Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Office Faces British Invasion
jdkane writes "CNet reports that a small British software maker, Ability, plans to challenge one of Microsoft's most profitable markets by selling its low-cost package of productivity applications in North America.
Ability Office faces competition from Corel's Word Perfect, Sun Microsystems' StarOffice package and OpenOffice, it's free, open-source sibling. None of these products have captured a significant share of the market from Microsoft's Office.
Does anybody have any hands-on experience with the Ability Office suite, or are there any general speculations as to why this move will make a difference in the office software market (if not just for the bottom line of the software company)?"
Man, what a misleading headline. For a moment, I had this amusing mental image of fully armed British special forces storming Microsoft headquarters.
Curse you, slashdot!
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
A new alternative would be great, but what is going to happen when MS office starts including buit in DRM on its .doc files? Hopefully some of this new software will start to bring people away from proprietary systems like this.
OpenOffice rocks. The new 1.1.0 is even better, since now you can make PDF files. Anyone paying $500 for Office XP needs to visit Openoffice.org.
I wonder what disrespects Microsoft more: pirating their shitty office suite, or hating it so much that you refuse to even pirate it.
I first used Ability office a good few years ago and I found it to be very fast and use less resources than the likes of MS Office. However I feel Ability has very strong competition from the likes of OpenOffice.org, which in my personal opinion is much better and "polished" although Ability's interface is a lot better for those brought up on MS Office.
My other sig is crap too
Ability to their investors: Oh ya, guys, we are going toe to toe with 'The Man', and, uh, we are gonna beat them! Ya, thats right, because we are better than they are! Um, we estimate that at least 100% of Americans will be using our software in about six months! Ya!
Do ya think they bought it?
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
...they're not into the web server business (slashdotted already!)
If only it would integrate itself into my OS, my handheld, my car, my toothbrush, my toaster, and my TV Dinners.
I'm not sure I could cope with an Office suite that didn't...
/sig
In other news, fear is struck into the heart of Hillshire Farms, as a small British consortium has announced plans to import "bangers" to the United States.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Ability.com slashdotted already? Can't be, though it's taking ages to load. Ping is around 380ms.
People want to use at home what they use at work. MS Office is the "standard" for corporate America. When people change jobs, employers and the employee do not want to have to learn something new. A "standar" like MS Office offers certain benefits like this that are difficult to overcome, even given cost concerns.
Then, you have the educational dimension as well. Schools don't want to have classes for both. These days, community colleges are filled with people seeking Office certification (MOS/MOUS certification). Some companies and employees value these certifications. Schools play to that market and won't offer 2 totally different word processing courses. Too expensive. They cater to the market.
These factors are complex and difficult to overcome. Don't just scream "Stupid CEO! Office is too expensive!" before you understand all of the factors.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
The website for Ability is slashdotted already. If a company can't keep a server from getting bogged down, this always makes me wonder if they are ready for the big time.
evanchik.net
If StarOffice, with Sun's clout behind it, can't make a dent in the MS Office monopoly, what makes anyone think a tiny house like Ability will be able to. So long as MS keeps its licensing fees just below the threshhold where it becomes worth it for an enterprise to switch (and retrain a huge number of people, and deal with the % of files where the formatting won't transfer cleanly, etc.), the biggest competitor for Office 2003 is Office 2000.
It only runs on Windows. And its interface, which the manufacturers coyly call "industry-standard", is a Microsoft Office clone.
I wish them luck, but I have to wonder when people are going to realize that the way to challenge Microsoft is not to try to be Microsoft. Any product (yes, this includes a lot of Linux software) that slavishly imitates Microsoft is going to be written off, with some justification, as an inferior knock-off. IMO the M$ Office interface is a lousy one; how 'bout trying to write something better, guys, and see how that does? And while you're at it, make Linux and OS X versions -- in fact, try starting in those markets first. Yes, the pool of potential customers may be smaller, but there's no 900-lb. gorilla to compete with. I can almost guarantee that a fast, cheap, reliable, feature-rich office suite with a good non-M$ interface on those platforms would rapidly build up a dedicated customer base, and provide the company with a solid US revenue stream and name recognition while they get ready to tackle the Windows monolith.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The British are coming! The British are coming!
The first thing I noticed is just how much it looks like Microsoft Office. With that degree of visual compatibility, you could probably drop it in place with MS Office and users not even notice the difference....
Looks like we actually have a competitor now guys..
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
KOffice, Gnome Desktop...
If the rest haven't made so far a dent in Office's imperium, I don't think anything will.
It's just a BloJJ
The article fails to mention Lotus Smartsuite, which, miraculously, is still around.
evanchik.net
I tried a free trial of it a while ago (came on the front of a magazine). It was usable, but not as good as OpenOffice. Unfortunately, after installing it, I was unable to print anything from any application, and opening Control Panel would cause a system crash. It seems that the program was installing dodgy system controls. Hopefully that's fixed now... I'm MS-free now, though, so I guess I'll never know...
Still better and much much faster than OpenOffice Writer.
Open Office is attractive, not because of the cost, but because it does not lock people into closed vendors and closed technologies. IMHO the whole goal is provide an escape to the abuses of copyright and EULA's. Offer people a way out, and they will come. They did with Linux.
IMHO we are looking at these packages in the wrong way. Instead of looking at them as a competitive alternative to Microsoft, we should be looking to them as a transitional tool to get people over to free (not as in beer) standards and software.
Regardless of what people think about it, MSaccess is still a staple of databases for business for the 'average guy'.
A business does not run on spreadsheets alone..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Until someone breaks the Exchange Server lock on Outlook clients, and until some office suite offers something way better than Outlook -- which is entirely possible, there's no going to be much buy in to another office suite.
My belief is that fragmentation in the office suite market must lead to a greater reliance on open file formats, which can only be a good thing.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This feature is what keeps me from switching from Word.
You can read a (very favourable) review of Ability Office here. In their monthly "best buys" guide, they actually rated it above Microsoft Office 2002.
oowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.... Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.
Actually, the grandparent was correct. The sentence was speaking of OpenOffice in a relative manner to Star Office, its non-free, commercial counterpart.
Grammar nazi turns out to be a grammar dumbass. Well, it's/its Slashdot!
Is there a BSD-licensed .doc import/export library?
If there was all office produces could use it
and it would be a commodity thing. That would be a nice move.
That could quite possibly be the worst troll ever. Honestly. It's not even funny. Please sit down.
Prick !!
parent is a goatse link, dont click
Ok, so i should have defined my statement more, its not the database backend that is the problem. ( i know about its hooks for external database servers )
Where are the forms, reports, etc in OO that a common user can get too and use as easily as they can with MSAcess? Remember they have ZERO training... they are not IT people..
Until then, its not a replacement for MSOffice ( plus we aren't even discussing the missing component of *integrated* groupware. )
Don't get me wrong i would prefer to give people an open alternative. but OO is not ready to **replace** MSO...
Nor is KOffice..
But they ARE getting closer..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
http://wvware.sourceforge.net/
.doc formats. It is used both by Abiword and Kword. Try it today, and in the unlikely event one of your documents dosen't import, You can report it so the library can improve.
This an open source library for Reading and writing
The biggest task in breaking the Office monopoly is the file formats, so help break it.
Mod the parent down please! Someone?!
I was just looking at the product information on their website, and the product seems to be exactly like a clone of MS Office.
The big difference seems to be the trading of presentation software like Powerpoint for some photo editing software which they claim is like Photoshop. What gives? I thought that Powerpoint was one of the more used programs in MS Office. I know i've been forced to use it in more than a few instances. I would have thought they would come up with at least something to replace it.
A German company called Softmaker is also working on an Office compatible suite. They have the word-processor done at this point (TextMaker). The benefit for a lot of us is that there are Windows/Linux/FreeBSD(!) versions.
I had never heard of them either, but I gave the free trial a spin, and it's a heck of a lot faster than OO. The Word import capability isn't quite as good as OO, but it's more than acceptable for most docs (and being improved).
I'm not connected to the company in any way, but I am a customer of the Linux version.
GRH
= 9J =
Do not click. It's one of the most disturbing images that I have ever seen (now I will need to work on how to forget it).
SOMEONE SHOULD BAN THIS GUY (and I'm not Trolling about this)
Merriam-Webster puts it down like this:
it's : a contraction of "it" and "is"
its : of or relating to it or itself especially as possessor
http://www.m-w.com Check for yourselves.
your a sick shit.
Parent is a Goatse link, mod it down. Who's the sicko who modded up this Anonymous Coward in the first place?
Free Speech, Free Software, Free Culture
Don't forget that you can use ODBC to a real sql server + use SQL statements to get data back.
( true that's beyond the group of users I'm taking about, but you get the point I'm sure )
Also jet isnt really 'just using excel'.. its a bit more complex then that. ( though agreed its not as complex as a 'real' data server engine )
But my main point was the reports and data forms that Access provides *easy* access too. Something that a untrained user can work with and get something useable out of and not be stuck with just a spreadsheet of raw data...
No its not efficient, nor the best solution out there. But for a person with no training it is the best choice for them. And that is, like it or not, 99% of the business software target market.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Poking around Ability.com you will find: http://www.ability.com/linux/linuxdlsp.php?ln=us
Now the title is more like "British Ability.com server Faces Slashdot Invasion"!
as a 93 year old with a walker surely has nothing to do with it not being adopted.
Is a lot faster
How the hell did that link override popup blocking in Mozilla? I had to reboot just to make it stop. Whoever posted that link is one sicko freak.
Oy freaking gevalt! Over half a dozen posts -- at least half of them wrong -- about the fact that the article poster added an extra apostrophe?
Get over it, you losers.
two words: Apple Works.
We often use 'strong' words to convey basic likes/dislikes. Don't get so worked up over it. Me personally? I love OpenOffice.
And Pizza.
Invoices. Plain and simple, some things you just don't want to send out that can be altered by anyone.
Everbody seems to think that "MS-Office is the de facto business standard, people will always use MS-Office!" Isn't that just like saying "Fountain pens are the de facto business standard, people will always use fountain pens!" Times change. As each new version of MS-Office becomes even less compatible with the last in an effort to force purchase of upgrades and screw software developers trying to export data to third-party applications, eventually most businesses will get wise and decide to get off the merry-go-around. But this will be more of a generational change than something that happens overnight.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
There are MS Office replacements that are "better" than MS Office. Take, for example, Gobe Productive, a real integrated suite that doesn't distinguish between text docs, spreadsheets, and presentations and embeds all types of documents effortlessly. This program is truly innovative and is a departure from the modular, standalone chunks that make up the disjointed but popular MS suite.
A new, innovate program may be attractive, but not imitating a familiar look-and-feel hasn't been shown to work yet either.
I actually tried to use MS Access once, not very long ago, but gave up because I couldn't figure out how to use it...
:-) - but due to its own internal terminology I couldn't even use the help functionality to get reasonable answers to what I wanted to do...I didn't know how to ask in Access-speak!
I'm by no means a DBA, but I know about tables and queries and stuff. I had some data that I wanted to put into a few tables, and then run some queries to get it back out again in an orderly manner.
The problem was that the MS Access frontend was so full of wizards and whatnots, that I couldn't figure out how to get it to do what I wanted it to do - at least not everything.
Of course I didn't read any manuals or anything - I figured that if I needed to, the app had a problem
I messed about with it for about an hour, before giving up.
Feeling somewhat frustrated, I downloaded MySQL and the client (I forget the name) for setting up the databases, and was up and running (including importing all my data) within 45 minutes...
.sig? No.
I can't see it winning many points in an business environment, but it's well-pitched for the home Windows user.
Good enough to stop people just pirating MS Office or the more tech-savvy taking OpenOffice for a spin? Possibly not. Ability need to work at getting OEMs to bundle.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Not.
Forms, mail merges, standard letters are all there under the AutoPilot.
Open the data navigator and you have tables and queries including QBE grids just like in Access. Reports are now present in OO 1.1.
Users with ZERO training and no experience of Access would find equal problems getting things going. I would suggest that users with zero training should not be doing table design, queries or reports. I know from bitter experience that the results of allowing this are frequently an unmanageable mess.
OO *is* ready to replace MS - I have used it for exactly this in commercial organisations.
BRITISH FOR EVER! Europe rules the planet, Brits rule the planet!!! Fuck America!!!
There is no "standard" MS Office. Do you mean Office 95? Office 97? Office 2000? Office XP? There are many fundamental differences between these versions, both in terms of user interface and functionality, for example MS Access has been a major headache in terms of database and code upgrading between Office versions.
Every few years an organisation is going to have to retrain its staff, whether or not they stick to MS Office. Any school or collage who teaches or trains for a specific Word processor or spreadsheet is wasting time and resources. I have often found that MSOffice training *reduces* the flexibility of users. Untrained and novice users seem to switch easily between different types of word processors, whereas trained users expect buttons in specific places etc.
Yes I understand the reports and forms must be designed.. The point was that it can be done by an untrained employee with no help from IT. ( if they even have an IT guy, most small compaines just don't have one on staff.. ). My entire post was from that angle, the untrained basic user.
MSAccess doesn't require any manual coding to get a table created, a data entry form, couple of queries, then a report. All it takes for them is just a bit of patience and a LOT of mouse movements to get something useable.....
To do this is more 'traditional' environments would require some training and actual coding..
Access doesn't *require* this...
No, MSAccess isn't the most efficient way to do things, yes there are better more traditional ways, yes 'we' would do it differently.... but you cant expect a 7 dollar an hour secretary ( just an example, I'm not slamming secretaries, they just have other things to deal with that are valuable ) to be doing 'real' coding.. To do it "right" would take someone with knowledge and experience, which a *lot* of small companies just can't afford. So they use MSAccess and 'get by'.
I don't see how you can say creating a web form in PHP is as easy as dragging around a couple of widgets in MSAccess... ( again remember the user I'm basing this discussion off of, they have NO clue of what you are talking about doing )
As a side comment, with proper use of record locking you can have more then one user in a jet database at a time.. ( without extensive coding.. ), but I agree that it might be a bit more advanced then the 'average user' can handle creating using just the GUI and no added VBA code....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Star Office/Open Office will soon be making a serious dent in the MS monopoly. There are a large number of organisations and governments who are either evaluation or installing MS alternatives. Star/Open Office seems to be the main Office suite in these suitations.
Well said. Basically, the monopoly position of Microsoft Office (at better than 90%) means that using it is mandatory for anyone who interacts with the rest of the world, no matter how overpriced it is, or how much cheaper or equally functional the alternatives are. These days, if you want to submit your schoolwork electronically, it must be in Microsoft Word format to be accepted. If you want to be able to depend on using electronic documents and forms from businesses and government agencies, you'd better have Microsoft Office. The ability of competing products to read and write Microsoft Office formats is a lucky historical accident that will not be repeated -- for one, reverse engineering the formats is now illegal under the DMCA, so when Microsoft changes them again, the competitors will be SOL. Then there is the issue of needing to interact with Office 2003's DRM system. It is a safe bet this won't be legally possible either. Of course, even the current level of compatiblity provided by Office competitors is not perfect and fails when you need the more advanced features to interoperate. As I've said before, THE GAME IS OVER and has been since the DoJ rolled over. MS owns the computing world and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Open Office and other "competitors" will continue to exist in very minor niches (under 5% of the market), but they have no chance of significantly replacing MS Office and will be very lucky if they are even able to exchange documents with it very shortly.
Have you noticed we can make a choice in Office suites already because M$ is NOT the only option any more? quality is catching up too! ;)
Yes but it's OLD, I stumbled across this several "years" ago and it has not been touched since.
It's also based on wine or winelib.
--- Brad (http://www.LinuxReview.net)
..
... like the body or the subject!)
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Unfortunately your analogy is flawed. Your use of fountain pens does not impact my choice of pens at all. However, one company's choice of using MS Office makes it more difficult for other companies not to use MS Office as they will have more troubles interacting with that company due to compatability issues.
...My father got a time-limited demo CD of Ability's office suite back in the day sent in the mail AOL-style. It claimed to be expired when we tried to ran it. Yay. I would expect they've learned how to write a proper shareware bomb in the last 9 years, eh?
No matter where you go, there you are; even before you arrive.
DRM could certainly become an issue at some point, should Microsoft choose to pursue it. IMHO if they did, all it would do is push more people to the various alternatives. They would be complete retards to even consider it.
What I would like to see is an office suite built around something like a framework similar to Eclipse. Not everyone performs Mail-Merges, nor does everyone require all the little drawing tools in MS-Word. If it was an open platform/open framework where extensions could be supported by pluggable bean components, I think that might be even more highly adopted.
Of course, one of the "Save-As" beans could be setup to do some form or fashion of DRM too if it was necessary but even that would be a plug-in, as would various plug-ins to translate between the various Office suites.
Granted, something like the Eclipse approach would be better served with components that can more easily be downloaded/integrated via some means of automation to insulate the average Joe User, but I think the idea itself would have merit. Not only this, but a single group, company, whatever wouldn't have to spend all that precious time working on 2% of the functionality that an even smaller percentage of the user base needs or uses. Small focused groups could work on those plug-ins directly outside of the core framework. In fact, I could envision an HTTP based delivery mechanism where your copy of "PlugOffice" could automatically go to certain trusted sites and install signed beans to give you the precise functionality you (or your corporate team) is looking for, or remove those components you don't find useful to keep the package light.
Just my $0.02
Spiritgreywolf
Never have a philosophy which supports a lack of courage
I did some work on the DOS version [1989] just after Migent, and a few hops before these people. I'm glad to see that it has a good home and hope they survive The Curse. (Of Ability, The Curse of Slashdot seems to have downed them for now.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
That should be "its".
astroturfing 101 :
/.
pose your product as anti-ms and get free press on
Is this still so?
SoftMaker Office for Windows|Linux|Android
I'm more concerned with excel.
Much of our knowledge is stored in calculation programs. (VB, and excel).
It is also stored in simple excel based databases.
Word is really quite underutilized, and you can print to pdf. Most of the time this is static information, which has little value.
It is the calculation programs, and lists with the real information.
Soon, I expect to hear people dissing Ability because it's commercial. This is counterproductive, however - even if it's not OpenOffice, it still brings diversity, which brings tolerance. Besides, there is a Linux/WINELib port. (www.uk.ability.com isn't Slashdotted yet.)
Litigious bastards
The only way to destroy a monopoly, is for another monopoly to destroy it.
As more and more office clones come by, microsoft will stay strong. The only way to get some competition, is that microsoft gets just one other suite competing with them. Then the monopoly is gone and 2 competing products are in.
Lather, rinse, repeat and you end all monopolies and get a full competing market
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Where is the presentation software? At my company people use Powerpoint more than anything else almost. I mean, no one will even listen to you if you don't have a presentation. Nothing is going to slay MSOffice without presentation software.
Smeghead every day of the week.
The website is not responding right now (Slashdot-effect, I presume).
The original incarnation of Ability appeared on the market years ago. It came from a Canadian company, Xanaro Technologies, on Bloor Street in Toronto. When the company went bankrupt, the assets were auctioned off. I had the opportunity to look at the source code (assembler naturally) and I also took a look at the market. At the time, there were a couple of similiar products. Context MBA (which was pCode running under an OS from UCSD) was already on the market -- but that market had already decided which OS was going to be used on PCs and that wasn't it. There was also a product called Word. Interesting product: in the days of character displays, this one had something like a "graphical window".
The integrated Ability suite came with a word processor, database, spreadsheet, comm package (good for bbs connections), a graphing package and some other odds and ends. The most fascinating part was the ability to hotlink spreadsheets and word processing documents.
The package came in an eye-popping black plastic case. The dies for the case must have cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars. The package was sold for about $400 or so but because Xanaro wasn't paying their bills, companies that did work for Xanaro were selling unshipped copies for less than $100. I got my copy for about $50.
I shouldn't have thrown it out. Oh, well.
I'm sure it's gone through a number of revisions since those days. For a while, you could find a second release for about $30 at a variety of stores (or in ads placed in PC Magazine).
Fond memories
(Signed) Gramps.
Obviously it's not better then actually paying for the software, but it still extends their monopoly. That's why they didn't care about the piracy in Taiwan for such a long time, and still don't really care about piracy in emerging markets. It's better to become the standard while piracy wipes out smaller and local development.
It all comes down to a balance of maintaining their monopoly and making money. I'm sure that if their market share starts to slip, their lighten up on their more annoying registration requirements.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The main reason no office suite has seriouly challenged MS Office is that none can truly run on both macs and PCs. Sure, AbiWord and OpenOffice can run on mac under X11, but only the geekiest would ever use an X11 app on a mac to write a business letter or term paper. Many companies, universities, and government agencies use both macs and PCs. It would be unwise for such organizations to consider using an office suite that does not run well on all their computers. Also, in order for an office suite to catch on, it needs to work both in the home and at the office. I will personally never use anything but MS Office as long as it does not suit *all* of my Officeish needs, at work and at home. Apart from the hapless AppleWorks, I have seen no would-be Office substitutes that have really marketed toward home users. What needs to be done: 1) {Open/Star}Office, AbiWord, and I guess Ability need to have fully functional, aesthetically pleasing MacOS ports, not just hacked up porting jobs. 2) Someone needs to package these products with Macs and PCs intended for the home market. Until both of these happen, no one will seriously challenge office.
When you talk about "capturing a signficant share of the MS Office market," you're talking about a long-term proposition. Because of the fact that Microsoft is anti-competitive, and will hold its own interests far above the interests of its customers, it's not like you can pop in a new word processor or spreadsheet app and have it be instantly compatible with all of your locked-in Microsoft documents. Unfortunately, this means having to spend time dealing with the discrepancies in translation from one format to another, possible retraining, and other related costs. With these dynamics in place, any penetration of competing software will be a slow process. The best thing that OpenOffice and other potential competitors can do is find ways to make the transition as painless as possible.
Fair enough, but many won't even do the math. I'm quite astonished to see how many companies totally refuse to consider the alternatives. It's really just another way of buying software: Instead of buying licenses, you "buy" the services needed to switch. I find myself wanting to speak up in the manager's face: "Hey, you're running a business! At least do the math!"
But shouting isn't my thing, really. I just lean back wearily, being happy that somebody is leading the way. The rest will follow, if there's any business sense left in them...
At my school Microsoft Office 2003 is only 10 dollars. Windows XP is 5 dollars. It's a crazy license and no one has any need to use an open-source office or operating system. Pretty interesting strategy by Microsoft.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Want a FAST, word processor that reads and writes MS Word docs, runs on Windows, Linux and QNX?
Try AbiWord-2.0.1 just released yesterday. It loads in 1 second, looks perfect in Linux, Windows and QNX, has Tables, Footnotes, Endnotes, Mail Merge, Revisions marks and some custom features all it's own.
For a quick introduction to AbiWord-2.0 and it's many features, try the tour .
Binaries for AbiWord for Windows, QNX, SUSE 9.0 and RedHat 9 are available for download.
Why, I never!
Migent was the US-based company put together by the U.S. and Canadian investors to market it, and Ashok's later invention, the serial-port-powered pocket modem.
I still have a copy of the old DOS version, and one of these days I'm going to get to England, and will make a point to visit the new Ability team. In my opinion they've doen a fine job, very clean and in the spirit of the original.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Schools aren't willing to teach two or more office suites? Strange; I'm registered to teach an Intro to OpenOffice course at Los Angeles City College in March 2004. They never mentioned that the Microsoft Office course would be cancelled in favor of mine! What a surprise!
Mitch Kapor's Open Source Applications Foundation is developing Chandler, an email/IM/calendar/news app that I would describe as a "peer to peer" upgrade to the Outlook concept. It's at a 0.2 release now, with 1.0 scheduled for late 2004. Keep an eye on this!
www.osafoundation.org
They may be morons, but they are morons who can quickly write simple database apps and deliver them to the client in one all-inclusive .mdb file that includes the database, all table relationships and data constraints and the program itself.
"Here's your program, sir. Just put it in your My Documents folder and double-click it" What open source program allows you to do that?
Since taking the "No MS Office" pledge, Access is the one program that I truly miss.
Textbooks and Open Educational Resources
Ability Office faces competition from Corel's Word Perfect Trust me there's NO competition there, Word Perfect would be killed easily if it was still a competitor.
Does it come with 'mop haircuts'?
Who's the sicko who modded up this Anonymous Coward in the first place?
Want to know how he did it? Check out this link.
(Executive summary: It's a bait-and-switch. Someone posts a link to a legitimate mirror, which gets modded up. After a few minutes, the mirror is then redirected to Goatse.cx or Tubgirl or, in this case, www.nero-online.org/lastmeasure)
MIRROR TOOL
What it's for:
The mirror tool allows you to pull a prank on slashdot readers. Commonly, slashdot will link to an article, which its visitors will in turn follow. Since slashdot has an immense readership, the site usually becomes flooded with traffic, or "slashdotted".
Thus, the practice of mirroring the content of an article is very common. Then, slashdot readers can read the content, and the site receives less traffic. Since this is a nice thing to do, a post with a link to a mirror is usually modded up.
The mirror tool allows you to set up a mirror of a webpage. You can post a link to this mirror, and get modded up for it. Then, after a short time, the mirror tool switches from displaying the content of the article, to redirecting the browser to a disgusting image. The hapless slashdot reader will see your post claiming to have a mirror, and since your post has been scored up he will think that the mirror is legit. So, he clicks on the link, and is sent to the disgusting site. Mission accomplished.
How to use:
Go to the Mirror Tool page, and enter in the source URL- this is the full URL of the page you want mirrored. Then enter in a destination URL. This is the full URL of the page you want to redirect to. Ideally this page has a nasty picture on it, such as the Goatsex man or Tubgirl. Then, enter in a time. Keep in mind that you should give your post enough time to be seen and modded up for being a valid mirror, but do not make it so long that nobody sees it once the switch has been made. In practice, a time of 10-15 minutes is good.
Once you submit these values, the mirror tool will give you the location of the mirror. You can post this in a slashdot comment. Remember, you want to sound like you are doing this out of the blue, not that you are posting a mirror out of routine, or that the process is at all automated. Say something about how you managed to load the page before it was slashdotted, and of course put the link itself in. After the time you entered has passed, the link will automatically switch to the redirect destination.
Notes:
Please do not over-use the mirror tool. Although we can avoid detection by spreading the mirrors throughout a variety of domain names, it will only be a matter of time before this trick is well-recognized. Always check a thread to see if someone has already set up a bait-and-switch mirror. Don't put up a mirror for every thread.
A mirror is best set up early in a thread. If you can get it in as one of the first 10-20 comments, you have a very good chance of getting modded up for it, as well as redirecting just as the bulk of the readers of that thread pass through. If you have missed the good striking times, just hold out for the next thread- the perfect opportunity will come to any dedicated jihadi.
That very few orgs actually spend money on training people in Office. As a result over years of changes people generally know only a very limited set of things about Office, the casual stuff life saving and spell checking, and perhaps one or two specialized features that have become endearing to the user and thus they hunt down how to use them after an upgrade.
This is why I think the real cost to any enterprise of switching away from the "real" office is actually very low - people would figure out how to do things just as before, even without training.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The british are coming! The british are coming!
Seems OK, haven't used it for anything more than a test though. And if anyone hasn't heard of Leading Edge, they are a chain that has been selling more PCs in Australia than Harvey Norman for quite a while now.
- Paulhow many of you guys actually have "non-Tech" users that you've tested OpenOffice with? - i get "WOW!!!" from pretty much all of the users i look after. they love the presentation app too! motto: minimal re-training for basic users, whether it's OOo or Ability, just do it!!!
I have been using it for about 3 weeks. WOW as a constant Microsoft Office user I went in a sceptic(office crashed while on the road and I needed something so i downloaded it) Now Mic Office is leaving my laptop for good.
Open office is an excellent product on it's own. I _was_ installing it on all the machines I build and ship, until I started getting the 'support' calls. One customer couldn't open their silly little word doc that had a couple of VB scripted triggers, another couldn't do a spell check on a document that was originally made with word. Basically the problem with open office is that it mimicks MSO enough to make people EXPECT the same functionality. Yes it's a great product. But when these silly little things happen most people would rather spend the $800 Plus australian dollars and buy the product that will just WORK.
And this doesn't even begin to deal with all of the products with 'office links' that EXPECT MSO to output letters etc. For example here in Australia we have a accounting package (rivaling the quicken consortium) called MYOB (Mind Your Own Business) This is installed on approx 50% of small business computers (the other 50% use quicken) and NONE of them will change to OpenOffice cos it will Destroy the 'BAS Statement' feature built in to MYOB (Bas statement to do with Aussie Goods and Services Tax)
I believe that open office is more than good enough in most area's except for the fact that it doens't have hundreds of other companies and products catering to it's every need.
Lot's of comments reference retraining from MS to other software as a root problem in getting people to try new or different programs.
Almost.
The problem is that of end-users believing that they have to be taught a *particular* word processor, spreadsheet, whatever, instead of learning to use word processors, spreadsheets, graphics software, etc *in general*. A lot of the old '70's "computers are hard" crap is still out there, too, as well as elitism on the part of those of us presumably more computer-savvy.
We need to teach folks the truth: Computer software are tools, and if you can use one of a type, you can use others of that type without much trouble. I know; I used to have to teach people exactly that approach to using computers. It works, once people grasp the concept of software as a tool.
Sure there are differences between, asy, MS Word, OOo, WordPerfect, and the rest. But they're all tools to do the same job. Some may fit your hands better than others, just like different lengths and weights of hammers fit different people better.
Regardless of the superficial differences, ANY normally intelligent person, able to use one word processor, should be able to use any other without much problem. Example: my kid is stuck using MS Office stuff at school, though we use OOo and WordPerfect at home. I never taught him to use any of them --- just that a word processor is a word processor, etc. So whatever he loads is what he uses. For classroom presentations he usually starts them at school with MSPP, does his main work with OOo's presentation widget at home, then saves 'em off in MS format so he can show them in class. And sometimes he has a clueful teacher who has OOo loaded!
I belabor the point. Let's quit teaching *specific* programs and OS's in the schools and other venues, and teach instead the general skills needed to use software in general. Then, and only then, can end users have intelligent opinions and make informed choices about what suits them best.
Realistic? Probably not --- too many vested interests want to keep the people clueless. Too bad. Eventually people DO figure out they're being scammed, and the con collapses.
The free/open sources software world must not forget: It's not just about getting people to use our stuff; it's about education and informed choice. We *want* end users to be clueful, as much as they care to be.
'Scuse the length. Or don't.
Mal the Elder
Man, what a misleading headline. For a moment, I had this amusing mental image of fully armed British special forces storming Microsoft headquarters.
The good news is that the British can claim Microsoft has Wicked Microsoft Developers (WMD's) And they **WILL** find them.
See Here!
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Is this the same as the ABIword ebuild available in my gentoo installation?
-dewhite
I really cant see why people use MS Office. I think 99% of users dont even go past the most basic features, few even use styles! If it comes with your computer and you have no choice in that then fair enough but ive actually seen people (who will remain nameless to honor the family) buy full copies of MS Office!? yes im not joking people have actually paid for office! Now when you come to a business or organisation all those office licenses add up. At my uni all the windows machines run MS Office and it pains me to think that they spent money on that instead of things we actually need (like power supplies that arnt from the 40's) because i see students using this very expensive software to make cheesy 3d headings for their work!
Any alternative to Office is good because it opens peoples minds up to the fact that Microsoft isnt the only company out there, that said, if OpenOffice can just juice abit more speed out of their start-up time ill be happy, how fast is Ability?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I run Office 2K at home and always check out what's in each release since, and don't see any good reason to upgrade.
OOo is now getting so good, that they are getting ahead of Microsoft now with features like Export to PDF.
Downloaded OpenOffice for OS X and then it told me I needed X-11. Didn't feel like messing with it, so I deleted it. If they had OpenOffice for OS X alone I would use it. Otherwise I will stick with plain old Apple Works.
Justices Reject Judge's Ten Commandments Appeal
is this a great country or what!???
At work, I use Linux and OpenOffice, like most everyone else here.
My experience last year was that yes, agencies always want resumes in MS formats. My experience also was that agencies were completely useless in a bad job market.
Employers, though, varied quite a bit, with many web-based systems requiring a pure text resume. Ironically, this was the case with Microsoft itself.
I've said the same thing for years. Word processing is not so complicated that there is much effort involved in switching.
When I rebuilt my wife's Windows system I put OO 1.1 on it instead of the MS Office that had been on it before.
Her only comment was, "I like that new word processor. It's a lot nicer than Word."
The needs and resources of an individual are not the same required by a corporation, and amongst corporations, the needs of a company with 10 employess are not the same as the ones of a company employing 10000 people.
At home I need to write a few letters in passable format, keep a nice looking CV, perhaps have a spreadsheet for some basic calculations. I do not need presentation software and most probably I don't need DB software (comma separated plain files normally will do fine to organize relatively complex information in tables). Groupware is just an aberration at home, thus Outlook is not needed (and this is ignoring security, but I am feeling forgiving).
If I need to share between home and office machines, then I would expect that mty employer either provides a laptop or the necessary software, otherwise the sharing is done in the lower common denominator (rtf, plain text).
This unwillingness to evaluate what you really need is killing competition and innovation allowing monopolies to grow where healthy competition should be possible.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.