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Originally Posted by Smashwords
Hi all. Sorry I was slow to find this thread. Sounds like ya'll hashed this out pretty well, though I'll add a couple more comments.
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Hi. It is a great pleasure to see you answering questions here. I was one of the very first users with a Smashwords account. I learned about Smashwords here on Mobileread, very soon after it was started and it was a great pleasure to see you grow.
You [Smashwords] are one of reasons why we have variety and pricing of ebooks today. The situation is far from ideal, but is still better than in, for example, Norway (that we have been discussing in another thread recently.)
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Originally Posted by Smashwords
Microsoft Word is by no means a perfect Word processor, and somehow MS has managed to make Word more cumbersome and more difficult to learn with every new version.
My personal favorite version of MS Word is Word 2000. Word is a good universal format because most writers already have it. If an author takes the time to learn how to tame it (and we show you how in the Smashwords Style Guide), you can get really good results from our Meatgrinder. For authors who can't afford the $140 or so to purchase a copy, Open Office is a reasonably good free alternative, though understand in advance that it has its own problems and doesn't always export clean Word .doc files.
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As I said my blood pressure rose sharply when I read (on Smashwords) how you are recommending writers to purchase MSOffice, because MSWord is great product for writing. I can understand that you choose .doc format as the most commonly used, but recommending authors (that keep you in a very high regard as technical and marketing guru) to purchase MSOffice is something different. Especially when that means purchasing MSOffice 2007 [shudder] or higher and possibly upgrading hardware to the specifications required by MSOffice.
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Originally Posted by Smashwords
I've been in the tech business almost since the dawn of Microsoft, and it's interesting that so much anti-Microsoft sentiment is still out there.
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Long, very long time ago I was one of fiercest supporters of MSOffice. A program I have seen as superior, with many features other office applications didn't have. That was when MSWord 2.0 was the latest and greatest. Since then I gradually grew to dislike most of the systems Microsoft provides.
I remember browser wars, how DR Dos was driven to bankrupcy, how cooperation with MS ended for Stacker, the list could go on and on ...
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Originally Posted by Smashwords
Open Office, despite the word "open" in its name, was acquired by Sun Microsystems, a company, which despite its calls for openness, ultimately on a trojan horse mission to harm Microsoft and drive customers to its own proprietary, over-priced hardware.
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This is very similar to what you do to traditional publishers with your service ;-)
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Originally Posted by Smashwords
When Sun failed, they were acquired by Oracle. For anyone who has ever followed Oracle and its CEO Larry Ellison, Mr. Ellison is the prince of darkness when it comes to closed, expensive proprietary systems, and their marketing tactics (a former Oracle executive once bragged to me how they savaged Informix, an old database competitor, with underhanded marketing and PR) at times made the worst of Bill Gates and team look downright saintly. If given the choice of finding yourself stranded on an island with Larry Ellison or Bill Gates, most folks would be smart to choose Bill Gates IMHO.
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Well, the former OpenOffice.org foundation members have created new foundation - The Document Foundation
http://www.documentfoundation.org/ and released new version of their office under the name Libre Office.
They have addressed Oracle to join and donate the name OO.o and some other things, but they do not hold their collective breath. They have seen what has happened to Solaris and they have seen the level of cooperation Oracle provided so far.