Slashdot Mirror
ZDNet Reviews KOffice
Spotted over at dot.kde.org -- this review of KOffice. The review isn't overwhelmingly positive or negative -- seems like a rather balanced picture of both what's up to par, and what's still missing, for mainstream acceptance in the Normal Workplaces of the world.
And this just in: ZDNet declared Master of Obvious for the third year running.
M$ Office: $200-300
K Office: N/C (comes bundled with various distros)
That in itself is an important feature...
You're using her as bait, Master!
I thought the article was very fair. It didn't seem to expect the world out of KOffice, and made the point that it was a volunteer effort.
Having recently fired up KOffice for the first time since the 1.1 release, I've got to say I'm really happy with where it's going. The team has done a great job on getting component embedding working (although it crashed on me when I started pushing it around a bit) and I really think this will shape up to be an incredibly powerful suite.
Of course, these things don't happen overnight. It took Linux about 8 or 9 years to start gaining more widespread acceptance in the server area. KOffice is a tremendous project, and it'll take a long time to get to the point where it can compete with MS Office. Remember, software like this doesn't just happen overnight, it has to evolve. MS Office has had over a decade to get to where it is. I have a feeling we'll start seeing KOffice as a real alternative to MS in a few years.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Quit with the MS bashing on this. Go back before MS stuff - I do believe Lotus 123 would take SUM and sum to be the same thing. It's a function, and should be regarded as being the same. I'm sure all unix geeks would love to have SUM() do something different than sum(), claiming that that's perfectly normal, but it's not. I think even dbase way back in the 80s wasn't case sensitive. Sure it'd get you more columns (a-z, A-z, aA-zZ, etc.) but that's just messed up.
creation science book
Now you and I both know that KOffice isn't nearly as polished and powerful as MS Office is (and Office XP is going to be).
But the thing is, when you look at how far KOffice has come in how little time, it becomes apparent that it's just a matter of time before it catches up and, provided its leadership isn't content to be "as good as" Office, surpasses Office in features and functionality.
It's the sheer rate of change and speed of development of KOffice that amazes me. In a couple of years, this free alternative to Office will most likely be at least as powerful as MSFT's product, except that it will cost nothing.
Office software is becoming like text editors and browser software: It's something you don't expect to pay for. And if MSFT continues to try to charge people for it, people will move over to the alternatives.
No, it ain't there yet, but look at where it was and where it is now. Look at how short the time was for it to get here.
And just think. Just a few months ago, people were saying that Linux would never be a viable desktop OS. A few who have their heads in the sand still say it. But it is viable now! Even my Dad, who usually lacks the time to learn anything more complicated than instructions written on a sheet of paper that he follows to the letter, could install and get running with KDE under RedHat.
All that's left is a Quicken alternative.
MS Office has a perfectly open API. The code behind it might not be open, but if you want to put an application together using any tool that supports ActiveX components, MS Office works great. Insert an Excel control here for the graphs, a word control to edit some database field. It works!
Exchange does something other mail servers don't do. And it does it well.
I was going to say "groupware". But that's a bit of a misnomer. It does have various groupware functionality - but its specifically scheduling that it does well. Other groupware aspects are almost a brief afterthought.
Sure - there are other scheduling competitors out there. But I watched Cisco Systems gravitate towards Exchange despite their heavy investment in a Unix mail infrastructure and the problems a diverse desktop OS user base causes for functionality with Microsoft products (Cisco endorses Win2k, Solaris, and Linux as supported desktop options for their employees).
Its a shame that Exchange forces one to pick up all the usual MS bagage along with an otherwise top tier product.
sendmail Exchange
Have you ever used Exchange? Standard pop3 mail is a very small part of it.
And your comment leads me to believe you haven't worked for a large company and your administration experience has only been on systems where you have complete control over everything (ie, you only do it for yourself or at most a very small network).
You can't just say, "Ok guys, let's ditch Exchange so I don't have to use Windows. I don't care that we'll be switching from a full-featured groupware platform to a simple smtp/pop3 email environment, not to mention staff training, custom programming, hardware, and software investments up to this point going downt he tubes. I just REALLY don't like Windows."
load "linux",8,1
Think internationalization. Presumably the user should be able to name files in his own language. But Unicode case normalization is expensive and complicated. (Of course, you could say that case insensitivity need only apply to ASCII, but then you get called a narrow-minded Anglo-centrist.)
Think access control, and all of the bugs that arise when there is more than one name for a resource. Granted, this is probably a software quality problem, but it is reality.
Overally, case sensitive is much simpler engineering-wise. "Normal users" shouldn't have to type exact filenames anyway, they should be using file dialogs or case-insensitive search tools or something.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
StarOffice has been about a long time without huge changes. So let's see (rounding up to 100 users and $110,000 for xyzOpenOffice to make it EZ):
Since 1994:
Office 6.0: $60,000
Office 95: $60,000
Office 97: $60,000
Office 2000: $60,000
Office XP: $60,000
Total: $300,000
xyzOpenOffice training: $110,000
Occasional help / Training new users: $10,000/year.
Total Open cost: $180,000.
That's what people forget about MS Office. There's the recurring cost of buying the latest version all the time. Because, if you don't do that, companies seem to think they're out of date (I don't know why... I just know companies always buy every version of MS Office ever made.)