[vox] Fwd: Re: Reasons you might not want to use OpenOffice

[Ryan Northrup]

The video to me is... weird.  Most of the "perspectives" provided seem to me
more that the employees were reluctant to adapt to a slightly different
system.  I know that it's one of the primary reasons my mother is always
annoyed when I choose to use OpenOffice for something instead of Microsoft
Office, because "no one" uses OpenOffice, and therefore it's a waste of time
to learn it.

Personally, I see huge potential in learning how to use OpenOffice.org, or
more specifically, in developing an understanding of document creation in
general across a range of platforms, environments, software suites, and
formats, not just a single program such as MS Office or OpenOffice.  An
"inability" to adapt to the OpenOffice environment indicates a lack of
flexibility that, I think, makes a better employee.  As an employer, I would
be looking for people who can change interfaces and still produce the same
results regardless of the program used to produce those results.

Also, out of curiosity, are macros even regularly used anymore?  I don't
mean this in ignorance, but out of curiosity.  One of the points in the
video mentioned the diminished support for macros in OpenOffice.  From what
I understand, they pose more security risks than they do useful features,
especially with the dreaded macro viruses and what not.  My high school
disallowed any execution of macros in Office documents for that reason; I
tried to use VB in a macro to create an interactive score card in a
PowerPoint, but it wouldn't execute because there was no way to enable
macros.  I imagine most businesses would also prefer other means than
macros, but I may be wrong.

-Ryan
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