Version differences have never been a problem. What is a problem, is when you have a few users, engrossed in the glory of open source, sending attachments that can only be opened by themselves...
But you are right about one thing, Office 2007 is wildly different, but for those who just want to type a letter, or create a spreadsheet, it only takes them about 45 minutes, not 45 hrs to figure out the major differences. Mildly aggravating, I had to create a vb script to force 2007 to save in 2003 format by default.
btw... just purchased 500 copies of 2007 for $28 each as an upgrade. $28 is well worth it, to remain compatible with the other 95% of the world. The 2% that are too cheap to purchase value for their money, cause about 75% of my trouble tickets.
Programs that create self-extracting installers have been around, for at least a few months or so.... :-), $100, a few minutes worth of work, and the novices that can't find a bin directory, merely have to double click on an executable, and with one hidden switch, that durn thing will even launch the installer automatically.
Once again Microsoft's failure to adhere to any kind of published standard is somehow the fault of open source software.
But you are right about one thing, Office 2007 is wildly different, but for those who just want to type a letter, or create a spreadsheet, it only takes them about 45 minutes, not 45 hrs to figure out the major differences.
Then your users aren't doing anything complex (like, say, mail merges or formatting documents to go of to a commercial printer.) As such, they shouldn't require much training to switch to OO.org and your claim that they would require formal training to use it is groundless.
btw... just purchased 500 copies of 2007 for $28 each as an upgrade. $28 is well worth it, to remain compatible with the other 95% of the world.
That 95% is shrinking rapidly. Many state governments are now requiring documents to be saved in ODF rather than Microsoft's wildly proprietary and randomly changing format. The concept of being able to exchange documents with anyone using anything is starting to catch on elsewhere too. This has been common for read-only documents for a long time and the popularity of PDF shows. Now ODF is becoming the format of choice for those that want read-write capability regardless of what the sender used to create it.
The 2% that are too cheap to purchase value for their money, cause about 75% of my trouble tickets.
It isn't about money. It's about standards. Microsoft has gotten away with their "my way or the highway" attitude for a long time but it seems that's starting to change.