Preparing to convince to shift to non-propriety documents formats

[Micha]

On 05/02/2012 12:14, geoffrey mendelson wrote:
> 
> On Feb 5, 2012, at 10:40 AM, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:
>>
>> Why? Forget Linux. Do Macs come with Word pre-installed (today)? How
>> much does an Office license cost (e.g., if one runs it in WINE)?
>>
> 
> It's almost irrelevant. Most Macs come with an Apple Office suite
> (Pages, etc) which has little to no Hebrew support. MS/Office for the
> Mac supports Hebrew at a very basic level but it is expensive.  However,
> there are so few Macs around that no one really cares about what they
> support.
> 

That is not so true any more with today's kids. I don't have a kid at
that age yet, but good friends of ours do and I think that about half
their class are using macs (and iPods and ipads). Their child actually
has to use the mother's computer half the time as the mac doesn't
support word in Hebrew or their homework system or the parents message
system (to let parents know of grades, tardiness etc.)

> In the world, the majority of UNIX systems are Macs. In the US around
> 12% of the computers on desktops are Macs, and in Israel a few percent
> of them are Macs. With the high price of Macs here many parents just buy
> cheap PC's with Windows bundled and get the student/home version of
> office (Word and Execel but no Outlook (scheduling/email) and Access
> (database)) which can be found on sale for as low as 300 NIS for a three
> computer license.
> 
> Last year (2010 school year) a student organization was offering a
> netbook with Windows XP and Office included for 1200 NIS. This year,
> there were still some being sold for as little as 800 NIS at places like
> Machsani Chasmal.
> 
> 
> 
>> Another stupid question: why doesn't the school publish assignments on
>> the web? Should be much easier than to email them?
> 
> 
> No, the teachers know how to email. They would have to hire a webmaster
> to post them and coordinate the postings.
> 
> Geoff.