karl: Microsoft attacks OpenOffice.org and open source with a damning video

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Microsoft attacks OpenOffice.org and open source with a damning video

Filed under: Microsoft, OpenOffice.org, Open Source

In a typographical and punchy masterpiece, Microsoft has published a video that boldly attacks OpenOffice. You can watch it after the break.

The video is simple in its execution, using what seems to the spoken, damning testimonials of those that have used OpenOffice. Beautiful fonty goodness expands, diminishes, whooshes and slides as each and every one of OpenOffice's claimed benefits are torn to pieces.

The basic purpose of the video is to show businesses that switching to free, open-source software isn't as easy or efficient as it sounds. You know what you're getting with Microsoft Office -- while with OpenOffice it's hard for a business to predict its total support costs, and seemingly that's something businesses really hate.

I don't think Microsoft Office is actually much better than OpenOffice -- it's just that almost everyone, by virtue of Microsoft's 20-year monopoly of the workplace, knows their way around Microsoft Office. In fact, the only real claim made by Microsoft in the video is that its macro support is better -- the rest of its arguments seem to boil down to 'most of the world uses Microsoft Office; so should you!'

Better the devil you know, in other words.