanks for the redundant reply.

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For the same reason that Sun started selling StarOffice instead of giving it away -- people see a product that's free, and assume it's crap. Put a price tag on it, and suddenly it might just be worth something.

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not everybody who walks into compusa has heard of OOo.

not everybody who walks into compusa and has heard of OOo knows where to get it.

not everybody who walks into compusa and has heard of OOo and knows where to get it has a broadband connection.

not everybody who walks into compusa and has heard of OOo and knows where to get it and has a broadband connection has a CD burner.

not everybody who walks into compusa and has heard of OOo and knows where to get it and has a broadband connection and has a CD burner knows how to use it.

not everybody who walks into compusa and has heard of OOo and knows where to get it and has a broadband connection and has a CD burner and knows how to use it has the time.

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You took that one way too far. No CD burner is needed for OOo.

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You'll probably get more support for these $50 than for the $200 MS Office costs you.

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$2 bottles of water, $50 CDs for OpenOffice. Isn't it time for cans of air? Maybe pocket packets of topsoil and grass clippings. And why are the plastic bags and receipts free? Shouldn't you have to put a quarter in a machine to get one? I guess people will buy anything, even when given the choice of getting the same thing for free. Amazing. See what decades of lead and mercury poisoning has done to the species?

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"$2 bottles of water"

Its cheap to get a "clean" and "pure" bottle of water.

"$50 CDs for OpenOffice"

5 CD actually
- 1 inside the box
- 4 ( 1 for each quater ) Upgrade cd

Unlimited e-mail support

Its cheap when you dont have to use a 50$/per hour sys admin to answer the questionsssssssssssss of miss macemoneta.

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"Its cheap to get a "clean" and "pure" bottle of water."

Maybe in your part of the world. I understand there are many parts of the world that need bottled water for lack of a local source. In most parts of North America we have clean pure water coming from the taps and yet people still want to pay for a bottle. Don't ask me why, it is a constant source of amazement for me.

"5 CD actually
- 1 inside the box
- 4 ( 1 for each quater ) Upgrade cd"


  If you have a high speed internet connection and a cd-burner you can get it for free. People still want to pay for it that is fine. In fact I would buy a copy just to support oo.o but not at $50. That is extrememly overpriced. That is the value of an OS including OO.

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Maybe in your part of the world. I understand there are many parts of the world that need bottled water for lack of a local source. In most parts of North America we have clean pure water coming from the taps and yet people still want to pay for a bottle. Don't ask me why, it is a constant source of amazement for me.

<A HREF="http://www.mercola.com/2001/jun/23/chlorine.htm" title="mercola.com">http://www.mercola.com/2001/jun/23/chlorine.htm</a mercola.com>

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I bough a oo cd from one of the largest elctronic retailers here in New Zealand for $4.95 (about US$3.0). I didnt need it (already have it), but I bought it anyway to support the concept of having oo availbale over-the-counter (and it was literally on the counter) at mainstream consumer outlets. But US$50.0 is a bit too much.

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Dick Smith Electronics? How much of that 5 bucks is supporting OOo? They also sell CDs of Mandrake Community, though I don't know how much money they give to MandrakeSoft. They sell the CDs, yet the sale assistants have no clue about Linux (printer compatibility, etc).

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Ok, point taken. But still, having OO cds on the counter of a mainstream retailer for $5 is going to do a hell of a lot to promote the acceptance of oo.

And yes the staff dont know squat about it, but they know sqaut about all the other $100++ software they sell too.

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A lot of people here seem to be completely missing the boat. It appears that you're paying for a CD plus SUPPORT. This is a very reasonable fee for those that need something like this, but don't want to spend the bucks for a MS solution.

Fifty dollars for one year of online tech support is not that much at all.

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First, it sounds like they're trying to do support as cheaply as possible, so it wouldn't be surprising if it turns out to be worthless. Second, everyone here keeps saying that good samaritan support over the web is as good or better than expense pay support.

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$50 is reasonable for support, provided it is competent support. There have already been several instances of OpenOffice.org resellers simply directing customer support issues to the OpenOffice.org mailing lists, with less than enthusiastic response from the list users.

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$50 for support. I've been using software for 20 years and have never had to use software support. Anyone who needs support for software should be banned from using it. Sheer stupidity.

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Microsoft is 100 bucks per inceident call. These folks are offering 50 bucks per year. That seems more than reasonable to me. On top of that, openoffice will not change file formats on you so you can avoid the office upgrade treadmill if you so choose.

At first glance it seems excessive, but reasding the fine print of support and value for what you own forever gives the 50 bucks much more credence.

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I was in compusa store once buying some supplies and I came accross a mother and college sun fretting over buying office - even the $140.00 school version.

I interrupted their conversation and suggested they go to openoffice.org and download it for free
after I explained to them what it was - they immediately put down what they were buying and left to go download it.

I think this is great we need to have more companies just getting the word out and I think most people will switch.

I haven't still came across anything Open Ofice doesn't do that I need - it is great and I hope it continues.

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I wish I could say the same, there is one company that sends docs to us, and when I open it in open office the formatting is off. Not to say I don't support the product. Out of all the documents I've seen that's the only one, and it has weird layers upon layers upon layers of tables in the document. It's really overkill for a signature form. I still print the form from open office, and they don't complain about it, but sometimes customers signing it note that the boxes look a little off.

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