Excel Clone for Linux Now in Beta

Martin Kotulla writes "SoftMaker, a German software developer, has released the first public beta of PlanMaker 2004, a native-Linux spreadsheet that is highly Excel-compatible ... in fact, this app is basically Microsoft Excel ported to Linux, including Excel-compatible charting and even AutoShapes. Here is a chart comparing Excel, OpenOffice.org, and PlanMaker." Update: 05/07 19:07 GMT by M : Softmaker.de is temporarily down; the site can still be reached at softmaker.com.

Comments

Works on other free unixes (at least 1)

[grub]

in fact, this app is basically Microsoft Excel ported to Linux,

A port? Did Microsoft gave the developers access to the Excel source code? Anyhow, that nitpicking aside the package seems to be working perfectly well on my OpenBSD desktop w/Linux compatibility enabled.

Nice.

Re:Works on other free unixes (at least 1)

[tepples]

Did Microsoft gave the developers access to the Excel source code?

No, but MSDN lists almost every single function in the app, making cloning Excel just a job of implementing the functions.

Re:Works on other free unixes (at least 1)

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes it a clone not a port.

The wrong path

[MoxCamel]

As long as Linux application developers continue to copy Microsoft, in a vain attempt to be "compatible," Microsoft will always have the edge. They will always set the pace for others to follow.

If you want to make a better product, you can't "embrace and extend." You have to make a better product. By providing file-reading compatibility, you only re-enforce the proliferation of closed file formats. You also cripple your application, to maintain compatibility. (if you want a nifty feature, you have to make sure Excel has it too.)

When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format. Yes, there are things you can only do in native file format. But the vast majority of users never do those things.

Re:The wrong path

[pegr]

If you want to make a better product, you can't "embrace and extend." You have to make a better product. By providing file-reading compatibility, you only re-enforce the proliferation of closed file formats.

Uh, by "cloning" a "closed" file format, you actually "open" the format to other uses. When you get a large number of vendors using the "closed" format, the original vendor now has to consider very carefully additional changes to the format for fear of breaking competitor's products. The fear is not breaking the other products but reducing compatibility of their own product. Using "closed" formats is a good thing, depending on market conditions.

Re:The wrong path

[Major_Small]

that doesn't always work. if you're running a *nix box and you want to be included with the rest of the world using windows machines, you're going to have to be compatible to even have any chance at competition...

what *nix needs is not to be different, but to be the same and different at the same time, like it is... the reason i use *nix is because I can deal the files windows users give me and I can use other *nix-only programs at the same time...

Re:The wrong path

[Paulrothrock]

But people won't buy things just because they're better, they have to interoperate fully. You can't say to a client "No, I can't see your Excel file because I hate copying Microsoft." Until and unless Microsoft adopts open file formats (based on XML, hopefully), Linux won't be able to out-innovate Microsoft. Only by copying them (initially, at least) will we be able to compete.

Interestingly, I think XML-based file format standards are a great way to break Microsoft's monopoly without disrupting market forces.

Re:The wrong path

[Erratio]

You kindly ask them to send a different format, but you have to look at it from the standpoint of the average user, who doesn't want to have to deal with that stuff. The fact is that MS Office documents have become somewhat of a standard in the business community and you can't hope to attain widespread use with software unless those formats are handled easily. This is just another step in being about to easily transition people to linux, it's not a step forward in development. As far as "better products" go, most people that care about that wouldn't be using MS Office to begin with.

Re:The wrong path

[TedTschopp]

When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format. Yes, there are things you can only do in native file format. But the vast majority of users never do those things.

Well, I see you never have to deal with people who are normal business users.

I'm not trying to be mean, but I find that normal business users don't know how to do much of the fancy stuff in Excel or any of their other programs. The most common usage of Excel I've found is glorified forms. Oh, I'm not saying that its not used for what it really can be used for, but in those cases the person doing the Excel work is usually an Analyst who is working for the person who is actually consuming the reports.

The idea here is to give the normal business user a replacement for the expensive office product.

And as far as innovating and flanking Microsoft on the Spreadsheet market. Its a spreadsheet, there really isn't much more that can be done to the product to innovate it. Copying Microsoft is a great place to start.

Look at Microsoft's innovation in Excel over the last couple of editions. YEAH SMART TAGS!. That's about it. Oh I know there is more, but come on the market has been dead years now. The only place left to compete is on Price.

Ted Tschopp

Re:The wrong path

[pheared]

While I mostly agree with you, there is still a problem. Just making a better product doesn't solve the problem if there is no one even considering a switch to your product. While I think that it is mostly in vain, there is still some value to playing catch-up because you can pick up some more users who are caught in MSs wake.

With more users and more developers and more attention you will be able to convince R&D departments to spend more money on creating this better product for Linux.

Re:The wrong path

[Fearless Freep]

>you get a large number of vendors using the "closed" format, the original vendor now has to consider very carefully additional changes to the format for fear of breaking competitor's products.

This is Microsoft we're talking about...that's not a risk, that's part of the plan

Re:The wrong path

[Woogiemonger]

As long as Linux application developers continue to copy Microsoft, in a vain attempt to be "compatible," Microsoft will always have the edge. They will always set the pace for others to follow.

I disagree. First off, being able to read Excel files compatibly in Linux is something Microsoft can't provide. You get an available market share that way, and even add to it. Also, the demo on the web site seems to demonstrate reading in Excel files and displaying them.

While I'm betting they want to be able to support outward compatibility, they should be in no way restricted to it. Just like going from Excel to OpenOffice, you can implement extra features in PlanMaker, let's say, and then save files that won't be perfect but will be good enough for Excel. Just like MS's business strategy, there'll perhaps be some nifty PlanMaker-specific features to make a company want to in time convert to PlanMaker-only.

Nothing's wrong with supporting the most popular format out there though. Otherwise, you're expecting users to take too far a leap.

Re:The wrong path

[SpyPlane]

Agreed. At the same time though, reality is that some people don't want change. If/When someone decides to switch to linux, it is good to know they can still open all of their old files, whether simple or feature complete in their new OS. This limits the ACTUAL amount of change they have to deal with. It's enough of a concern worrying about hardware working or not, but when you have to worry about converting all personal or corporate documents, you just about eliminated any gain from the change.

Re:The wrong path

[rrkap]

When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format. Yes, there are things you can only do in native file format. But the vast majority of users never do those things.

Ah, yes. I can't remember the last time I saw someone use excel to create a chart or calculate something. The fact is that calculation and presentation of data are the two main points of spreadsheets and neither works with CSV files.

Re:The wrong path

[teeker]

On the other hand, it opens up the possibilites of adoption in organizations where compatibility is necessary. Like almost every business in existence.

I'd love for our company to switch to a Linux desktop...I feel the OS itself if there. The problem is applications..."sort of compatible" isn't good enough when you have to deal with customers who are prefectly happy using Excel.

It may not be preferable, but it's necessary.

Re:The wrong path

[Quixote]

These are just different approaches.

Let us assume that your goal is to get Windows users to use Linux. Now you can do this two ways:
(a) offer a current Windows user the same look & feel & functionality on the Linux platform; or
(b) offer a current Windows user a better product on Linux, where "better" is directly proportional to the ratio of the Windows installed base to Linux installed base.

There are some who will take (a); others will try (b). It is, obviously, more difficult to do (b) than (a); include the fact that Linux coders are doing it on their own time for almost no remuneration, and it becomes even harder. Doing something for the love of it is difficult, given these economic times.

Re:The wrong path

[Shakrai]

When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format. Yes, there are things you can only do in native file format. But the vast majority of users never do those things.

I'd love to be able to do that. Unfortunately when somebody sends my company an Excel file it's usually a customer who (more likely then not) is about to spend a lot of money. I can't see telling them "I'm sorry, please send your file in a different format, we don't support the most widely used Spreadsheet format here."

I'm not trolling either -- only pointing out the fact that not all of us have that luxury. I would agree 100% with your comments about not following Microsoft's lead and coming up with our own ideas -- but then, how much more room for innovation is there in spreadsheet or word processing world? Has Microsoft themselves come up with any new ideas (eye candy doesn't count)?

Re:The wrong path

[SydShamino]

>> As long as Linux application developers continue to copy Microsoft, in a vain attempt to be "compatible," Microsoft will always have the edge.

... until Microsoft breaks its own compatibility, and people see that they have a more-compatible alternative.

Microsoft has a lot of capatibility breaking in its upcoming schedule. No reason other alternatives can't be ready to step up and provide continued support for the existing "standards". Think about Intel and AMD. Intel decided to break compatibility with x86 for their 64-bit instruction set. AMD made a compatible set, and AMD won the "war," forcing Intel to scrap their architecture and copy AMD.

Re:The wrong path

[baudilus]

I disagree. Microsoft gained said edge by copying someone else's product (Apple copied Xerox, then Microsoft copied Apple) and "improving" on it (read: bastardizing). Same thing with Japanese automobile companies.

To claim that compatibility reinforces exclusive file format proliferation is like saying putting a supercharger on an engine only reinforces the proliferation of less powerful engines.

Look at it practically: how do you expect business to want to migrate users to Linux from Microsoft if *nix developers go out of their way to make it more difficult? IMHO, this is the perfect venue: introduce a product that has everything M$'s product has, and things that it doesn't. Very quickly you'll find that the tables have turned and it's Microsoft trying to "catch up" to the other product. Who has the edge then?

Re:The wrong path

[sirben_kobs]

As long as Linux application developers continue to copy Microsoft, in a vain attempt to be "compatible," Microsoft will always have the edge. They will always set the pace for others to follow.
True; however, Excel actually does have some nice features and many uses. It's not bad to copy something that is useful. This is not to say that Excel, or spreadsheets in general, can't be improved upon, or even replaced, just that 1)Excel _is_ the current de facto business-standard spreadsheet, and 2)future good ideas are often rethinks (thoughts? thunks?) of past questionable ideas.

Re:The wrong path

[stomer]

That is more than a little naive. While I agree with your statement in principal, the fact of the matter is you are never going to gain market share without first offering users a fairly painless transition.

If this were not the case, many an OS that has fallen by the wayside would be in dominance today. Microsoft Windows is living proof that to be number one, you do not have to be the best. Superior product != Dominance. Sad, but it is true. (Examples: OS/2, BeOS, Mac OS X, and many more)

The biggest advantage I see to OSS is that it is currently trying to offering users as painless a transition as possible, then, once the product is in dominance (like apache for instance) the focus does not shift. The focus can remain to provide a solid, secure, stable, and still somewhat innovative product.

But, I could be wrong.

Re:The wrong path

[mopslik]

Uh, by "cloning" a "closed" file format, you actually "open" the format to other uses.

The "edge" to which the parent refers is that of letting Microsoft define the format all the time. If Microsoft constantly sets the standard, then other developers who are creating "clones" spend most of their time trying to fiddle with the file format, rather than improve/extend the functionality of the software.

Sure, the format's open now, but what do you do when the company decides to change their file format for the next release of their software?

Re:The wrong path

[roomisigloomis]

Strategically speaking, this is not true. A readily available example is the way that Microsoft has co-opted javascript (j-script) and other technologies, subsequently morphing them into their own creation. Look at it this way: there are three stories currently posted about Linux/Windows compatibility. The average person/user likes to stick with what he knows. If the Linux community can make exact ports of MS Office products, it hurts MS. The logic is this: people will see Linux as falling within their comfort zone. The next step would be for the open source community to add valuable features that MS doesn't have (for example, built-in export to PDF). This does two things: it gives users reasons (value and not just price) to use the Linux versions more and more and, 2, it makes MS have to struggle to innovate while lowering prices (and their margins) on their products. Increasing R&D expenditures combined with decreasing profit margins results in hard times. So shall it be written; so shall it be done.

Re:The wrong path

[Azureflare]

Compatibility and User interface are two different issues here. You seem to be lumping them together, which IMO is just wrong to do. OpenOffice.org is able to import .xls files pretty well (though not perfectly) and the interface is pretty different from Excel; I wouldn't say OpenOffice.org is "copying" Microsoft's UI in the least.

In the case of this product, yes it is copying the UI AND the file format of Microsoft. What does this mean for the average user? It means they don't have to buy Microsoft Office to work with .xls files, they just need to get this application.

This reminds me of like Lindows^H^H^H^Hspire; it's oriented towards users who are comfortable with Microsoft's design, and have learned how to do things using Microsoft products. Those kind of users want something they're familiar with, so they will be more likely to use something that is familiar to them. We still have our KOffice and OpenOffice.org spreadsheet applications; is there something wrong with this approach?

If this application didn't exist, people would just run Excel in Crossover Office. That's what I do actually, so this app may allow me to throw off Microsoft Excel completely, if it functions as advertised (currently slashdotted to hell).

I think it's rather silly to say "No! Never will I support anything Microsoft!" when the majority of users use it. This application may allow users to take another step away from Microsoft lock-in. The goal isn't to "embrace" Microsoft's technology, the goal is to create a viable alternative, that will create the minimum amount of fuss in transition.

Re:The wrong path

[LordSah]

Like the XML format Excel ships with today? Not trying to be a smart ass, but given that Microsoft already ships XML-format Office, I don't really see how open source alternatives could use a different XML format to best Microsoft.

Re:The wrong path

[pegr]

The "edge" to which the parent refers is that of letting Microsoft define the format all the time. If Microsoft constantly sets the standard, then other developers who are creating "clones" spend most of their time trying to fiddle with the file format, rather than improve/extend the functionality of the software.

But that edge is lost when changing the format drives away your customers when they can no longer interoperate with users with competing products. It's a critical mass issue. When so many people are using MS's format with competing products that MS can't change the format for fear of a user backlash of not being able to interoperate, you've frozen the format and can now move into "open" formats with greater functionality... functionality MS has to duplicate just to stay in the game. Now who is copying whom?

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

>> If you want to make a better product, you can't >> "embrace and extend."

That is true. But IMHO, What it all comes down to is how it is presented to the user. Its not embracing and extending, its more or less illusioning and going the better route. A user wants to use what a user knows, and by making all these functions transparent, no matter how hard it can be (it can be accomplished) is the only real way to "accept and go beyond" and in the end create a better product.

Re:The wrong path

[pubjames]

I agree with you absolutely.

Of course, we need to help people migrate. But that's different to copying Windows. I wish more people in the OSS world would think like you!

Re:The wrong path

[bjpirt]

"the reason i use *nix is because I can deal the files windows users give me and I can use other *nix-only programs at the same time..."

Exactly the same reason I use OS X. The fact that I can run photoshop, illustrator, flash and director as well as doing *nix development is quite compelling.

Re:The wrong path

[mopslik]

But that edge is lost when changing the format drives away your customers when they can no longer interoperate...

You mean like the notorious Office95/97 issues that Microsoft implemented themselves? This is intentional -- it forces users to upgrade to the latest release. It's not a compatibility issue, it's a profitability issue.

MS can't change the format for fear of a user backlash of not being able to interoperate...

There's nothing to stop Microsoft from using an "open" standard in their next release, in addition to supporting older file formats (like they currently do). Look at your file filters for Office. There are filters to read older versions of Office documents, since the formats have changed. Again, it has nothing to do with compatibility. It has to do with user lock-in and guaranteed financial return.

Re:The wrong path

[wwest4]

True - this phenonmenon is the biggest impediment to using "alternative" office packages.

I always complain to people at work that the biggest problem is that they adopt a product as a standard for both collaboration and presentation... which might be OK, except that maybe 85% of the time they just need a presentation standard (eg PDF). You really only need to standardize on a productivity tool if there are back-and-forth edits. Companies don't recognize this subtelty and lump both together to save money or "complexity" and they really just end up locking themselves into a tenuous lock-step MS upgrade cycle, because collaborative, working formats like xls, ppt, and doc still exhibit minor (occasionally major) incompatibilities with version changes anyway. This ends up being difficult and complex anyway when you have more than one customer or vendor, which is almost always the case.

Re:The wrong path

[Kyouryuu]

What you say is true for some programs, but not others. Excel definitely falls into the latter category. In case you haven't noticed, the vast majority runs Microsoft Office. You can whine and complain about that fact, but you aren't going to change it by implementing your own file format and force people to download your program to read it. People (especially casual users), in the face of a clear and easy alternative, just aren't going to advance the effort.

On the other hand, if you tell them that OpenOffice supports all of MS Office's formats, so they can easily read those files without the need for a $400 office suite, I think that's very appealing for casual users, whose first concern about switching to an OSS alternative is "But will I be able to open all of my old files / files friends send me with it?"

What kind of answer is "No, you can only open and save in our native format" to a new user?

(if you want a nifty feature, you have to make sure Excel has it too.)

Uhm, no. That's what your program's native format is for. Paint Shop Pro does a lot of things differently from Photoshop. That doesn't mean the .PSP format has to be compatible with Photoshop. On the other hand, Paint Shop Pro can read from Photoshop's own .PSD format.

This is no different from what OpenOffice is already doing with its .SX(whatever) files and its support for MS Office files.

When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format.

Your friends must love you for that.

Re:The wrong path

[cinnamon colbert]

"as long as linux.." correct, imho. the replie(s) that there is nothing new to do in spreadsheets are idiotic - there are so many major things wrong with excell it isnt funny "when people send me..." are you a flaming AH, or just having an off day ?

Re:The wrong path

[next1]

in a perfect world yes, but you have to take ms's desktop market monopoly into account.

linux developers need to make a better product (and with more originality and less of the "cloning" of ms apps) but at the same time they need to show that they are better than ms by having compatibility for ms formats.

OpenOffice to me is one of the best examples of this i've seen.

i detest people sending me excel/word files as well and when i can i just say "nope sorry", but a lot of the time it's work and i can't refuse it. however i get some sense of satisfaction from the fact that i can read their file and if i must edit it and send it back to them (i always send back an OO version along with the .doc).

Re:The wrong path

[MoxCamel]

>>When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format.
Your friends must love you for that.

Friends don't send friends Excel files.

(sorry, I saw the shot and had to take it... :)

Re:The wrong path

[hardgeus]

> Using "closed" formats is a good thing, depending
> on market conditions.

Well, the market condition being that one vendor has over 99% of the market, I'd say ANY use of a closed format is bad. Your argument only holds water when there are myriad vendors producing similar products in virtual parity of market share, which is in no way happening in the spreadsheet market.

Re:The wrong path

[16K Ram Pack]

I'm not trying to be mean, but I find that normal business users don't know how to do much of the fancy stuff in Excel or any of their other programs. The most common usage of Excel I've found is glorified forms. Oh, I'm not saying that its not used for what it really can be used for, but in those cases the person doing the Excel work is usually an Analyst who is working for the person who is actually consuming the reports.

I've seen nothing used since Excel 5.0. Most Excel work I've seen is databases and tables - like lists of project tasks or snapshots of account lists.

I think the whole problem with office is that there really is nothing much that can be added for people to say "yeah! must upgrade". I remember seeing the feature list between Access 2000 and Access 2002, and the only useful feature to me was that you had a printer object in the VBA object model.

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

By providing file-reading compatibility, you only re-enforce the proliferation of closed file formats. You also cripple your application, to maintain compatibility. (if you want a nifty feature, you have to make sure Excel has it too.)

Please talk out of your mouth, not your arse. To put it bluntly, that's nonsense. OpenOffice.org Writer has a number of nifty features that I use regularly which MS Word doesn't support; it's quite a pain when I have to send an editable document to someone who's stuck with MS Office, although for most purposes a PDF suffices.

Re:The wrong path

[danheskett]

When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format. Yes, there are things you can only do in native file format. But the vast majority of users never do those things.

The thing is, you are wrong. I deal with a lot of excel users, and let me assure that 90% of them use at least one dynamic field, data generated field, calculated field, or reasonably appropriate formatting.

There is no open well-designed spreadsheet format that is recognized by a standards body. There should be one. In alot of industries, people like you are excluded from many activities because of an insistance on using an inferior file format.

The real-estate industry in my area is pretty cut throat - either use the software we want or you get replaced for a management-friendly vendor. I've got dozens of appraisers who would love to get work.. I pick the ones that are easiest for me to manage. If I get data back on taxes, or metrics, or whatever and I have to spend anything more than 30-seconds formatting/reviewing it for sending to end-clients, you've wasted my time.

Re:The wrong path

[bwy]

When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format.

While this sometimes work, it doesn't work when your customers are some of the largest companies in the U.S. and they're buying your software for a hundred grand or more a pop. No, I don't think my boss would appreciate me telling our customers to export their spreadheets as CSV and resend. Now isn't the time to have ethical arguments with your boss about Microsoft Excel. Especially with about a few million Patel's in India waiting in line for my job.

Re:The wrong path

[sir_cello]

Microsoft had plenty of opportunity to innovate: Excel is an extremely poor tool for doing anything other than basic graphs and calculations. For engineering purposes, it's near useless.

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true that what's really necessary is open formats. It might be nice if there was some body like W3C (not saying W3C is perfect, but it's something) that would decide on some open word-processing, spreadsheet, presentation software, whatever- file format defaults. It'd be nice if OpenOffice and Abiword/Gnumeric (and whatever else) used the same formats by default. I doubt that it'd even be too hard to come up with some xml based something.

However, it's really hard to make a better product until you've made a product that's "as good". Besides, part of the problem old MS is having these days with getting people to buy their new versions of Office is, it's not entirely clear what a "better" word processor and spreadsheet program are. I'm not saying there isn't such a thing, but it seems like the first step is asking "how can we dramatically improve the word-processing experience for the average user?"

Those questions aren't so easy to answer as your statements seem to imply.

Re:The wrong path

[Paulrothrock]

I stand corrected. However, I still think that the business community needs to start looking at interoperability as a standard. Perhaps a large-scale move by other countries (like a large EU department or a whole country's government) will start to bring that to the fore.

Re:The wrong path

[tanguyr]

MS Office has suffered from compatibility problems in the past between versions - i remember having to ask customers/vendors to please "save as Word 6" because we hadn't upgraded to Office 98 yet. If there's one format that truely deserves the label of "a standard in the business community" then it's PDF: when business users exchange documents they're exchanging digitized paper meant for reading.
Once you start talking about exchanging the data in the document (like when you import that spreadsheet into your database) then you're not talking business users, you're talking developers (hopefully for you, or else prepare for the frustration of the guy who sends you a report that's "almost" in the right format).
As for this particular product: about time. They might not post on Slashdot, but there are hordes of people inside every medium to large company that spend their whole working day in front of Excel (and we call them Excel jockeys). Visicalc was a big factor in the early success of the Apple 2. Lotus 1-2-3 did the same for DOS based PCs.

Re:The wrong path

[harrkev]

Excel is an extremely poor tool for doing anything other than basic graphs and calculations. For engineering purposes, it's near useless.

This may be true, but it is not very compelling. Spreadsheets were invented for the bean counters. A CPA could spend his/her entire career without EVER using SIN, or COS. Budgets require the basic four functions, and some sort of IF statement. To do compound interest, it helps to have e^x. If you just provide that and graphs, then you have 95% of the user base covered. I suspect that it is the minority of users who ever use the more complicated functions.

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good that you have been able to get people to send you items in CSV and that you are able to fully embrace open source solutions.

Unfortunately I work in a large organization that relies heavily on both Excel's file format and Excel's GUI interface. Our clients want to see and use features that they are used to using. With any major change in applications there are training issues. Although eventually linux applications and should create new better interfaces and features in order to make serious progress in large organizations they need to continue with the current strategy of mimic and extend. Until you can switch users from windows to linux with no training and no feature loss it will be difficult to make progress.

Re:The wrong path

[IntlHarvester]

The problem with these warez is that the core userbase is ultra-conservative and doesn't want anything changed. The graphing in Excel is basically the same as it was 15 years ago, for example. The core userbase is Finance people, and it will never expand to Engineering, Academics, etc.

When Lotus ruled the spreadsheet heap with 1-2-3, they had the same problem. They came out with Improv and a couple other spreadsheets because they were scared to change how the flagship worked.

Re:The wrong path

[mahdi13]

How can this be a BAD thing since MS already has the corner market on this?
Bringing cross-platform compatability for something like this is is nothing less then excellent. Sure you can argue that Linux is "copying and following in MS's footsteps" but at this point there is not much choice in the matter if you want to use an Excel sheet in Linux. The Open Office is GREAT, but the biggest complaint is that it is not very compatable with MSOffice...which is the #1 reason MANY people do not use it at all an use Codeweavers CrossOver Office to run MSOffice in Linux.

I'll be happy when I can make and send a resume in Linux (without running MSOffice whatsoever) and be sure that the receiver will be able to open it in their Windows apps without any problems!

Re:The wrong path

[kkelly]

I disagree, excel is the STANDARD for number cunching and for good reason. I can take excel from Office XP and directly connect to an olap data source or just about any other data source for that matter. I can create pivot tables, do trend analysis, data mining, and most enterprise reporting from this single application. In addition I can put that information on the web and interact with my data in the exact same way as I would within the application. While all of this can probably be done with some combination of open source alternatives, you just can't beat the ease of use that comes with MS Excel. I can create my data sources, be they relational, dimensional, or olap regardless of complexity and tell the business users to analyze to their hearts content. They know how to use excel so the learning curve is practically nil. I am a huge fan of open source software in general, but gnumeric just doesn't cut it at the enterprise level. I hope this clone can bridge some of the gaps.

my .02

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

"Interestingly, I think XML-based file format standards are a great way to break Microsoft's monopoly without disrupting market forces."

Isn't that quite egoistic to declare what you are thinking "interesting"?

Re:The wrong path

[mefus]

As long as Linux application developers continue to copy Microsoft, in a vain attempt to be "compatible," Microsoft will always have the edge. They will always set the pace for others to follow.

I used to think this, but you have to realize there is an upper bound to the rate at which MS can keep up with this tactic.

It's strongly tied to the tolerance of MS's userbase to the treadmill they find themselves on. MS has to keep them upgrading if they hope to continue to create problems for the clone makers.

So as a response to MS's "embrace and extend" it is about as equal to the task as you could hope for. The difficulties created for MS as it alienates its userbase are real. The only question is will they survive it. With >$40b in reserve it's a hard question to answer.

Re:The wrong path

[Mateito]

True, but Excel is one of Microsofts Killer Apps. Word is bloat, but Excel can do some amazing shit. Sure, 95% of people will never use these capabilities, but they'll need it to read the stuff they get sent by the other 5%.

Other killer App that is still required: Project.

MrProject is okay for basic stuff, but no serious project can be run off it (note that my definition of serious project is a dozen or so people. I have no idea about projects coordination 100s or 1000s. If I did, chances are I wouldn't have time to post to slashdot while I finish my ice-cream).

Re:The wrong path

[Major_Small]

that's my whole point... the key to success is to be compatible with everything you can be, and still offer more than your competitors...

who modded my topic as funny, anyway?

Re:The wrong path

[yerfatma]

Not if you have a second account with mod points.

Re:The wrong path

[AstroDrabb]

MS's XML format is more of a PR stunt then really being open. MS has barked a million times about "IP" and MS Office is one of their biggest cash cows. Basically they made a schema that will let you read the MS Office docs, but they still keep tons of closed proprietary stuff in those XML files. What is the purpose of being able to read the file if the important content is a binary blob in some proprietary format? The plain text is readable, so a simple Word doc is easy to read (though competing office apps have been able to do that for a long time). MS Office will truly be open when MS release full specs of the file format and all that could possibly be in them. I can give you an XML file with a Base64 encoded blob of proprietary data. Just because it is XML does not make it Open. OpenOffice's format is _really_ open. You can get docs that explain the format and how to read or write OOo's file formats. This is not the case for MS. If it is, please provide a link to the MS Office document _specs_ and not just some silly schema.

As a little test, create a new Excel file and on Sheet 2 put the following data:

1 1
1 2
1 4
1 4

Now on Sheet1, insert a chart using the data on Sheet2. Now try to save it as "XML SpreadSheet (*.xml)". You will get a warning that all "AutoShapes, other objects and Charts" will be removed. What is the point of this "open" XML format if it cannot save complex spreadsheets? MS will never let their MS Office format go. End of story.

Re:The wrong path

[Paulrothrock]

Sorry. You start typing a sentence, then your boss walks by and you have to ALT+tab, and then it's hard to get back on your train of thought. And then they don't let you edit your post. Bastards.

And, no, I don't have a second account with Mod points, Trolly McTrollerson.

Re:The wrong path

[gnu-generation-one]

"Unfortunately when somebody sends my company an Excel file it's usually a customer who (more likely then not) is about to spend a lot of money. I can't see telling them "I'm sorry, please send your file in a different format, we don't support the most widely used Spreadsheet format here.""

Why not? If you're spending a lot of money, then minor things like file formats won't make any difference to a sale. If you've got a good quote and the ability to supply what they want, then who's going to break-off a sale because you say "any chance of sending that as CSV?", or as a screenshot.

Being offended because someone won't open your preferred spreadsheet format is far more petty and unprofessional than you'd expect from someone in charge of making large purchases, and there's a good chance that such worries are overstated.

Re:The wrong path

[yerfatma]

What you're missing is that the Original Poster has two email accounts, one of which is clu3l3ssn00b or something and he mails himself all manner of unrealistic tripe and then sends back his amazing insights about what the user should be doing.

Most of the problems I see with Excel stem from users, not the program. We get spreadsheets from clients (and the sales side of the building) that should be in anything but a spreadsheet. But the client either doesn't have or is afraid to use Access or a real database, so they sodomize an Excel worksheet until it does what they want.

Re:The wrong path

[KarmaMB84]

Considering the fact that the format's are MS's work, I don't see why MS should have to stop making changes to their own work to satisfy unlicensed competitors. Progress is indeed the plan.

Re:The wrong path

[AstroDrabb]

I find that normal business users don't know how to do much of the fancy stuff in Excel or any of their other programs. The most common usage of Excel I've found is glorified forms

I have to agree 100% here. I have worked for 3 fortune 500 companies and 99.5% of all MS Office docs that go around are very simple and OpenOffice.org can handle those needs with no problems. The only users I have seen using more complex features are financial analyst who had to be trained in Excel, so they can be trained in OOo. OOo is ready now to displace MS Office in the workplace. However, it needs to be a corporate wide choice. A single user cannot start asking everyone to send them docs in OOo, they will be laughed at. Now if the whole company converts, then there is a lot of weigth to go with that choice. Any other company that wants to do business will have to send in an open format such as OOo, CSV, HTML, PDF, etc. The hardest part of the switch is not OOo, but getting upper management to become "un-brain-washed" by the MS Sales guys of how MS Office will "save them money", make them "more productive" and help them to one day achieve the dream of a "paperless office".

Re:The wrong path

[Otter]

This may be true, but it is not very compelling.

It happens not to be even remotely true, and merely demonstrates how little the grandparent knows about using Excel.

Re:The wrong path

[SillyNickName4me]

Let me correct you on a few points:

A single user cannot start asking everyone to send them docs in OOo, they will be laughed at.

Well, no need for that. OOo does a pretty good job reading proprietary word and excel files, oh an powerpoint files as well.

The thign is that the OOo user will have to remember to send files to MS Office users that they can actually read.

company that wants to do business will have to send in an open format such as OOo, CSV, HTML, PDF, etc.

Last time I looked, PDF is quite owned by Adobe.
Yes, there are open implementations of PDF writign and reading code,, and quite good ones for that matter.. but hrm..
Kets say it is about as open as lots of the stuff from the 'Open' group..

At any rate, it works well for publishing your texts since everyoen can read it and it will print as you want it.

Re:The wrong path

[tbuskey]

Try applying for jobs w/o using word format. Yes, I know it can be done. When I apply for jobs, I don't want to eliminate/alienate even 1% of my audience.

Many of the HR dept and recruiters have automated resume handling. They can tear apart a word document. They can't do that w/ PDF. The non word doc goes to /dev/null or set aside for special ignor^H^H^H^H^Hhandling. They're getting lots of other resumes and the job needs to get filled soon.

As a hiring manager or HR person, I'm probabaly using word and might not have acrobat installed. I probably live & breathe word. I can't imagine someone else not using it. I'm not going to hire someone who I can't understand. Or who is defiant during the application process. Toss it. I've got a hundred resumes to go through & I need someone this week.

As an applicant, my resume is in word *sigh*. The people hiring are looking for ways to whittle down that stack of resumes and anything that doesn't fit into the workflow gets tossed. I don't want to get tossed. I want that interview.

I also send it in PDF so they can see how it looks when *I* print it, if they care. Some find that helpful but most ignore it. It doesn't harm me so I include it.

Re:The wrong path

[slagish666]

When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format. Yes, there are things you can only do in native file format. But the vast majority of users never do those things.

Lemme guess, you have Excel installed on your PC and if not, you probably have access to something that can read an Excel file... yet instead of creating your own .csv file, you ask whoever you deal with to convert the file and send it again. And, probably just because you want to point out to people your precious ideology.

You must be a lot of fun to work with!

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

Kets say it is about as open as lots of the stuff from the 'Open' group..

If the "Open" Group isn't "open", how do you explain Linux?

PDF = Royalty-Free, published standard, multiple implementations. Doesn't get more Open Standards than that.

Re:The wrong path

[skoda]

Why not? If you're spending a lot of money, then minor things like file formats won't make any difference to a sale.

Just the opposite. If I'm spending lots of money, I expect good service. If a vendor can't do trivial things, like reading my Excel file, then I being to wonder if they're also incapable of doing the hard work that I'm considering paying them for.

Not reading an Excel file is like refusing to communicate by email. It promotes a poor view of the company/consultant and suggests gross incompetence.

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format.

You, sir, are a dick.

It's this psuedo-religious zeal against MS products on grounds of "principle" that keeps you dorks marginalized.

Dumbass.

Re:The wrong path

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

They know how to use excel so the learning curve is practically nil.

Yep, everyone's familiar with Excel's bugs and idiosyncrasies. The other day my dad and I were discussing how annoying it is that Excel assumes that fields containing numbers with leading zeros should be treated as text, and he had some complicated workaround to import his data without Excel screwing it up. Next time I'm home, I'll introduce him to OO.o Calc.

Re:The wrong path

[pknoll]

Being offended because someone won't open your preferred spreadsheet format is far more petty and unprofessional than you'd expect from someone in charge of making large purchases, and there's a good chance that such worries are overstated.

Possibly. But how many contracts or customers do you want to lose because they do indeed get offended at such a suggestion, or, more realistically, suspect you don't know what you're doing because you can't open the most commonly used business file format for spreadsheets in use today?

It may be one customer in 100 that objects to resending that file. It may be 1 in 1000. How many are you willing to give up?

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

Try telling them that your version of Excel won't read their version's files, so please just send CSV. Completely plausible (and true, as far as it goes).

Re:The wrong path

[Derkec]

Back in the day when Microsoft was not the biggest player in the office software market, one of the big things they did to get in was read and write to other people's standards. I'd say that strategy didn't hurt them too much.

Re:The wrong path

[ccp]

The "edge" to which the parent refers is that of letting Microsoft define the format all the time. If Microsoft constantly sets the standard, then other developers who are creating "clones" spend most of their time trying to fiddle with the file format, rather than improve/extend the functionality of the software.

Sure, the format's open now, but what do you do when the company decides to change their file format for the next release of their software?

What this argument fails to realize is that MS can't migrate 100% of its victims to the new format. Far from it.
I don't know about you, but in my part of the world the VAST majority of people is running Office 97 on Win 98.
Are they going to upgrade? Not in your life! A PC here costs serious money, and the most usual configurations couldn't even DREAM on having Win XP installed on them.

So, even the .doc format is fragmenting, and old Win users are unable to open documents written with the latest version. A majority of MS Word users is stranded with no intention to upgrade.
The old versions of .doc are effectively frozen, and filters are NOT running behind a moving target, so they're getting better all the time.
And the fun part is, OpenOffice is rather good at opening MS Office docs.

Go figure! Soon OO will be the tool of choice for navigating the multiple, more or less incompatible MS formats.

Cheers,

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

Woah, Itanium was scrapped? News to me.

Re:The wrong path

[pegr]

Your argument only holds water when there are myriad vendors producing similar products in virtual parity of market share, which is in no way happening in the spreadsheet market.

And this article is about what exactly? Rivers start with trickles, my friend.

If your product uses a format incompatible with MS, you will not encroach on MS market share. If your product uses MS's format, you can start to chip away... You MUST use the dominate format to get users to your product. This is the "Embrace" part of "Embrace, extend, destroy." By making it impossible to change the format, you effectively negate the "extend and destroy" part...

Re:The wrong path

[gnu-generation-one]

"If a vendor can't do trivial things, like reading my Excel file, then I being to wonder if they're also incapable of doing the hard work that I'm considering paying them for."

If you judge a programming company by what office suite they use, you'll get people working for you who can't program for shit, but know how to use MS-Office. University dropouts anyone? They all use Excel perfectly.

In fact, name some famous programmers who use Excel regularly? Like, hackers I mean. The type of people who can outprogram a team of CS graduates? In fact I can only think of Joel Spolsky, and he was project-leader of Excel for a long time. For everyone else, you can either spend your time using microsoft products, or you can spend your time programming. And people who choose the former, we don't want to do our programming.

"Not reading an Excel file is like refusing to communicate by email"

No it's not. It's not even similar. It's like taking offence because you can't read a file-format I just made up.

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

Ideally, you're right. However the reality of it is, in my humble opinion, that the majority of people out there either don't have the technical know-how to go through a "migration" of their models and spreadsheets or simply don't want to invest the time it would take into porting them and so compatibility is a must for now.

That being said, if all other alternatives (PlanMaker,OpenOffice, KSpread etc.) could agree on a full-featured file format that they would all respect, then I think you have a chance.

The move to an alternative would be facilitated by compatibility and people wouldn't feel like they're locking themselves into another proprietary format given the compatibility with multiple other alternatives. Eventually, M$ would probably support the format (and try to break it - eternal struggle).

Re:The wrong path

[sir_cello]

> I disagree, excel is the STANDARD for number cunching and for good reason.

You are obviously not an Engineer. Yes, I see project and senior and product management using it all the time. It is the standard for them. It produces pokey, useless and unsophisticated charts. Exactly not what I need as an Engineer.

By the sounds of it, you are also a power user. Well, thats fine for you, but as an Engineer I'm too busy Engineering and I don't have time to learn all of the inns and outs of Excel. I want the tool to allow me to do relatively user-friendly way from go.

Compare to a DTP like Word: without having a power user ability, it's quite easy to start doing fairly sophisticated content organisation, layout, etc. In comparison, Excel remains a lifeless 2D spreedsheet application.

Re:The wrong path

[Shakrai]

It may be one customer in 100 that objects to resending that file. It may be 1 in 1000. How many are you willing to give up?

To be perfectly frank I'm not willing to give up one customer over something as silly as a spreadsheet format. I don't care how much or how little that customer is worth. Only the most fanatical OSS follower would be willing to sacrifice a customer to make a cheap point like this.

Re:The wrong path

[mopslik]

What this argument fails to realize is that MS can't migrate 100% of its victims to the new format.

Yes, but a significant number of people will upgrade in order to stay in the Microsoft loop. Sure, there are people who get tired of playing this game and will switch over to OO.o or something similar, but I suspect that a number of people will reason the following:

1) We need to upgrade our office suite
2) Our choices are a newer version of Office or $OTHER_OFFICE_SUITE
3) Since both require upgrading and possible conversion time, might as well stick with Office.

Microsoft doesn't directly lose out if people don't upgrade, but it only gains when people do.

...Office 97 on Win 98

I believe that the file format for Office 97 is the same as that for Office 2000 (and is 99% compatible with Office XP). It was 95/75 that caused a fiasco. I could be wrong, though.

In terms of what versions I see most around here, many companies in this area are running Win2K with the respective version of Office. In terms of general home users, most people I know are running "questionally-obtained" copies of WinXP. Certainly on new PCs, as that's all that ships nowadays.

So, even the .doc format is fragmenting, and old Win users are unable to open documents written with the latest version.

That was exactly my point. Maybe it didn't come across as intended, but my stance was that Microsoft places a greater emphasis on profitability than compatibility.

Soon OO will be the tool of choice for navigating the multiple, more or less incompatible MS formats.

That would be nice indeed. All the more power to the OO.o developers in this respect.

Re:The wrong path

[sir_cello]

> The graphing in Excel is basically the same as it was 15 years ago, for example. The core userbase is Finance people, and it will never expand to Engineering, Academics, etc.

You made my point better than I could. Anyone who says that "Excel is useful for Engineers" either (a) doesn't know anything about Engineering; (b) doesn't actually do any useful Engineering; (b) is quite a power-user of Excel beyond the average competance that a normal Engineer can dedicate to a single application.

Re:The wrong path

[Shakrai]

Why not? If you're spending a lot of money, then minor things like file formats won't make any difference to a sale. If you've got a good quote and the ability to supply what they want, then who's going to break-off a sale because you say "any chance of sending that as CSV?", or as a screenshot.

Because we are the ones trying to sell them something and I'm not going to make them jump though hoops to send us data that we require to provide them with a quote in order to prove my point about OSS. Even if I wanted to do this (and why the hell would I?) my boss would fire me and go find someone else to do my job.

As much as I may hate Office it's a required piece of software in my line of business. Compared to the amount of money we spend on other things (both computer and non-computer items) it's trivial. Do I hate Microsoft Office? Yes. Am I going to risk annoying a customer over a file format that I can convert anyhow? Hell no.

For much the same reason I bought software to read Macintosh formatted floppies/zip disks. We had a handful of clients (graphic artists and newspaper people) sending us files on zip disks formatted on Macs. Could I have asked them to format them with FAT? Probably. Could I have asked them to compress them in .zip files and e-mail them to me in pieces (50-60 megs of data is hard to e-mail)? Probably. Did I do these things? Hell no. Cost me like $35 to buy a piece of shareware to decode the disks. BFD

Re:The wrong path

[Minna Kirai]

This is not the case for MS. If it is, please provide a link to the MS Office document _specs_ and not just some silly schema.

I'm told that the schema for XML files that Microsoft provides here are sufficiently detailed to count as "specs" for those kinds of files. (Those documents were released less than 1 month ago)

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that MS Office doesn't really use XML files. Not only are XML files not the default output of MS Office and Office's XML-output can't hold all the data their binary formats could, but most importantly, the normal MS Office products available to consumers today cannot export these XML formats. Only some rare "Pro" / "developer" versions have the exporting.

So chances are, even if you did have the specs to read an MS Excel file in XML, your MS-customer friends wouldn't be able to produce them for you.

Re:The wrong path

[Shakrai]

If you judge a programming company by what office suite they use, you'll get people working for you who can't program for shit, but know how to use MS-Office. University dropouts anyone? They all use Excel perfectly.

It's this type of fanatical belief that will keep OSS confined to the niche that it currently occupies. You aren't judging that programming company by the Office Suite they are using. You are judging them by their customer service. If they are going to force me to jump though hoops to send them a document then WTF are they going to do for me at 3am when that project crashes and we need it back up ASAP?

And who the heck said anything about programming companies anyway? This applies to every industry. I work in the Insurance business. We need commercial prospects to send us all types of data in order to allow us to prepare a quote for them. Are we really going to tell them (after spending weeks or months networking to meet the right people to even get permission to quote the business in the first place) that we can't open the most commonly used spreadsheet format in the World to prove some point about Microsoft being evil (and I think they are -- and my PHB would actually agree with me -- though his concern is how they rape us on licensing fees -- mine is security/support) or OSS being the next great thing?

Newsflash: If we want OSS to be successful in the business world then we are going to have to play by their rules. They aren't going to change for us.

No it's not. It's not even similar. It's like taking offence because you can't read a file-format I just made up.

Just "made up"? When you "just make up" a file format that is used by billions of people around the World then we'll talk about taking offense. Like it or not it is the de-facto standard. Go ahead and make your point with your next potential customer. It probably won't cost you the sale -- but some of us aren't willing to take that chance to make such a petty point.

Re:The wrong path

[Knacklappen]

1. Excel is an extremely poor tool for doing anything other than basic graphs and calculations. For engineering purposes, it's near useless.

Don't know what kind of engineer you are but in the Real World (TM) you will find lots of engineers doing some quick & dirty calculations in Excel.

Sure, you could use Matlab or Mathematica or Maple but have you checked the price of these programs? I managed to get us some licenses of MathCad (and make a point of using them as much as possible) but even this is not for free. Well, Octave is, even free as in beer-drunken speech, but the point I want to make is that for a user whos Windows-based PC came with MS Office installed, Excel is the easiest way. And in combination with SQL and VBA it's often powerful enough...

As long as you don't require graphs with more than 32768 items in one data series or more than 65536 rows on your spread sheet. But for smaller data series (say up to 10000 rows, with 20 columns) Excel is pretty OK.

The one thing I hate about Excel is that it is too easy to just put together some quick & dirty calculations. Regardless with what intention I start, over time my Excel sheets always grow beyond what they intially where planned for. And then it's getting ugly, becuase after some time you lose control over the relationships of the cells and equations. Sure, there are some tools for that, but not enough.
And VBA is great, too, but when you just make a print-out for a colleague, you only get the spread sheet, not the connections between the cells and not the VBA-routines in the background. I now try to make up for all my past Excel-crimes by step-wise converting everything important to MathCad. Because there (as in Mathematica or Maple) a print-out shows all the underlying equations and algorithms in a natural and easy-to-understand way.

So, to return to where I started: Excel is not "near-useless for engineering purposes". I consider myself a decent engineer and have done serious work in Excel, and I have some Excel-addicted colleagues, who I really admire (and sometimes envy) for their work.

Re:The wrong path

[pknoll]

To be perfectly frank I'm not willing to give up one customer over something as silly as a spreadsheet format.

My point exactly, which is why asking a customer to resend a file in a different format is ludicrous. The poster who originally suggested it obviously hasn't dealt with customers like you and I have. =)

Most of my customers are reasonable, cooperative people, and I won't ask THEM to do format gymnastics. I certainly won't do it for that small percentage of my clients who are ... shall we say, less than eminently reasonable.

Re:The wrong path

[ccp]

Certainly on new PCs, as that's all that ships nowadays.

D'accord, but OLD PCs don't die after three years. They keep going, and going, and going.
In the place I administer we still have 486s for word processing, and they are more than enough.

From time to time one of them dies, and we cannibalize the parts.

However, I must confess I'm posting from an Athlon 2.4, 768 MB, but with Mandrake 10 on it.

Cheers,

Re:The wrong path

[Cromac]

The difficulties created for MS as it alienates its userbase are real. The only question is will they survive it. With >$40b in reserve it's a hard question to answer.

I don't think that's a hard question to answer at all. With $40 billion in cash MS can continue running for a very long time with little or no sales much less with the strangle hold they currently have on the office and desktop market. No matter how badly they alienate the userbase it would take years for their sales to drop to a point where they'd be losing money.

There's no doubt at all that MS is going to survive and continue to thrive for years if not decades even on what some perceive as a self destructive path.

Re:The wrong path

[ekuns]

But that edge is lost when changing the format drives away your customers when they can no longer interoperate with users with competing products.

Are you talking about the same Microsoft that changed their file formats so often that even they cannot import old versions 100%? The Microsoft that obviously didn't care a whit about these changes even when WordPerfect was a real competitor?

Ideally, what you say is accurate. However, the Microsoft in Redmond just doesn't think the way you suggest. History makes that very clear. When Microsoft adopts an open standard (such as Kerberos in Win2k), they almost always make incompatible changes so they cannot interoperate fully with existing implementations. More accurately, so existing implementations cannot interoperate with Microsoft's implementation. This is where the phrase "Embrace and extend" came from! Microsoft simply does not appear to worry about a backlash.

Re:The wrong path

[noselasd]

Ok. So when did everyone need to do enginering ?
I've seen many impressive applications built on Excel, VB scripting offers you easy access to much functionallity.
Lots of companies I've visited have many of their own little spreadsheets connecting to a larger system and does some neat datamining. Useful.
Embedding Excel is also easy, and helps you easily get graphing and advanced spreadsheet support. If you think this is useless, I suggest you visit a handful of companies and see how people there use Excel.

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah? Try analyzing panel data with excel.

Have fun.

Excel is not very powerful as a statistical analysis tool. Why do you think most companies use SAS?

Re:The wrong path

[4of12]

I can give you an XML file with a Base64 encoded blob of proprietary data. Just because it is XML does not make it Open.

Even more, a structured XML document doesn't have to include the schemas or other tools used to transform it into something on a printed page or a monitor screen.

By keeping the rendering rules inside Word instead of the .doc file, changing the rendering rules here and there based on platform, version, locale, printer driver, moon phase, etc., Microsoft keeps reverse engineer competitors at bay and makes their upgraded product the only reliable way of re-creating that document. Or, at least until the next upgrade.

Until, sometime late in the afternoon some day in 2005, somewhere in a small office outside Bangalore, someone will ask their colleague to put OpenOffice on their Windows computer to make sure that Office97 files print the same way that they do on the standard Linux box that the clients are getting.

The secret standards of old will be stolen away bit by bit...

Re:The wrong path

[ekuns]

Don't know what kind of engineer you are but in the Real World (TM) you will find lots of engineers doing some quick & dirty calculations in Excel.

Back in my scientist days, we only used one of a small number of custom written applications. (Named "paw" and "mn_fit" plus a few others less commonly used.) Excel cannot even dream of producing the kinds of plots that I had to produce for my dissertation. Of course, these tools were command-line driven, but that gave the power to iterate on a plot, to view arbitrary plots of N-tuple data, to change the scales and so on. MUCH more power than Excel gives. I had scatterplots with many tens of thousands of points. (Took a LOOOONNNNNGGGGG time to print on laser printers of that day!)

But as you say, for quick and dirty stuff, Excel and the like are fine. I haven't figured out how to do two dimensional error bars -- the cross shapes showing the uncertainty in each variable -- and complicated stuff like that, but maybe Excel can do stuff like that as well. But if I were doing a scientific or engineering paper, I would not use Excel.

Re:The wrong path

[stephanruby]

Compare to a DTP like Word: without having a power user ability, it's quite easy to start doing fairly sophisticated content organisation, layout, etc. In comparison, Excel remains a lifeless 2D spreedsheet application.

I must really be dumb at using Word, or you must be really dumb at using Excel, but I completely disagree with your impression of those two.

Re:The wrong path

[SillyNickName4me]

> If the "Open" Group isn't "open", how do you explain Linux?

I wonder if you know what the 'Open Group' is.
Its the peopel who gave us (Open) Motif, and who 'own' the Unix trademark at this moment. Its where old DEC, IBM, HP and others used to try to give the impression that at least for their part proprietary Unix wasn't splintered...

Yeah, they also publish specs, and those can be seen, and as a result often used by everyone, including Linux.. But thats also where Linux' relation to that group ends really.

How open does it get? CDE? Motif's incompatible licenses? yeah right.

Regarding PDF, lets see when xpdf actually starts rendering things correctly or ghostscript/view starts performing well enough to make it usable for reading PDF files on my Athlon XP 2600+ (note that Adobe reader on Windows on the same machine has no such trouble whatsoever) Not to mention that both tools break on files every now and then (and usually on different files)

Don't get me wrong, I love PDF as a format for what it allows me to do (produce things that will look how I intended them to look and that can be read by everyone)

It seems to me however that the PDF specs aren't so clear and well published that I can count on most non Adobe tools to handle them correctly in virtually all cases tho, and since that seems to apply to baslicly all non Adobe tools, I find it hard to blame the quality of such software for it.

So, open format? guess you are right strictly spoken. And I gues my comparison with the Open Group was not that far off, they publish lots of usefull specs as well, but that doesn't make their stuff 'open', you can just build very similar stuff as a result.

Hell, even the mpeg group members at least build reference implementations of their stuff that people can use (licences is another thing there of course) and their specs are clear enough for a near 100% level of inter-operability between random (but within spec) encoder and random (but within spec) decoder.

Re:The wrong path

[m00nun1t]

The "rare" version that most large companies license? Moron...

Re:The wrong path

[JoeBuck]

Almost every single case where someone is using Excel to design a form, I can open the .xls file in OpenOffice 1.1 and it works fine.

And OpenOffice competes very effectively with Microsoft on price.

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

The path that MS seems to be taking is to make the file format open, but patented. So in theory they could later make competing products that use these products illegal (or expensive) in the future.

Re:The wrong path

[(eternal_software)]

Microsoft has a massive R&D budget. What makes you think that an open source product could ever "out-innovate" Microsoft?

I think it's fine to let MS spend the millions of dollars on research, and reap the rewards for free.

Re:The wrong path

[gnu-generation-one]

"Are we really going to tell them that we can't open the most commonly used spreadsheet format in the World?"

How is that different to telling them you can't open any other sort of spreadsheet? If I send you a Gnumeric document and you can't open it, are you going to base your entire company's software policy around gnumeric to make sure there's not even a chance you'd lose a sale if you couldn't open the document i sent? Are you really going to email back and demand I jump through hoops to convert the document to some excel format (which requires a big investment to get such a system working)?

What's worse, saying "please send CSV", or saying "please buy Windows, buy a new PC, install Windows, buy MS-Office, install MS-Office, import your document, save it as Excel format, and sent it to us"?

No. Any reasonable person would choose the best software for the job, and then make allowances for odd formats that people might send them files in. If you want to keep a spare 486 lying around for opening gnumeric documents, then I'll keep a spare 486 around for opening excel documents. The difference being that I'll be using better, cheaper, and faster software than you for my everyday work, even while we both retain the ability to deal with whatever screwy crap a customer decides to send us because they think it's normal.

Re:The wrong path

[Minna Kirai]

The "rare" version that most large companies license?

Since today I happened to be onsite with a company with more than 50,000 employees, I grabbed a PC to see if Excel could export XML. It could not.

This company (which incidentally resells Microsoft) had Office "Standard Edition". That's the extent of my 1st-hand experience with this matter, but 100% of datapoints support my position!

PS. MS Office comes in "Standard", "Small Business", "Student", and "Pro" versions. Only one of those exports XML. Even if it were true that all large businesses had the Pro version, my point would still hold... all those corporate employees take work home with them. So if a file isn't supported by their home version, they don't consider it supported at all.

Re:The wrong path

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"Your mom is a whore, I slept with her just last night. Jesus."

I doubt that very much.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

People like you who think that it's funny to use profane language in response to a perfectly valid comment.

"Itanium is dead on the desktop."

Itanium was never alive on the desktop. It is, and always was, designed and marketed as a *server* CPU.

Re:The wrong path

[m00nun1t]

Your point doesn't hold at all. Your point was that it was rare. It's not.

My machine runs Office Pro. 100% of datapoints support my position.

BTW, you might want to read
http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/pro dinfo/ technologies/xml.mspx#XSLTsection125121120120:

"Note In all Office 2003 Editions, Word 2003 documents and Excel 2003 spreadsheets can be saved in a native XML file format which can be manipulated and searched using any program that can process industry standard XML. With Office Professional Edition 2003, companies can also use customized XML formats--or schemas--to enable easier and more advanced information creation, capture, exchange, and reuse."

Re:The wrong path

[rv8]

But if I were doing a scientific or engineering paper, I would not use Excel.

Well, engineering is about actually getting some work done, not doing scientific papers. That is technical publishing, and I agree that Excel would be a poor choice there. But I concur that it is a great choice for quick and dirty calculations.

Re:The wrong path

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't care how much or how little that customer is worth. Only the most fanatical OSS follower would be willing to sacrifice a customer to make a cheap point like this."

So if your customer sends a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, you'd be prepared to buy the software and install it, to avoid having to ask for documents to be sent in a standard format?

Re:The wrong path

[aztracker1]

Hmm.. seem to have issues with this Acrobat 5 PDF in Acrobat Reader 4.x ...

Re:The wrong path

[tanguyr]

true. then again, you can download the acrobat reader software for free - although i think there are also free excel and word "viewers" available from microsoft.

Re:The wrong path

[aztracker1]

I know.. the point kinda stands though, there is no truely open, and consistant standard for anything... imho an open xml standard, which iirc OOo uses would be nice... however this really isn't the case, and because of the expanded size of a text format like xml, can be kind of congested when sending via email, which is how a lot of business documents get exchanged (pun intended).

Re:The wrong path

[tanguyr]

paper... and faxes...

*shudders*

Re:The wrong path

[hardgeus]

I just reread what I wrote and I look stupid. Of course any competitors need to support MS file formats to compete.

My intended point is that an open file format is preferable in every way, but, given that this is not the case, the only viable option is to support the dominant closed format.

Re:The wrong path

[WhiteDragon]

When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format. Yes, there are things you can only do in native file format. But the vast majority of users never do those things.

Is there a way to tell Excel to save formulas instead of cell contents in a CSV type file?

Bug

[andy666]

There is a GUI bug in the pull down menus "File" that drives me crazy!

hai2u

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it have a clippy too?

Re:hai2u

[Anonymous Coward]

yo that should be a 5.

Re:hai2u

[MrRuslan]

No they ported Clippy into Tuxy.

Good...

[NIN1385]

Excel is about the only program I have ever cared for that MS makes...this could be a good thing since open office isn't that good of an alternative for Excel quite yet.

Home use only

[thebra]

I don't think that an Excel clone will ever work in the business enviorment unless it can run all the addins like the ones for Essbase and Peoplesoft.

Re:Home use only

[joshuao3]

Indeed! I've worked with Excel for a long time and my experience has been that most users (and I mean a VAST majority) don't use any plugins. They are happy to use it to tally up numbers, perform a bit of number crunching, etc. A solid application that looks and feels and interoperates with Excel on a fundamental level should make a huge splash in Linux. It certainly won't drive new users to linux on it's own, but it'll give them a reason to stay if they already are.

Add in an on par word processor, powerpoint tool, and outlook-esque client and you'll win a lot of new clients.

Re:Home use only

[JanneM]

Like Gnumeric, you mean?

Re:Home use only

[Gherald]

> Add in an on par word processor, powerpoint tool [...]

OOo isn't an exact clone, but it is "good enough" for most users in my estimation

> [...] and outlook-esque client and you'll win a lot of new clients.

Yes, that is what we really need, an OSS Outlook alternative. Especially one that can interoperate with Exchange Server.

And don't say Ximian Connecter, or whatever it's called. We need something free and perferably integrated with OOo itself.

Re:Home use only

[aristotle-dude]

Sorry but what is Essbase and Peoplesoft. Not everyone in business use these plugins. They use the best tool for the job.

Plugins sound like a hack to me. I don't want Excel to try to do everything.

Re:Home use only

[ajs]

No, Gnumeric's own futur plans site cites:

Plugin system

Gnumeric has a plugin system based on shared libraries right now (which means that all plugins right now fall under the GNU GPL). A plugin exists for defining your own functions in Python.

Gnumeric exports a number of CORBA interfaces that enable programmers to control Gnumeric remotely within an authenticated GNOME desktop

In time that will be fixed, and then existing plugins and extensions could potentially be ported using an interface layer in Wine (not for emulation, but for re-compilation) or something of that ilk.

But, I will point out that discussions of this sort are moot. The "X will never be adopted until it can Y" statements can go on forever, constantly shifting to less and less obvious features. Instead, a replacement spreadsheet simply needs to be a good spreadsheet and find its own market. If it does that, it will grow and capture users. The user bases may never be 100% the same, and that's IMPORTANT for a new application. You want to have some users who uniquely use your application because of its features that they cannot get elsewhere.

It's not like the real excel unless

[caston]

It includes the flight sim as well! They better now have left out the flight simulator!

Re:It's not like the real excel unless

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could mod this "-1, Unfunny."

Or use crossover office!

[Krik Johnson]

Cross over office lets you run your Windows Applications in Linux! Office, Photoshop, Quicken, Dreamweaver and more! I officially abandoned Windows due to this App! Get it now!, or get it preinstalled with SuSE Office Desktop or Xandros.

Re:Or use crossover office!

[palironsat]

Umm, is this a paid advert or something? Geez, I've never seen someone this excited about this! It's not like WINE hasn't been doing this kind of thing for years.

Of course, I just use OO.o, and Evolution. OpenOffice does absolutely everything I need it to, and I swear that Evolution is an exact clone of Outlook 2k. Okay, maybe not exactly, but it's so close in functionality (minus the Exchange add-in) that I've been used to, before my work switched to Office 2003. Very happy!

Re:Or use crossover office!

[bender647]

I use Crossover office at work with great success, but its important to note that with Crossover, you need to license Crossover Office PLUS Microsoft Office (it runs the MS binaries). Great for compatibility, poor for cost.

Re:Or use crossover office!

[Anonymous Coward]

but it still doesn't run MSAccess...
that is one of the apps that is holding me to windows (granted its now windows in vmware on linux.... )

Re:Or use crossover office!

[codepunk]

rekall is a access replacement, well sort of. It is close but still needs some work.

Re:Or use crossover office!

[pangian]

Anyone aware of a good OS app that compares to MS Project?

Re:Or use crossover office!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as good as F/OSS on cost, but I wouldn't say it's a "poor" value--it's cheaper than the Windows/Office licensing used by 95% of the world after all!

Re:Or use crossover office!

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Mr. Project intead of the Ms.

Re:Or use crossover office!

[Penguinshit]

Ximian has an Exchange add-in here.

Re:Or use crossover office!

[Penguinshit]

You are not completely correct...

What surprised me most

[ObviousGuy]

The thing that really surprised me was how badly OpenOffice supported (or rather, didn't support) Excel's functionality.

You may say that those features are part of the 80% of features that aren't used, but someone's using them. If those someones aren't able to use those features, OpenOffice is useless for them.

Re:What surprised me most

[sommere]

So they were able to pick out 5-6 features that OO.o couldn't support that they did. That's hardly proof that they support more excel features than OO.o.

If an independent group created a bunch of hard to read excel files and they compared how many each displayed correctly -- then I'd believe that their support is better. For all I know they went out of their way to find limitations of OO.o and implement those features first so they could make those images.

Re:What surprised me most

[dspacemonkey]

...but how many features does OpenOffice support that Planmaker doesn't?

Re:What surprised me most

[MarkRebuck]

I believe the classic quote is "90% of the people use only 10% of the functionality of [software]. The problem is that everyone uses a different 10%."

Re:What surprised me most

[garcia]

I have been saying this for quite some time on here. OpenOffice is NOT an acceptable replacement for MS Office regardless of what you hear the slashbots saying.

Yes, OpenOffice is good for what *most* people do. It certainly does not support everything that everyone uses. Just because it is "good enough" for some it certainly isn't what the rest of us want.

From what I saw in the screenshots only it *looks* good. I won't know until I actually run it. I am a bit leary of running any beta software that I don't have access to the source code.

Running strangely named binaries from .tgz files reminds me of days-gone-by in Linux... I figured for a well done "port" that they would at least have the idea that they should make the executable something named better than what it is.

Re:What surprised me most

[garcia]

I have no direct proof on me but anything I have ever tried to open in OO (word or excel) has barfed.

I don't consider myself any sort of "power user" with Office products either. If a simple Word document won't open I can't believe your comment that "they picked the 5-6 things that OO can't do" is valid.

Re:What surprised me most

[Anonymous Coward]

Just yesterday I re-installed OO again. I never lost the faith. I also had to prepare a proposal which I've been procrastinating for quite a while, and so I spent the night happily typing on OOWriter and OOSpread, in my M$ XP machine. I was quite pleased, some of OO features are really good, such as the word auto-completion. At 4:00AM I fired up Outlook and sent the proposal for peer review. 9:00AM I had the the proposal back. My peer could not edit any embedded table. It turns out that embedded tables were OOSpread objects, not Excel. I've been using/programming/destroying computers for 20 years. Moreover, I've been involved with Unix for almost as long, and I love it. I have been trying to switch my desktop to Unix for quite a while. And I can say I tried hard. My shelves are full of corpses: WingZ, WordPerfect (the text version), AplixWare, and so on. Right now OO seems to be real competition to MSOffice, and yet it failed again. For me, my office suite is mission critical. I count it will not fail, so I can postpone my documents to the absolute last minute. It is so sad to bite the M$ bullet.

Re:What surprised me most

[Jody Goldberg]

I'd be interested in getting copies of any file that you have trouble with to see how Gnumeric fairs. Getting good test cases can be very helpful. Our confidentiality policy can apply if desired. Please contact me.

Thanks

Re:What surprised me most

[Profane MuthaFucka]

yes, your peer could have edited the table. All they needed to do was to install Open Office on their PC. It's free.

Windows people have been sending me .doc and .xls files for years, even though they knew that I ran Linux. I do not feel bad in the slightest for telling them to download a FREE program that will run on their pricey OS.

Re:What surprised me most

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious, but what would you do if you did have access to the source code? Do you actually go through and review the source code for every program you install to make sure there's nothing malicious?

Re:What surprised me most

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he meant that if the source was distributed there would be a less likely chance that the coders would include any trojans.

Not completely unlikely but less likely.

Re:What surprised me most

[Anonymous Coward]

You are soo right. I told him/her to download it and I did not feel bad at all...

Re:What surprised me most

[MrHanky]

I've done some work for a literary journal, and had to open quite a few Word documents in OOo. It usually works well. But at least one of the documents was problematic in Word -- it was a pure ASCII text file with .doc as extension. Most of my colleagues had problems with that one -- Word wouldn't open it at all.

Some of the formatting can get screwed up in OOo, mostly due to different fonts and (possibly) margins, but this shouldn't be much of a problem if the Word user isn't a total fuckwit who presses enter at the end of each line. I only had problems with a couple of graphical poems that consisted of the same letter repeated over a few pages, sometimes with spaces in between. For that sort of text, PDF is the only sensible format anyway.

Try a new version of OOo if the one you had problems with was old, or submit bug reports when possible. I'm sure the developers would love feedback on any outstanding issues.

Re:What surprised me most

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, WinWord 2.0 was "good enough" at importing most WP 4.x/5.x documents, so much so that people pretty much dropped WP to go with Word.

And Excel 3.0 was "good enough" at importing Lotus 1-2-3 files, that people started using it more than 1-2-3.

And, yet, if OO is good enough for most people, because it's not good enough for small pockets of other people, that is reason enough to not advocate its use for most people?

If you're a die-hard engineer, statistician or VBA programmer, then OO's Excel-clone is probably not for you. But for the rest of the world, OO is good enough. Most excel users don't know what pivot tables are or how powerful they are. Most Excel users never use (much less, create) an Excel spreadsheet that has one form or another direct database access for data.

Just like most Word users never really figure out how to apply tab stops, create and use named formatting styles, etc.

And, besides, who really cares much what the strangely named binary is actually named? I guess you do. I know there are plenty of strangely named Windows executables, when you actually get down to it, too (that are still named with 8.3 names, even in Win32...).

Will it Deliver?

[WordODD]

MS Excel is an awesome program one of two that makes Office actually worthwhile. If Planmaker 2004 this truly delivers then one of the major stumbling blocks for OO.org has been overcome.

Won't last long...

[PeteDotNu]

Plenty of images on that page. I give that web server ten minutes.

Ehhh, gnumeric

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely they should be comparing this against gnumeric as well. Gnumeric opens password protected files too, and as for 3-d hyperplane plots, I've never seem them as a way for communicating information, their best use is for showing how incompatible some products can be.

What about Gnumeric?

[ErisCalmsme]

Gnumeric is so great, and it opens Excel files too? Plus is has so many functions (including every singel excel function). I'm not sure I'd use a different spreadsheet.

Re:What about gnumeric?

[Krik Johnson]

Have you tried OpenOffice 1.1.1. Its way faster that Gnumeric on my machine and more functionally complete!

Re:What about gnumeric?

[cockroach2]

No, haven't tried that one yet. Any performance boost (especially during startup) sounds like a great thing...

Re:What about Gnumeric?

[Rysc]

Those screenshots are out of date. By about 6 years. Try some newer ones.

Re:What about Gnumeric?

[tonyhill]

Um, those are screenshots for an older version of gnumeric for gtk1. Here are some much more recent screenshots, using gtk2.

It's really quite nice to use under gnome2.

Also, the theme of your desktop affects the appearance of every gnome2 application, so the screenshots are dependent upon the theme used in taking the screenshot.

Re:What about Gnumeric?

[Tet]

Gnumeric is so great, and it opens Excel files too

Agreed. Like OO.o, it doesn't have 100% coverage of everything in Excel. But I can say that for real world use, rather than contrived examples, it opens every spreadsheet I've tried it with, without problems[1]. It also has the benefit of being literally 10 times faster than oocalc.

[1] I'm talking about recent versions here. If you haven't tried it lately, give post-1.2 releases a shot. It's come a long way...

Re:What about Gnumeric?

[ErisCalmsme]

Also, Gtk2 can be themed by itself. I use fvwm, but use a lot of gtk2 apps. You can find a lot of gtk2 themes on freshmeat.net. It makes a world of difference! =)

Re:What about Gnumeric?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL - I think the OP's point still stands. Hehehe. It's amusing what linus lovers will accept as "attractive".

Re:What about Gnumeric?

[Ender Ryan]

Huh, wtf? It looks very similar to Excel... It's amusing what idiots say about *nix users.

Re:What about Gnumeric?

[david.gilbert]

Ahh - the siren song of the linux losers. "Yeah we know that the last versions sucked but the newest from from cvs doesn't promise promise promise." Funny how that line never ever changes? Even when new versions come out?

Ahh - the siren song of the proprietary vendors. "Yeah we know that the current version sucks but the next version (only six months away) doesn't promise promise promise." Funny how that line never ever changes. Even when new versions come out.

Re:What about gnumeric?

[Lord Bitman]

From the other posts I'm reading (I dont know personally), it seems that Gnumeric isn't on the chart because Gnumeric can't do charts :)

Re:What about Gnumeric?

[Minna Kirai]

But I can say that for real world use, rather than contrived examples, it opens every spreadsheet I've tried it with, without problems[1]

How about Excel files which have password-protection to make certain cells read-only? I've never seen Gnumeric grok one of those...

Re:What about Gnumeric?

[Donny Smith]

>I'm not sure I'd use a different spreadsheet.

Not everyone is like you. As a matter of fact, probably some 90% of people are unlike you and they prefer to use Excel.
Personally I always uncheck gnumeric RPM during installation because I find it extremely annoying. I have Oo installed on both my Windows laptop and Linux desktop ("just in case, 'cause it's free") but I haven't used it more than twice this year.

>Plus is has so many functions

Who cares?
I get Excel files from my customers and they expect to get Excel files back. For most businesses the cost of using Excel (and Windows OS) is miniscule compared to hassle of fscking with a different program and slight formatting incompatibilities. As long as things remain that way, businesses will stick with MS Office.

basicly exel ported to linux

[Anonymous Coward]

hope its not "bug for bug" compatble

Not free

[gspr]

Since this software seems to not be free, it can't really beat OpenOffice, can it? No, it can't.

Re:Not free

[barthrh2]

Unless of course you want to tell your client "Well, if I wasn't so damn cheap I'd be able to see the spreadsheet you just sent me. Can you install Open Office, resave it, redo your graphs and email that back to me, please?"

Just 'cause something is free doesn't mean it's good. Looking like a clown and losing business has a cost.

Re:Not free

[teeker]

News flash: MS Office isn't free but right now it's beating the crap out of OpenOffice. OOo is good, but the cold hard truth is that MS Office is still better in many ways...maybe (hopefully!) not forever, but simply because somebody might be making a living off a quality product does not automatically make it inferior.

Re:Not free

[BrianWCarver]

I don't know if the original poster meant "free" or "Free" but I also can't tell if Planmaker is Free software, and so on that front it can't beat OpenOffice either.

I'd never recommend that someone trade in one proprietary spreadsheet (Excel) for another proprietary spreadsheet (Planmaker). You're not making any real progress that way. The poster above who rants about lost business having a cost is both right and wrong. He's right that lost business has a financial cost, but he seems to miss that lost freedom has a financial cost as well. When someone who switches to Planmaker finds themselves subject to vendor-lock-in or is only able to get support from a single vendor, or has their software suddenly "expire" unless they pay up, they'll realize that the enemy was never Microsoft: it was software that takes away your freedoms.

Re:Not free

[Democritus2]

What a troll

How about "Well, if you werent such a moron to spend 500 dollars for some crap that will make you spend another 500 dollars in 3 years....."

Besides, I have been communicating with the Microsoft Office people for quite some time seemlessly.

Very occassionaly something looks a little off, but that if very rare.

Of course I use the .xls, .doc file extensions, because it is easier. I understand many OSS people refuse to do this, making it a stance again st MS.

For the most part MS has won that- .xls and .doc ARE the STANDARDS now. And yes, I know they will change that standard every year without telling anybody :)

Side note: I just did a OO install on my fathers new winxp machine, because he didnt know it didnt come with excel. When he found out price he said no way. He is using his spreadsheets just fine.

Re:Not free

[Anonymous Coward]

Just 'cause something is free doesn't mean it's good.

Just because you don't have it installed doesn't mean it's not good.

While the problem (not everyone has OO installed) is real, it tells nothing about goodness of OO.

Gnumeric

[Anonymous Coward]

I really like Gnumeric and found it to have a similar set of functions it support. Much faster than OpenOffice.

Google cache

[GillBates0]

of the first two links:

Softmaker
PlanMaker

Re:Google cache

[denis-The-menace]

Google Cache for chart comparing Excel, OpenOffice.org, and PlanMaker.

Of all the Apps to port

[VanWEric]

They choose Excel? I have never been able to figure that program out. Give me Minitab anyday. Mmmmm..... Multiple Regression. Excuse me. Me and fantasy minitab for linux have to be alone right now.

Re:Of all the Apps to port

[slo]

Why would you want minitab? There are more powerful stats programs on Linux. R and StatLisp to name a couple. There is also a project to implement SPSS, thought I don't know how far a long this is.

Re:Of all the Apps to port

[VanWEric]

Apparently you do not know the seductive powers of the unattainable. Consider two options. 1) Hot Stat program walks up to you in the middle of the street. "Hi. I am free and skilled. Lets go have stats." 2) Other hot Stat program smiles at you coyly from accross the bar. "Gee... I've never tried Linux before. I've been looking for the right guy forEVER..." Understand my fantasy now?

Re:Of all the Apps to port

[brycenut]

Minitab runs under crossover office (and maybe plain old wine, too). I haven't used it since two semesters ago. Check c4.codewavers.com for more information, but basically, you need ie6 and the arial font installed first. Also see frankscorner.org for info on running IE under plain old Wine, if that route suits you better.

I know the philosophical arguments against Wine, and to some extent, I agree, but if it lets me do my assignments without rebooting, it's valuable until companies do native ports.

Re:Of all the Apps to port

[Anonymous Coward]

What's not to figure out?

You have columns and rows. The intersecting areas contain your data. By using formulas, you can come up with a myriad of useful data results. Anything as simple as adding up a row of data and getting a grand total, or formulating an average cost based on data from many rows and sheets and based on a variety of variables.

Or did you mean you just have never had a real *need* for a spreadsheet?

I've never really been able to "figure out" Photoshop. But the most complicated thing I ever need to do with a photo is resize it, or rotate it.

Re:Of all the Apps to port

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean multivariate regression?

With add-ins such as XL-Stat and analyse-it, Excel can do some fairly sophisticated multivariate regressions.

A free program called R, available for almost all platforms, will always outperform Excel when it comes to heavy statistical analysis.

Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lawyers start your engines!

Excel clone? Needs a cool name.

[L. VeGas]

I've got just the name. XXXcell

That way it will get distributed on the P2P networks a lot faster.

Crossover

[Mr. McGibby]

While I applaud the effort, and I'm sure they'll sell some copies; other than some cost savings how is this functionally different from using Crossover Office? I've been using Excel in Linux for quite some time and it works perfectly.

What about gnumeric?

[cockroach2]

Why isn't it in the chart? It's way faster than OpenOffice.org and seems to work just fine.

Sadly, it won't be around long

[spidergoat2]

If it's a port, the Microsoft legal machine will jump into action. On the other hand, if it's not a port, the Microsoft legal machine will jump into action. I think it's doomed.

But what about the Macros?

[Gilesx]

This is not a flame. I *want* this product to succeed. But unfortunately, being able to display wordart better than openoffice isn't a deal maker, and especially isn't going to make me choose paid for software over free software. However, if they were to suddenly enable you to import all your VB macros with a Spreadsheet, then I'd happily hand my card number over there and then. Unfortunately, until then, this really just smacks as a "me too" product, and I can't see it taking much of openoffice's market share.

Re:But what about the Macros?

[schemanista]

I can't see it taking much of openoffice's market share.

It's very cool that we're discussing OpenOffice and "marketshare" in the same sentence.

Or are we getting ahead of ourselves here?

Re:But what about the Macros?

[back_pages]

I've got to second this. For me, Excel is little more than a feature-rich data structure for VBA. In fact, I hardly consider Excel a useful tool (above and beyond any generic spreadsheet) without the VBA.

Re:But what about the Macros?

[martin-k]

Currently, PlanMaker imports the macros but doesn't touch them. When you save your file, they are saved in the output file as well.

Actual VBA macro support is our next step. PlanMaker for Windows and TextMaker for Windows have an OLE object model that is already close to Excel's and Word's, but we have to move that stuff to Linux as well.

Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Re:But what about the Macros?

[back_pages]

I hope you succeed in the VBA functionality. I know this doesn't represent a majority opinion, but for me the VBA in Excel is the killer feature that precludes me from using any other spreadsheet. As I'm sure you know, this will also be a great selling point for corporate customers who often make extensive use of macros.

In addition to competing with a great Office feature, including scripting capability in your spreadsheet and word processor is an independently incredible idea. Just think twice about porting the ability to fark the whole machine, right? :)

Re:But what about the Macros?

[confused one]

I'd have to agree about the importance of VBA. Some might call it the source of all evil; but...

In one of my jobs we used Excel to do all of our analysis. It would import all of the raw data (text files) and we could use VBA scripts to do the harder calculations (field integrals, density calculations, beam trajectory, etc.) then post the results back into a sheet. From there it was extraordinarily easy to produce graphical plots of the results.

I think you see my point.

Re:But what about the Macros?

[TheLink]

How about 100% macrovirus compatibility?

Seriously though, how about supporting macros BUT have a mode that turns off the "auto stuff" - the stuff that runs automatically on open, on save etc, whilst letting the rest of the macros run (when the user clicks X or something).

I suspect most of the macro viruses use a few functions to spread. And those functions can be locked down or made conditional.

A spreadsheet software that is just like Excel, the only difference is macroviruses won't work can be a good selling point.

Re:But what about the Macros?

[martin-k]

We have the source code to our own Visual Basic-compatible scripting engine, and before we put that into the product, we'll make sure it is sandboxed. That is: no accesses to the outside, file system etc. without explicit permission by the user. The worst thing a virus could then do is to modify the documents currently loaded.

Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Re:But what about the Macros?

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be bit early, but keeping in mind that StarOffice is little more than OpenOffice with more QA, cliparts and maybe properietary grammar checker, combined "Open/StarOffice" suite (just like Linux with multiple distros) is quickly getting some measurable marketshare... especially being bundled with JDS, and getting sold to big corporations (in UK) and public sector entities (chinese government for example).

OpenOffice

[gfburn]

What is it with OpenOffice that makes it so hard to work with MS format files?

If this software which just showed up can do a 1000 times better job, then it seems to say a lot about OpenOffice's devel team.

Re:OpenOffice

[molarmass192]

You have it backwards, the correct question should be:

Q> What is it with MS format files that makes it so hard to work with them in OpenOffice.

A> Total and utter lack of information on the binary file formats from MS. Everything is either reverse engineered or gleemed from public discoveries.

Re:OpenOffice

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to be too nitpicky, but didn't you mean gleaned instead of gleemed?

Re:OpenOffice

[molarmass192]

Yep ... my bad ... gleem ain't in the dictionary!

Only looking at graphics output biased comparison

[UrbanFallout]

On the site it seems the only comparisons are for a certain set of graphs. This is not a true test of compatibilty.

What about how well the pivot table works?, are the goal seeking functions the same (I hope not)?

Surely these should also be mentioned.

why only focus on word art?

Why?

[JanneM]

I mean, Gnumeric is excellent - it even emulates excel bugs if you want to (and will not, otherwise). I seriously do not understand why people would use another spreadhseet.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

?!!! I didn't really know that I wanted to emulate excel bugs. Tell me where to uncheck this "feature" so that I can perhaps have data with over 256 variables ("columns").

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's support for charts, at least in .xls files, sucks big time.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever a KDE advocate asks what the point of Gnome is, or vice versa, the reply is always that diversity on the Linux desktop is an advantage. Why shouldn't that be as true of spreadsheets as it is of desktop environments?

You might as well ask, why are people working on Gnumeric, when they could be improving a product like OOo Calc which has a better chance of catching on.

Re:Why?

[rampant mac]

"I mean, Gnumeric is excellent - it even emulates excel bugs if you want to (and will not, otherwise). I seriously do not understand why people would use another spreadhseet."

I thought OSS was about choice? Fostering competition?

It's a good thing.

Re:Why?

[JanneM]

yes, of course it is a good thing. The comparison in the artictle linked to by the news item is just rather incomplete; the most used OSS spreadsheet is gnumeric and is not subject to the faults as listed by the article writer as it stands.

Re:Why?

[Bob Uhl]

The site is slashdotted, so I cannot tell, but is it even free software/open source? Given that it's developed by a private concern, I doubt it...

Re:Why?

[po_boy]

I would use gnumeric if I could get the solver to work well. I can never seem to make it solve things that I can on Excel.

Re:Why?

[Jody Goldberg]

File a bug, get a patch.
The solver maintainer is reasonably active.

Nice for these "benchmarks"

[CodeMonkey4Hire]

Yeah, they've got their tool kicking OO's butt, but they've also chosen the benchmarks.

I see that the beta is free, but will it stay that way? That's one of the biggest reasons to choose OO (unless you are just an OSS fanatic).

Given MS's recent patent activity...

[RLiegh]

...who really cares? They've filed for beauceaup patents on their future file formats and methods, so once the next version of MS-Office is deployed, your OO.o and other clones will be legally broken.

So, again, I ask: who fucking cares?

mirror of comparison chart

[whizkid042]

http://www.unixauthority.com/~fiskeja/mirror/www.s oftmaker.de/pmwcomp_en.htm

Not necessarily (Re:The wrong path)

[linuxtelephony]

Not necessarily. Think about it. Years ago it was Lotus 1-2-3. Then Borland created their version, Quattro Pro, and included the Lotus 1-2-3 menu structure (as an option) and macro compatibility.

It was this compatibility that enabled a lot of people to leave Lotus for other spreadsheets. I was pretty impressed when Quattro Pro 1, out of the box, was able to run my microwave path calculation tool, for 1-2-3, without ANY modification.

I don't remember early Excel days, by the time I started using Excel, I had been using Quattro Pro for a while. Excel worked in Windows similar to Quattro Pro on DOS, and that was nice at the time.

The point is, it took the compatibility and similarity with the "top dog" in order for new players to get into the game. Once they were in the game, they were able to provide features unique to their product, above and beyond the compatibility with the original. Eventually, the original began to lose its place as the leader.

I'm talking pre-Windows 95 timeframe.

This, and the Xandros Desktop in the previous story, may provide just the similarity necessary to get real people to switch and try it out. Once they find that they CAN make the switch and still do what they need to, they will be more inclined to try more new and different things. When that happens, then Linux on the desktop will be viable, and the Microsoft desktop penetration levels should begin to erode.

Re:Not necessarily (Re:The wrong path)

[Dr. Evil]

microwave path calculation tool

Microwave path calculations are easy... I mean kinda... Joe user who thinks that ProductX sucks because Column H spills off the page when printed, or the pie chart has a 3d effect which doesn't work quite the same way is a much harder problem domain... "but I didn't have any problem with that in Excel!"

IMHO, compatability with any buggy or flakey non-spec is just a dangling carrot.

Don't Forget Gnumeric!

[Rysc]

Gnumeric is a much better spreadsheet program than OOo Spread. It's also better than Excell in all ways in which it competes, except for charting . (And they'll be fixing that *real soon now*). Enough of this crappy OOo stuff and commerical stuff. Use Gnumeric! This is not SIAG or some krappy Koffice attempt, it's teh best Excel-styel spreadsheet program you can get.

Re:Don't Forget Gnumeric!

[praedor]

I've used all three (gnumeric, kspread, and OOcalc). I do find that gnumeric is quite good, but not really any better at those data analysis tools than kspread is. Both gnumeric and kspread suffer (TREMENDOUSLY) in the charting arena. Gnumeric doesn't even have a broken rudimentary graphing capability while kspread ties into kchart which is a horrible charting app. OOcalc kicks both their butts on charting, but it doesn't match up to the charting possible from excel.

Of course, excel cannot hold a candle to the charting capabilites of DeltaGraph or CricketGraph (both Mac apps...do they have PC versions?). I have begged the koffice developers to fix the atrocious kcharting app so that it is actually of use (mostly hard-of-hearing ears if not outright deaf ears). I hope against hope that OO will improve its charting capabilities (C'mon! You CANNOT do proper charting if you don't do error bars). Gnumeric doesn't even enter the picture here. Nothing at all in the charting arena so all the nice data analysis done in gnumeric is for naught. There's no way to plot it out, no way to graphically represent it.

Re:Don't Forget Gnumeric!

[JanneM]

As Jody says in another post, the actual charting is still in its early stages for Gnumeric - but improving rapidly (and user feedback is of course of prime importance).

For the important background parts - getting the mathematics right - Gnumeric is _very_ mature. It has far more reliable models than excel.

(self-serving promotion ahead)
It also has a pretty decent Swedish translation...

Re:Don't Forget Gnumeric!

[Anonymous Coward]

What I don't get is this: Why are we wasting all this effort writing who knows how many seperate spread sheets, why aren't we all working together on one killer spreadsheet backend to do all the math and cell info storage, graph generating etc and then writing frontends for KDE, Gnome, etc? Seems like we could generate a way better product much more quickly this way.

My 2 cents,
Jimmy Tango

Re:Don't Forget Gnumeric!

[Spy Hunter]

Actually, the ears of the KOffice developers are not deaf, they just *don't exist* in many cases. The fact is that KOffice is incredibly undermanned, and many of the components are simply unmaintained (including KChart and the equation editor, I think). It is amazing they have been able to make an office suite at all with as few people as they have. So if you want a part of KOffice to improve, you'll have to fix it yourself.

Near copy of Excel?

[LordSah]

Now that's innovation. Originality at its best. If only I had the ability to think up features like that.

I guess it'll probably be cheaper than Excel proper. One reason is they didn't have to pay any designers or usability experts. Thanks, Microsoft, for doing all that.

This is conjecture, as their server seems already dead.

Re:Near copy of Excel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, MS stole the design and usability from Quattro Pro and Lotus 1-2-3, so thank Corel and IBM! Yes, MS truely innovates at stealing shit from others in new and unthought of ways.

Re:Near copy of Excel?

[Anonymous Coward]

But consider the effort the users put into LEARNING how to use Excel. Why should Microsoft own that? Did Microsoft pay for that?

And all the Excel documents people have already created -- why should Microsoft own those? Did Microsoft pay for those documents to be created?

What's wrong with creating software that enables people to use their own knowledge in the way that they choose?

Re:Near copy of Excel?

[teeker]

Complain all you want, but that is exactly the kind of thing that a company like the one I work for needs to seriously consider a switch to a Linux desktop. On the one hand, FOSS zealots somehow see the logic in handing out CDs with free software to get Win users "used to" free software to make the switch easier...but somehow if you're trying to make the switch easier by making the FOSS more like what they're already used to, then it's a terrible idea.

I just don't get it.

Re:Near copy of Excel?

[double_h]

Just like Microsoft didn't have to pay any designers or usability experts for all of the UI ideas they borrowed from Digital Research (GEM), Apple, Xerox/PARC, the X Consortium, etc.

Re:Near copy of Excel?

[LordSah]

I would argue that it is one thing to acknowledge trends in the industry and utilize those concepts in your software and quite another thing to go through a product, dialog by dialog, and clone it. The notion of a graphical interface is an evolutionary idea, given that it's a more natural interface for humans. PARC may have demonstrated it first, but I don't berate Microsoft for deciding that windowed operating systems was the future.

Windows has never been a near copy of anything else, unlike our dear PlanMaker under discussion.

Re:Near copy of Excel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Microsoft weren't deliberately cloning those other companies' products, and then using the similarity as a marketing plus point.

Re:Near copy of Excel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Excel was the first GUI spreadsheet (or one of the first), and everyone else has copied their interface, not visa-versa.

See the early half-GUI hacks on 1-2-3, they're nothing like a modern spreadsheet UI.

Re:Near copy of Excel?

[double_h]

I see lots of similarities between Windows and other early GUIs (MacOS and GEM), but you are correct that there is a difference between borrowing general look-and-feel and writing a functional equivilant to a specific piece of software.

The thing is, the typical end user of a tool like a spreadsheet or word processor is less interested in innovation and more interested in something that conforms to their experience of other similar tools -- people don't want to have to learn a whole new set of keybindings and work habits when moving from program to program.

Word and Excel are ubiquitous to the point where they have set a standard of what people think of (in terms of interface and features) when they think of a spreadsheet or word processor; for a developer to ignore that would be sort of like a piano maker building a piano with round keys and expecting people to instantly favor it "because it's still a piano".

When you buy a license to use Excel, the right to use the software legally is only one of the things you're paying for. You're also paying for tech support, you're paying for accountability (somebody to point the finger at when your data myteriously vanishes), and to a certain extent you're making an investment in the future development of the software. That's all important for large businesses and other organizations, but I don't think it's unreasonable for an individual or small business to want a compatible tool without paying for the rest of the baggage implied by the license cost.

I think it's a legitimate viewpoint to be critical of software which copies the functions and interface of other programs, but I don't think it's a viewpoint that's healthy for the marketplace or one that best encourages the growth and evolution of the state of software as a whole.

I don't see any real difference between work-alike software like Planmaker and, say, someone writing a new C compiler to an existing standard, or AMD making chips that run code written on Intel machines. And in both of those cases, I strongly think that the existence of copycats is good for users, good for the marketplace (by discouraging monopoly), and good for the state of technology.

But the clueless will not get it.

[nlinecomputers]

I agree with you that Linux must make a better product not an equal product. But like it or not it is a Windows world.

"When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format."

By doing that are you "making a stand that Joe User will notice" or just being an irritant that will make people avoid dealing with you(assuming they have that choice).

Linux is going to have to do both. Show that it can work with Windows, easily, AND do it better. You attitude about file formats just shows them that Linux is neither.

Re:But the clueless will not get it.

[Patoski]

Show that it can work with Windows, easily, AND do it better. You attitude about file formats just shows them that Linux is neither.

I disagree strongly. Linux *does* need to provide an easy migration path from Office to StarOffice (Crossover Office is a great choice here) as well as many other critical apps. Linux does not need to do things any better than MS. At worst Linux just needs to be "as good" from a user standpoint.

Linux offers other large advantages that MS can never offer customers. The main one from a business oriented viewpoint is the lack of vendor choice that comes with picking MS. One of the first things business people try to avoid is getting tied to one vendor that is critical to the operations of their business. With Windows there is and only ever will be one vendor but with Linux you have your pick. That is a substantial risk which has been underlined with MS' recent stunts regarding licensing and not releasing an OS during said licensing period.

People in power at many large organizations are very aware of this risk. The city of Munich defection to Suse (now Novell) is a perfect example. Balmer cut his vacation short and personally flew out to Munich and offered the city a lower price than what Suse had quoted. Munich ended up with Suse for strategic reasons as they put it. Translated that means we don't want to risk our check book/infrastructure on MS' good will.

On top of that Linux is cheaper so it can afford to be "good enough." Ballmer said himself that MS cannot compete on price and they must try to convince people that MS software is a better value than Linux. This is a much harder sell for MS in the current spending averse environment we're currently in.

There are lots of other techincal administrative advantages we could discuss but that conversation has been beat into the dirt around here.

data analysis lacking?

[ecklesweb]

Looking through the product's web site, it looks like the software is pretty lacking compared to Excel in the data analysis arena. According to the site, the data analysis features include:

Analyze Data

Create database ranges inside your worksheets
Data grouping (outliner)
Sort, filter by condition, AutoFilter
Database functions for sum, average, variance, etc.

No ANOVA, regression analysis, t tests, correlation, etc.? No pivot tables? That's most of what I find Excel useful for!

Hopefully someone can tell me I'm wrong and that these features are included.

How does OpenOffice compare in terms of data analysis? (I've <gasp> never used it).

Re:data analysis lacking?

[happyfrogcow]

two words... analyze this (_|_)

(sorry, i just couldn't resist)

Re:data analysis lacking?

[Jody Goldberg]

If you're looking for analysis tools in a spreadsheet Gnumeric has alot to offer. Here's a screen shot of just some of the available utilities. The additional worksheet functions (above and beyond MS Excel) are also quite useful.

For PocketPC too!

[xaqar]

Don't miss the Pocket PC version as well! It supports everything that the desktop version does, unlike MS's own Pocket Excel, which barely does anything!

You were right...

[freeze128]

It didn't last long.

Re:You were right...

[PeteDotNu]

So I should be getting +3 insightful any second now...

More innovation from open source!

[Anonymous Coward]

Man this software is sooo innovative I've never seen anything like it before!

These open source guys are really geniuses at developing innovative software!

The old Look and Feel problem?

[BrentRJones]

I recall Lotus had a lawsuit against As-Easy-As or some such company. They claimed that copyright protected against keystroke compatibility, look and feel to user and file spec being identical. Will this ever surface again?

--..

Re:The old Look and Feel problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually they sued SCO many many years ago (the original Santa Cruz Operation - not the SCO of today which is Caldera/Canopy group). SCO had a Lotus 123 compatible product called SCO Professional - Lotus didn't like it and they sued. In the end they settled out of court.

The RIGHT path

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

As long as Linux application developers continue to copy Microsoft, in a vain attempt to be "compatible," Microsoft will always have the edge.

What if MS Excel does things that people want done in a way they want them done? For example, suppose that Excel's core functionality is exactly what most people that use Excel want? Are you saying that Linux developers should ignore what people want just to be different than Windows? That's silly. And, what about compatibility and learning curves? I thought in the Ideal World, people could choose the OS they want and still be able to do business with people who use something else, and Excel compatibility should be high on that list.

I don't like major car manufacturers, therefore I refuse to drive cars that use tires?

Re:The RIGHT path

[squiggleslash]

If your reason for wanting GNU/Linux is a dislike of Microsoft, then you're in the wrong place. That's most certainly not a good reason to switch.

If you don't like their products, that's an excellent reason to switch. However, if the alternatives are nothing but poor clones of their products, then you have nothing to switch to.

If MS Excel does things that people want done in a way they want them done, those people should use Excel. It's the right tool for the job they want to do.

Sales Pitch?

[CodeMonkey4Hire]

I noticed that Martin Kotulla's "email" address is http://www.softmaker.de. Doesn't that make this an unabashed sails pitch to /. users?

Re:Sales Pitch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno if he is pitching any "sails"..

He could be pitching a "sale" though.

Re:Sales Pitch?

[Dayflowers]

I believe so. But its not like its something rare to see on slashdot. :\

Re:Sales Pitch?

[advocate_one]

you'd think that he'd have made sure his own servers could withstand a slashdotting now wouldn't you...

Re:Sales Pitch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well.. at least give the company some credit for honesty. At least they didn't post with a made-up random joe sounding name like 2/3rds of the articles posted to Slashdot that involve new products. Besides, this is Slashdot. We like Linux.

Important thing is

[not_a_product_id]

I think you can make a strong case for saying that this is a good way to easy non /. folk onto Linux. My mum is doing the European Computer Driving License (ECDL) for her work. When I asked her if I should restore an old PC for her by puting Linux on it she wanted to know if it would support the sort of stuff they have in the ECDL. Like Excel. This might have swung it.

Yes but...

[FreemanPatrickHenry]

...does it have Clippy?

score!

[Anonymous Coward]

that is the first troll mod i've ever gotten. yay for me!

new sig:

my vbscript still won't work

Server down

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that not only did they port Excel, they also decided to port Web Server 2003.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

When is microsoft gonna come out with a new version of excel that kills the compatibility?

We Don't Need Another Spreadsheet

[theManInTheYellowHat]

We need to be able to edit Flash files, edit Movies, make better websites.

Microsoft Office has been done, done to death, and the resounding tone is that there is precious little inovation left to do. Macromedia, Adobe and Apple are making the software that needs to run on Linux box.

Honestly with OpenOffice, gnumeric and kspread what else do you need for a spreadsheet?

Wordart in Excel BFD. Garageband, Premeire, Flash MX, Dreamweaver, FinalCut.....

Re:We Don't Need Another Spreadsheet

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash doesn't make a better website, web standards do.

Re:We Don't Need Another Spreadsheet

[ratamacue]

Personally I have never seen a website I considered "better" for the use of Flash or another proprietary extension. In most cases, the people who use Flash are the same people who completely ignore web standards.

Re:We Don't Need Another Spreadsheet

[im a fucking coward]

Wordart in Excel BFD. Garageband, Premeire, Flash MX, Dreamweaver, FinalCut...

Here here my good man, I second the motion. The reasons for porting yet another ss to Linux seem spurious. Perhaps it's just them beginning an effort to seriously build functional crossover apps. Full AutoCAD, AVID, and that abortion of an email server, Exchange are but a few of the apps. I'd find useful and pay for on Linux.

Re:We Don't Need Another Spreadsheet

[Anonymous Coward]

Web standards don't pay the bills.

dude we're talking ab out open source here...

[Anonymous Coward]

The goal is to make the interface look the same as the original but leave at all the important features (those are too tough to program)

For example, Gimp on the surface looks like photoshop but actually use it for anything major and you quickly discover its missing a lot.

Or the Visio and it's clone, I don't even remember what it's called...it just barely works enough to say on a distro box "visio-like functionality" but aside from the most basic features it doesn't have shit compared to Visio.

The name of the open source game is "cheap imitation" not "fully featured".

Not JUST 'pre-windows95'...

[RLiegh]

but pre patents, dmca and the complete entrenchment of MS.

Your analogy doesn't fit because you're talking about a time when the marketplace supported the concept of alternatives; but these days, they only want one solution: and that solution is microsoft.

Re:Not JUST 'pre-windows95'...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, in those days, when people meant "spreadsheet", they said "Lotus". They were completely entrenched with a 90% marketshare. There was never a time when PC users "supported the concept of alternatives", you just went from one monopoly vendor to another (MS).

It took major fuckups on Lotus' part and some good clones (both Excel and Quatro) to change that.

Pac-man?

[pw1972]

But can it run pac man for Excel??? http://www1.plala.or.jp/chikada/vba/pac/pacelle_dl .htm

Re:Pac-man?

[molarmass192]

I don't think it supports VBA (my download got /. before completing) so I doubt it. I like the concept of using PacMan for Excel as a compatibility test though!!!

Everything and more

[egarland]

In order to do everything that Microsoft can do and more, first you need to be able to do everything Microsoft can do. It's hard to say "Mine can't do everything that one can but it's still better" (unless you are MS.)

Now of course, you will never be a perfect clone of MS stuff but to say it's unimportant to copy their feature set is to ignore a serious issue.

Re:Everything and more

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's hard to say "Mine can't do everything that one can but it's still better" (unless you are MS.)"

You mean unless you are a Linux fanboy!!! That's all that is spouted around here.

We windows users don't have to keep shouting how great our product is. We know the truth.

Linux users keep saying the same thing over and over in the hopes that if they say it enough, the fantasy might come true.

Re:Everything and more

[egarland]

Actually, I did mean unless you are MS. MS's software is concidered the default. They can claim that their software can't do everything other peoples does but is still better because it's ubiquitous which is an advantage by itself. MS's software can be worse but still perceived as the better option simply because it's MS's.

Linux fanboys can be annoying but I find MS fanboys much more annoying and there are a lot more of them, especially in IT management.

MS's software is often good (I use it constantly) but Linux's software is also good and has much more promise than the MS lock-in enabled stuff.

Powerpoint tool?

[baudilus]

Add in an on par word processor, powerpoint tool, and outlook-esque client and you'll win a lot of new clients.

Powerpoint is Microsoft's branding of their presentation tool. This just goes to show you how pervasive Microsoft is; they're getting to be like Band-Aid and Vaseline - people refer to any adhesive bandange or petroleum jelly (respectively) using these brand names.

BTW - there are plenty of e-mail clients for Linux that have similar layouts to Outlook. A windows user would likely switch just because of Outlook's insecure nature. You don't need to be compatible with Outlook in order to read emails ;)

Beta sucks

[koinu]

[...] Now in Beta

Don't they use C or C++ anymore?

Future Office *net/Mono?

[nurb432]

In theory, if microsoft writes a future version of office in *.net as they suggest, wouldnt that mean we can just run mono and have the 'real deal' on *nix?

No porting required...

Though id still use alternative personally, business needs compatibility ..

Re:Future Office *net/Mono?

[krumms]

In theory, if microsoft writes a future version of office in *.net as they suggest, wouldnt that mean we can just run mono and have the 'real deal' on *nix?

No porting required...

Nope. You'd have the same trouble that Wine's having at the moment, as System.Windows.Forms (i.e. UI API for .NET on Windows) is built on top of the Win32 API stuff.

And since Mono's implementation of System.Windows.Forms is relatively sucky (because it's built on top of Wine - they prefer GTK#, and so would I) you'd most likely be S.O.L as far as an 'instant port' goes.

That's the magic of .NET.

Mind you, Swing applications generally suck hard too, but for different reasons :)

Another "Will Not Succeed" project

[siphoncolder]

1) *nix only. That doesn't sell copies, since everyone else is using Windows. This is the #1 way to cut out a gigantic market demographic for software developers these days, especially when we're talking about desktop software.

2) Multinational support: it's not just about translation. Different cultures really do have different needs, and most non-MS office software is aimed purely at Western markets. Try doing that in Asia. MS found out it didn't work that way, and these countries will discover that too.

3) Competition: This product is doomed to compete with other *nix spreadsheet programs as mentioned in this thread - there's no dominance to be had. Take point #1 above (market demographic), and then take a sliver out of that sliver. There's your sales. Good luck guys.

Re:Another "Will Not Succeed" project

[Anonymous Coward]

Youre so stupid that you didn't even took time to see that the software runs on mac and windows... duh!

Re:Another "Will Not Succeed" project

[hyperstation]

apparently, no one reads the article or the comments they're moderating anymore

1) *nix only. That doesn't sell copies, since everyone else is using Windows. This is the #1 way to cut out a gigantic market demographic for software developers these days, especially when we're talking about desktop software.

PlanMaker is not only available for Linux, but has versions for Windows, Pocket PCs and Handheld PCs as well...

Re:Another "Will Not Succeed" project

[_xeno_]

1) *nix only. That doesn't sell copies, since everyone else is using Windows. This is the #1 way to cut out a gigantic market demographic for software developers these days, especially when we're talking about desktop software.

Actually, if you looked at the very top of the page, you'd notice that Slashdot only linked to the Linux beta page. There's a Windows version, plus a PocketPC version, and a Handheld PC version (whatever "handheld PC" means - I could only pull up the linked page, after that, the site died).

Of course, as to whether or not this will succeed - who knows. There probably is a market for 100% feature-complete Excel clone that runs on multiple platforms. You wouldn't believe how much Excel gets used in the buisness world - I've seen it used as a database before! It gets used a lot as a very powerful and very easy to use data storage and presentation tool. Plus the VBScript macros are very powerful - if a little on the slow side and annoying to write.

I'm currently writing an application in Excel. No, seriously. I'd rather use something else. (Anything else!) But the client wants to add some code to an existing Excel spreadsheet to get some added functionality. VBScript and Windows Forms allows me to do that job with just Excel. Of course, this ties the customer to Excel and Windows - giving them another option in the future that's cheaper than the Microsoft solution could very well gain customers.

Although I tend to agree - I doubt that this will have much effect against Microsoft or any of the other Linux spread sheets.

Gay

[Anonymous Coward]

Great! Maybe TechTV would do a show on it!

Allows migration

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an advantage to this though. It is not to the advantage of this software in particular, but to the Linux community as a whole.

One of the major barriers for people migrating from Windows to Linux is not just adjusting to a new environment, but being able to do their previous day-to-day tasks in this new environment in an effortless, pain-free way. Such seemingly simple things as loading their documents. With that safely covered, they can then focus on the rich opportunities that Linux offers.

Without Planmaker, OpenOffice and other software that is able to interoperate with MS-Office, many users will stall adopting linux as their primary (or even secondary platform) despite the other benefits.

This does not mean that ALL Linux-based software has to mimic the Windows counterparts.

The point is, that conformation is advantageous in KEY areas that slow the adoption of Linux, if merely to encourage people to be exposed to the *rest* of the Linux universe.

You can't merely offer an 'alternative' and expect people to migrate. You have to let people know that they can do the same tasks as in Windows AND MORE. This way, they have nothing to lose in tinkering. Otherwise, what incentive do they have?

(just for the record, I don't believe in 'converting' people, just showing them attractive and workable options)

"like it or not, it's a windows world"

[RLiegh]

Thank you! That is exactly the truth. And with the way that MS is setting up patents on its' file formats and methods, it will soon become a "windows and nothing but windows" world.

It's just time to get the fuck out of computing, period. The fight is over, and OSS has been pummeled.

Eastereggs

[Borg453b]

While slightly off topic; it has to be said - a good office suit comes with a cool set of eastereggs.

Does anyone know of any cool eastereggs in the latest office package?

Re:Eastereggs

[Anonymous Coward]

I found one totally by accident. I don't have space in this comment to explain how to recreate it but it involves thousands of keystrokes and mouseclicks and takes hours to do. But if you do go through all that trouble, you will be rewarded with a colorful blue screen with wonderful white lettering that says IRQ_LESSTHAN_OR_EQ or something like that. I highly recommend it!

Re:Eastereggs

[Borg453b]

Really? What a coincidence - I've seen the exact same one as well..

What about Gnumeric?

[DuckWing]

Gnumeric has always been great at loading Excel spreadsheets and offers pretty good compatibility for what I do (don't do a lot of charting). How does it stack up?

Some of those tests are reasonable, many are not.

[Jody Goldberg]

Password protection and array formulas are both reasonably frequent operations I've had to support both for Gnumeric. Some of the, such as 'legend.xls' are quite contrived. I spent last night enabling gradient import from charts to make it that one look better but had the same problem as OOo w.r.t. multiple legend entries. It was not too difficult to see which import flag was causing the problem, but I had no idea how to produce such a chart. Try it yourself in XL. There is no obvious way to produce a legend with fewer elements than series. It took some googling and careful mousework to figure out what they had done to produce it. Gnumeric 1.3.1 will support it, but I'd characterize this test as 'dirty pool' rather than 'fair comparison'

Thanks to the softmaker folk for producing some new test cases for us.

Widnows version

[b4rtm4n]

The comparison chart linked to in the article points to planmaker -> windows -> comparison.

The linux version is still listed as beta and expires June 1 and there is no visual comparison of the Linux version with excel.

The windows version is listed as final beta.

Sooo basically it's not finished/ready for full release yet.

/me decides to wait.

Uh, from someone who actually is trying it . . .

[Idou]

it seems pretty quick (especially when comparing it to OO 1.1, I suppose that is because it is just a spreadsheet program). And it seems to open xls files as quick as Excel.

Seems to be in a niche between OO which allows you to save to xls and gnumeric, which I didn't think allowed you to save to xls format but is very light and quick.

Oh, and it seems to support OO's calc format.

No, maybe it will not save the world, but it just may help a handful more people move to Linux and reward a commericial developer for supporting Linux. Though, I am sure it is not for EVERYONE.

Weak charting

[Jody Goldberg]

Gnumeric is admittedly still pretty weak on the charting side. However, things are improving quickly. Please file a few feature requests to help guide things. 1.3.x has support for error bars now (still need to hook up the xls import for that) and the polar (what xl calls radar) plot engine is in place too. My short term goals are to extend the axis mapping support, and add a gnuplotish implicit iterator feature that is not in XL.

Re:Weak charting

[zojas]

awesome!

I've used and loved gnumeric for a long time now. thank you so much!

the only feature I miss from excel is split views onto the spreadsheet. I have a spreadsheet with a huge column of numbers which are summed at the bottom. I would like to always see the sums, while I move around in the column of numbers.

Re:Weak charting

[zojas]

I just found the 'freeze panes' menu item, but that's not quite what I want. I want independent panes with their own scrollbars, but in the same x client (not just a different view)

Unfortunately...

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

It looks like they've also cloned Excels license and distribution terms.

Gnumeric and OpenOffice.org Calc will do me just fine.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly why nobody develops for Linux anymore. Linux users are not prepared to pay for software.

Re:Unfortunately...

[stephanruby]

One Linux user does not equal all Linux users. Besides, the parent post doesn't even talk about the price, he talks about the license terms. Those two are not necessarily the same thing.

Re:Unfortunately...

[martin-k]

No, in fact we haven't.

It's commercial software, I need to make payroll every month. If you can get over this fact, the rest is really lenient. Remember Philippe Kahn's "just like a book" license? That's what our license is modeled after -- install on as many machines as you like, but only use as many copies concurrently as you have licenses.

If "free" is what you are after, get ahold of a copy of SUSE Linux 9.1. It ships with TextMaker Free Edition and PlanMaker Free Edition.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Directrix1]

As long as everybody insists on cloning then we will never break free from Microsoft. As long as the files are called 'Microsoft Excel' files, then Microsoft will set the standard. What we need is a multiplatform, superior, competing open source product (OpenOffice is off to a good start on this). A product that makes people say, "Hey I have an OpenOffice spreadsheet to send you." not "Hey I have a Microsoft Excel file to send you." Once we quit letting Microsoft set the standards is the only time we will be free. But to do that, everything made must strive to be multiplatform INCLUDING EXCELLENT WINDOWS COMPATABILITY (NOT EXCEPTIONAL FUNCTIONALITY THOUGH), AND it must be a superior product (not about as good).

Re:Unfortunately...

[Pikhq]

The source isn't free.(as in speech)
From the GNU Philosophy page, the Free Software Song, by RMS, will follow.
Join us now and share the software;
You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free.
x2

Hoarders may get piles of money,
That is true, hackers, that is true.
But they cannot help their neighbors;
That's not good, hackers, that's not good.

When we have enough free software
At our call, hackers, at our call,
We'll throw out those dirty licenses
Ever more, hackers, ever more.

Join us now and share the software;
You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free.
x2

Microsoft Common UI

[nuggz]

IIRC Microsoft has a common UI standard for all applications.
I think it was published as a recommendation for Windows programmers back in the pre 3.1 days.

I can't imagine Microsoft winning a suit against someone for implementing their UI when they specifically recommended people keep a consistent UI for all applications.

Re:Only looking at graphics output biased comparis

[Anonymous Coward]

What about how well the pivot table works?, are the goal seeking functions the same (I hope not)?

Surely these should also be mentioned.

why only focus on word art?

Because your PHB couldn't care less about pivot tables and goal seeking functions, but shiny word art and flashy graphs might just convince him that it's possible for non-Microsoft software to be worth considering.

Mac Excel is a UNIX Excel

[peter303]

MS Excel has been on UNIX several times. First, when MsDoS and Windows were too weak to develop on until the mid 1990s, MS developed their products on UNIX Vaxes. Second, when Apple moved to its flavor of UNIX a couple years ago, so did MS Apple Office.

MS is too pig-headed to sell Office on UNIX/Linux even when such exists.

Re:Mac Excel is a UNIX Excel

[Anonymous Coward]

VAX systems didn't run UNIX, they ran VMS. dumbass.

Re:Mac Excel is a UNIX Excel

[tkanerva]

troll?

at least our university had VAXen running an UNIX os... namely the Digital Ultrix, of course.

Still Waiting on Solver

[syntap]

Solver is the only thing keeping me with Excel... I couldn't find an equivilent in OpenOffice but hopefully it'll be there one day.

Re:Still Waiting on Solver

[Jody Goldberg]

Gnumeric has solver, goal seek, and iterative expressions.

Re:Still Waiting on Solver

[syntap]

Yeah, but I need a multi-platform option.

Re:Still Waiting on Solver

[po_boy]

I can't get the solver to work on rather simple spreadsheets like I can in Excel. I just assumed it was a known bug, but perhaps it's user error. Does the solver in gnumeric work?

256 columns

[Jody Goldberg]

This has been supported for quite some time as a compile time option. The 256 is maintained as the default for XL compatibilty.

RTFA please..Re:Another "Will Not Succeed" project

[advocate_one]

You are a twit... would you like to try reading the F'ing article next time... Planmaker for MS-Windows already exists and is refered to on their webpage... but I can't give you the precise link 'cos the site's been slashdotted... Here's the griff from the google cache of their home page

SoftMaker is dedicated to creating office productivity software for popular operating systems, including Windows, Windows CE, and Linux.

Our current English-language products comprise TextMaker and PlanMaker, a word processor and a spreadsheet for Windows, Linux, Pocket PCs, and Handheld PCs, and MegaFont XXL, a 10,000-fonts typeface library for Windows, Linux, and OS/2.

I'm part of the public beta program for the Linux versions and am a happy customer using the Linux version of Textmaker.

Also Softmaker are perfectly happy sticking to the English and European markets... they're obviously doing well as they're still in existence after several years.

chart import

[Jody Goldberg]

This is still not to the point where'd I'd like it but it's no longer a bad joke (aka 1.0.x). Have you tried 1.2.x ? If there are still problems please submit samples it helps us to prioritize which areas to focus on. Thanks to the softmaker tests I just added xls import support for gradient backgrounds, things are starting to look reasonably pretty.

Re:Some of those tests are reasonable, many are no

[martin-k]

Jody: We grabbed nearly all test files from the web. These are actual files that ordinary users have created and that were available for download at some place, and we used them to hone our Excel import filters for PlanMaker.

The problem is usually not files that have only been edited in one version of Excel, but went through different versions and service packs of Excel, OpenOffice, Gnumeric, whatever. Maybe the files are not valid anymore according to the "official" specs, but as long as Excel (and PlanMaker) read them and display them correctly, they _are_ correct for the regular user.

P.S.: I still have that e-mail from you in my box. Sorry for not getting back sooner...

Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Gnumeric can export to xls.

[Jody Goldberg]

We've support XL95 and XL 97/2k/XP for quite a while.

Re:Gnumeric can export to xls.

[Idou]

Sorry, I stand corrected. I just installed Gnumeric and it definitely is fastest (even in KDE). Keep up the great work!

TextMaker is good

[ChiralSoftware]

I've used their word processor. It works very well. It loads fast and feels very polished. The only problem is that it still uses a proprietary file format (MS .doc format) which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. There are so many great tools out there for manipulating XML programatically; it seems like XML is the only viable option right now for creating files which will be searchable and transformable for years to come. If I use some strange proprietary format like MS .doc, basically my files are locked up and someone else has the keys to them. Not a good position to be in.

However, the next version of TextMaker is supposed to support .sxw (OpenOffice.org) formats, as is KOffice 1.4. Then we will have a truly portable document format for use with cross-platform office software.

-------------
Create a WAP server

Open Office plug-in for Excel?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about writing an open office plugin for all those excel users. Maybe by providing such a plug-in, we will all have a common format (OpenOffice) to save our files in.

Re:The wrong path - "opening formats"

[Anonymous Coward]

WAIT A MINUTE!!! This is Microsoft we're talking about here. They don't even care about compatibility with their own stuff from last year, so what weight do you think competitor compatibility will carry?

xls is documented

[Jody Goldberg]

somewhat

It is a persistent untruth that there is no documentation for these vast binary blobs. MS itself published their internal docs as what I assume was filler material in the 'Excel 97 Developers kit' they were not complete, and have been known to contain errors or miss features. However they are a decent starting point. The OOo folk have also done a wonderful job of writing up the format. The vast majority of the work reading xls has nothing to do with deciphering the bits. The real issue is mapping or figuring out the datastructures that the format implies. If you can use an internal representation that mirrors MS XL import/export is trivial. When there is an impedence mismatch ... there is alot more work and bugs.

Databases seem to lack on Linux

[Tyfud]

Excel isn't really a database, it's a spreadsheet, but this is a bit closer. The problem with just porting it over to Linux is Microsoft gained control of a little piece more of the competitive OS. Can't keep porting crap over to Linux, have to build a better version of it which can convert MS app files/documents, and force Microsoft to keep up with the changes. Without the dedicated development team MS has, it would be difficult though to make consistant and coordinated changes to a program like that. Anyhow, I'm not too happy with this port. Linux is looking more like MS Linux.

Improv!

[RetiredMidn]

There's a place for compatible products to accommodate "switchers", but the platform is best served by unique "killer apps."

I'd like to see the original Improv, developed by Lotus for the NeXT platform, revived on Linux. (I'd most like to see it revived on OS X, which is derived from NeXT, but that's another discussion...)

The killer features in Excel

[salesgeek]

OK great, an product that does 90 % of what excel does. here are the three killer components of excel:

* MS Querry
* Pivot Tables & Charts
* Add Ins

Excel didn't become a killer product until they bought what became MS Querry from a company called pioneer software. With MS Querry, the wall between spreadsheet and database came down and users who knew spreadsheets could to detailed analysis and reporting. Pivot tables extended this capability.

Add ins made it easy for users... I have yet to see a decent replacement for pivot tables.

Re:The killer features in Excel

[TheLink]

Uh I thought the "killer" features in Excel were the macroviruses. Those were really killer stuff :).

The Antivirus industry wouldn't be so big without all that stuff.

Must Respectfully Disagree

[duck_prime]

As long as Linux application developers continue to copy Microsoft, in a vain attempt to be "compatible," Microsoft will always have the edge. They will always set the pace for others to follow.

If you want to make a better product, you can't "embrace and extend." You have to make a better product. By providing file-reading compatibility, you only re-enforce the proliferation of closed file formats. [...]

I think you may be neglecting an important point here: why would anyone want to switch away from Excel? Excel is a great app, and essentially ubiquitous.

Your point about needing to be better is well-taken, but if you want people to risk a switch, you have to make it easy for them to switch, and -- most importantly -- easy for them to switch back. For this reason, you really have to support Excel file formats for import and export.

That done, you have a chance to do in the spreadsheet arena what Apache did in the web server arena: commoditize the product to the point where there is really no point in having a commercial closed app.

To my knowledge this has not been done successfully with any business application, but it's worth a try.

100% compatible office

[dokebi]

I've said this before but always got modded as troll, but Karma be damned, I'll say it again.

There has to be a 100% MS Office compatible Office as a drop in replacement for MS office.

Think about it. If you like Emacs, would you accept anything other than 100% emacs keys compatible editor? If you like Vi, wouldn't you do the same? How about grep or sed? Would you accept a slightly incompatible perl? So why would anyone think all those office workers, secretaries, administrators, would give up MS Office to use something very different than what they're used to?

If an important application or program has to be replaced, there has to be a drop-in-replacement for it. The same was true for the IBM XT, it is true now. (IBM had zero competition from other PC makers who made "almost IBM compatible" machines. Only after Compaq made "100% IBM Compatible" machines did IBM started to lose marketshare) If there was a free (or cheap) office suit that had all features and identical menu structure to say Office 2000, small businesses and individuals won't think twice about switching to that.

Re:100% compatible office

[serbanp]

If you like Vi, wouldn't you do the same?

Don't be silly. I like vi, but if you have access to vim, it would be really stupid to enable the "vi compatability mode" just to enjoy the classic vi feel.

Serban

Microsoft to sue?

[Taxilian]

Is anyone else waiting to see how long it takes microsoft to sue them and try to get rid of the "clone"? If it's as close as they say, chances are good it violates a patent or two, or if it doesn't I'm sure Microsoft will find a way to make it violate something else. Mark my words... the Gates will not be pleased.

The Microsoft Language Project

[torpor]

This just goes to show you how pervasive Microsoft is; they're getting to be like Band-Aid and Vaseline - people refer to any adhesive bandange or petroleum jelly (respectively) using these brand names.

I believe, if you look closely and not always brashly at what you see, that Microsoft is a Master at language-control propaganda methods.

Microsoft "Windows", "Word", "Excel", "Passport". They have, using copyright/trademark registration backed up by the full force of the U.S. Government, usurped a significant chunk of the English dictionary and grafted their own contemporary definitions.

The "he inserted microsoft in the socket behind his ear" pun of Gibson&co. is a delicate stab at this issue, which has been ongoing for quite some time.

Software "registration" of common English words, and the commercialized property now granted as a result of it, is taking its toll on English as a language ... Microsoft aren't the only ones doing it, but from them you can learn -many- worthy things in this regard.

{I find this aspect of their 'leadership' of the computing industry to be detestable, and this is why I don't ever use Microsoft products. Ever.}

Re:The Microsoft Language Project

[gglaze]

I believe, if you look closely and not always brashly at what you see, that Microsoft is a Master at language-control propaganda methods.

Microsoft "Windows", "Word", "Excel", "Passport". They have, using copyright/trademark registration backed up by the full force of the U.S. Government, usurped a significant chunk of the English dictionary and grafted their own contemporary definitions.

Or maybe they are just good at coming up with simple, catchy product names...

Nice conspiracy theory though... can I borrow one of your tin-foil hats?

Re:The Microsoft Language Project

[Deternal]

For this reason I insist on saying/writing MS or Microsoft infront of things.

I /never/ say 'Word' - of course my users sometimes get annoyed the 3rd. time I correct them on it - the point is valid though.

I've been telling a friend for a long time that I'm using a messenger - he now understands that that is not the same as MS messenger :)

Re:The Microsoft Language Project

[Minna Kirai]

Microsoft "Windows", "Word", "Excel", "Passport"

You omitted several (including some now-defunct products that were historically important):
Microsoft "Program Manager", "File Manager", "Paint", "Explorer", "Document", "Bitmap". (Claiming the generic term "Document" as their own was an especially valuable coup)

PS. The TFH reply you garnered is insipid. "Tin-Foil Hat" has become overused as an all-purpose insult, instead of an allusion to a specific pattern of belief.

Re:The Microsoft Language Project

[torpor]

Or maybe they are just good at coming up with simple, catchy product names...

okay. heres a clue, cadet:

"what is the definition of the word 'catchy'?"

grammar nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

to see how Gnumeric fares

Hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Did any linux developers ever stop and think that if I wanted microsoft software, I would use Windows! Why dont these developers write something original rather then trying to copy microsoft.

Re:Hmm..

[alcal74]

Maybe b/c MSFT has about 95% of the spreadsheet market. The only way you're gonna get people to try (and switch) to other forms of well-known software is to make it MSFT compatible...

wrong nazi

[rkaa]

>to see how Gnumeric fares

That isn't grammar. It's spelling .

Re:wrong nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

Both are words, therefore it's grammar.

Re:wrong nazi

[tepples]

Now you're being a nazism nazi. Sieg Heil!

My question: what is a "word", other than a fancy text editor from Microsoft? The definition "string of alphanumeric characters delimited by space characters" doesn't work in speech or in many languages' writing systems.

Re:wrong nazi

[rkaa]

word != grammar
Excerpt from Cambridge Dictionaries Online:

word (LANGUAGE UNIT)
noun
1 a single unit of language which has meaning and can be spoken or written

grammar
noun
(the study or use of) the rules about how words change their form and combine with other words to make sentences

It will

[the_thunderbird]

eat your braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaane!!!!

MOD Parent UP

[DerFeuervogel]

I am out of moderation points.

So your suggestion would be....?

[lodurr]

I think innovation is a great thing. And I'd love to see innovation in spreadsheets.

So where should we start? What should be done differently from the way it's done now, in Excel?

And how should we get people to start using it?

Because, of course, if not very many people use it...then not very many people will use it. (With apologies to The Yogi....)

Hooray for apathy...

[Anonymous Coward]

"But like it or not it is a Windows world."

...perpetuated by statements like this, with no suggestions, encouragement or intention to use an alternative. Establishing a new competitor requires active effort, and doesn't just happen passively.

"Hey, I know the police routinely come to your house and beat up your family, but like it or not, it's a police state. What can you do?"

Why only 256 columns?

[gnugnugnu]

This has been supported for quite some time as a compile time option. The 256 is maintained as the default for XL compatibilty.

Could it be made into a runtime condition?
Does it hurt performance to have more than 256 columns by default?

Perhaps if there was a warning given when you exceed 256 columns or when you try to save to Excel and you document contains more than 256 columns.

Features that are hard to find are wasted on most users, if it were a visible user configurable option it would not be so hiddent and Gnumeric would get more of the credit it so rightly deserves for being just about the best spreadsheat out there!

example of MSWord xml file, paragraph 1 of parent

[Anonymous Coward]

MS's XML format is more of a PR stunt then really being openJames ChoJames Cho102004-05-07T17:59:00Z2004-05-07T17:59:00Z11558 89JamesTech Industries72104211.6113MS's XML format is more of a PR stunt then really being open. MS has barked a million times about "IP" and MS Office is one of their biggest cash cows. Basically they made a schema that will let you read the MS Office docs, but they still keep tons of closed proprietary stuff in those XML files. What is the purpose of being able to read the file if the important content is a binary blob in some proprietary format? The plain text is readable, so a simple Word doc is easy to read (though competing office apps have been able to do that for a long time). MS Office will truly be open when MS release full specs of the file format and all that could possibly be in them. I can give you an XML file with a Base64 encoded blob of proprietary data. Just because it is XML does not make it Open. OpenOffice's format is _really_ open. You can get docs that explain the format and how to read or write OOo's file formats. This is not the case for MS. If it is, please provide a link to the MS Office document _specs_ and not just some silly schema.

Don't you mean Alpha?

[JPriest]

I remember using the beta version of Excel. It was so usable I didn't bother to bother to install the final version of Office 2003 till after the beta expired.

If they are just trying to get it to compile w/o errors, it is alpha.
If it compiles, it's beta.
If someone updates some of the documentation for it, it is a released version.

data analysis lacking?-Piping points.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a question for Jody. How well does Gnumeric fit into a scripting environment? I'm not asking how well Gnumeric's scripting is, but how well it fit's into Unix/Linux "piping"? Let's say that I want some of the capabilities of a spreadsheet for a website, without pulling up the whole thing (assuming I even could). The user inputs needed values, runs through a particular worksheet, output is placed on the site. One could even use ploticus for the missing capabilities of Gnumeric.

Wrong tactic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't tell them "I'm sorry, please send your file in a different format, we don't support the most widely used Spreadsheet format here."

Tell them, "I have no guarantee of your security infrastructure there, and it is quite possible that your files may be spreading an undocumented, undetectable macro-virus. Therefore, please send one of the following formats: list goes here..."

Yes, the tactic is FUD, but it also works!

And if it's of any consequence, yesterday a non-Linux governemnt shop sent me a white paper. The e-mail explained that the spreadsheets were attached in CSV and, get this, OOo XML. Strange no? Or maybe just a harbinger of events to come!

VBA scripting

[ion_]

I wonder if any non-Microsoft®Office® spreadsheet program supports VBA scripting? Being able to run such useful Excel® programs as Pacelman and Excellence would be very important for the FOSS community. Apparently there has been some effort to make a Visual® Basic® interpreter for Linux, but the project doesn't seem to have made any progress.

Moved to a different site

[martin-k]

OK, our hosting company cut us off because "some scripts were attacking our servers". When I told them about Slashdot, they never heard of the site. Oh well.

Currently, I have moved things to:

Main page
PlanMaker for Linux page
Comparison page Excel, PlanMaker, OpenOffice.org

Let's see how quickly you slashdot those.

You cannot download the beta right now because the Python scripts point to softmaker.de which is currently no way. Just look at the pictures instead.

If someone wants to mirror us, please contact me at info (at) softmaker.de . Please. Pretty please.

Martin Kotulla SoftMaker Software GmbH

Re:Moved to a different site

[innocent_white_lamb]

If someone wants to mirror us, please contact me at info (at) softmaker.de . Please. Pretty please.

If someone wants to donate bandwidth to us so we can promote our commercial, give-us-your-cash software, let us know?

Am I wrong or is does that deal seem a bit one-sided?

"Excel-compatible charting"

[Anonymous Coward]

They say that as if it would be a good thing.

Re:"Excel-compatible charting"

[pyr0]

Not only is it a good thing, it's an absolutely *wonderful* thing. When you work with other people who use only MS Excel, and you exchange data and plots through spreadsheet files, a linux spreadsheet with _full_ compatibility is the holy grail. I've been struggling with this for at least three years now. Basically it came down to booting to windows so I could use Excel....not an optimal solution.

Lotus v. Borland decided in favor of Borland

[tepples]

Lotus lost the lawsuit to monopolize the look and feel of Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software. A menu hierarchy is not copyrightable.

Microsoft is to benefit...

[aksansai]

Think about it. Microsoft now provides the benchmark by which all office suites are influenced by. Creating more ".xls" spreadsheets means that more people will need Microsoft Excel (or compatible office suites) to view, modify, etc. If a group makes a product that is marginally or significantly superior to Excel, Microsoft can than use their ideas to make Excel a better product.

This is why many companies like the idea of funding an open source project. There are millions of creative minds out there churning ideas that the relatively small development group of a commercial package has not even conjured. The practice of suing is not one widely performed by Microsoft, because they can afford to have competition that makes up less than a tenth of the market. Other companies like Apple, on the other hand, has such a small market (and stake) that they aggressively attempt to hoard their interests and ideas to prevent them from being used by others.

Mentos....another German Company

[IceAgeComing]

...bringing you

FreshMaker 2004 !

We Don't Need Another Spreadsheet-FLEX

[Anonymous Coward]

"Personally I have never seen a website I considered "better" for the use of Flash or another proprietary extension."

Then you've not been looking hard enough

PDF is open

[metalhed77]

PDF is open with fully published specs. Anyone can write a PDF reader/writer.

Does no one remember Lotus Improv, or Javelin?

[WillAdams]

Let us remember that Visicalc was modelled on the limitations of an accountant's ledger and the Apple ][ screen.

Let us _please_ move past that limitation --- you've got companies that have to _require_ that all ranges used for calculations (even of a single cell) are given names --- Lotus Improv w/ it's cool tear-off ``item dispenser'' instead required one name things as they were made, so that formulas read like:

profit = sales - expenses

Cloning is boring and uninteresting --- contrast LyX (http://www.lyx.org ) to Word for an example of how an opensource app can change the concept and do much better.

For those running Mac OS X, look up http://www.quantrix.com

For those w/ systems running NeXT or OPENSTEP, well, you've already got Lotus Improv or Quantrix already, right?

William

Re:Uh, from someone who actually is trying it . .

[Anonymous Coward]

And I've been using softmaker's word processor for about a year, and it wipes the floor with abiword and kword AND word perfect for Linux.

Spreadsheets don't interest me much, but sometimes I need to layout a complex visual document like a 4-fold party invite, and textmaker is brilliant at this, just brilliant!!

The only thing...

[Audacious]

The only thing these spreadsheets needs now is a compiler so you can quickly create a set of programs which use a spreadsheet-like interface.

Think of it - pre-defined variables (cA_1, cA_2, etc...), pre-defined functions, pre-defined graphic routines, pre-defined everything just about - except for the stuff written by the user. You don't have to worry about if the program will work or not on a given platform, you could do straight-line programming or oop programming, and displays are already standardized. They all look like spreadsheets. :-)

Row Limit

[Morky]

16k row limit? Useless for me.

Re:Row Limit

[martin-k]

The current limit of 16384 rows is not set in stone. We had PlanMaker builds with 65536 and 256K rows, but then some functions (like sorting whole columns) were too slow -- remember that we are also supporting Pocket PCs and Handheld PCs, and CPU-wise, they are at a i286 or i386 level.

As soon as we have optimized some of these routines, the row limit will be raised.

Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Re:Row Limit

[Morky]

Good! It would be important to add that as a footnote on your site where you mention the 16k row limit.

65k row limit

[jaredcat]

Does anyone know if the 65k row limit in Excel is present in Planmaker as well? I think that MS keeps that limit in there to force people to use Access...

Re:65k row limit

[Morky]

That's hilarious you wrote that right after my comment. They have a 16k row limit, a la Excel '95. Give me Gnumeric any day over that.

Re:65k row limit

[jaredcat]

16k row limit? Ok forget that...

Re:65k row limit

[martin-k]

See my other post. We can raise the limit as soon as we have recoded some slow routines.

not supposed to reply to .sig's, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

""Interesting" or "Insightful"... Heck, even "Off-topic" or "Overrated"... But "Funny" is a waste of mod points"

---sez you. I come here daily for the rich deposits of geeky humor that exist nowhere else. mods, keep modding funny! (but don't waste your mos points on me, just wanted to send this little note to pegr.)

Rise of Nations

[Brian Puccio]

Call me when I can play Rise of Nations on Linux under winex, I've already replaced Excel.

bad business plan

[hak1du]

It's commercial software, I need to make payroll every month.

So why do you pick a business plan as bad as creating an Excel clone? There are zillions of interesting software products you could make. But you pick a product that competes head-on with Microsoft and with open source software. Do what you like, but don't come around bellyaching later when your product fails; you will have neither Microsoft to blame, nor OSS, only yourself.

Re:bad business plan

[John Starks]

Gee, that's funny, I didn't realize that Microsoft and Open Source software had an Excel-compatible spreadsheet available for Linux!

Oh, they don't. This is a good business plan. Excel is very important to businesses, and this product will only make it easier for users to migrate to Linux on the desktop.

Idiot.

Re:bad business plan

[hak1du]

Gee, that's funny, I didn't realize that Microsoft and Open Source software had an Excel-compatible spreadsheet available for Linux

Oh, they don't.

Gnumeric and OpenOffice both offer Excel compatibility. And CrossOver lets people run the real thing.

This is a good business plan. Excel is very important to businesses, and this product will only make it easier for users to migrate to Linux on the desktop.

This product will be a failure, like all the other commercial attempts at making clones of Office components.

Idiot.

Apparently, you are not only uninformed, but also rude.

Re:bad business plan

[martin-k]

My company has been selling word processing, spreadsheet, typefaces, and database software in Germany since 1987. It's not like we just entered this business yesterday.

I never complain to anyone about failed business ventures and, besides, Slashdot probably wouldn't accept the story...

Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Re:bad business plan

[hak1du]

My company has been selling word processing, spreadsheet, typefaces, and database software in Germany since 1987. It's not like we just entered this business yesterday.

Well, your other ventures (e.g., handheld word processors, fonts) may make sense and keep you in business, as may the fact that you are in a different market. Or maybe not--the business has changed a great deal over the last few years.

But I think you are miscalculating when you think that Linux users will buy an Excel clone for Linux in large numbers. The reason is not that they may be opposed to commercial software, it is that "we are a more Excel compatible than the other guys" does not seem like a strong selling point, since you can't guarantee full Microsoft compatibility either.

One problem is that any user who doesn't run Microsoft Office but touches data will be accused, rightly or wrongly, of having mangled the data when something goes wrong, and there is nothing you or anybody else can do about that fear. Better compatibility doesn't help.

I never complain to anyone about failed business ventures

Well, good. I just got the impression that you were not entirely happy about the remarks people made about your license.

Re:bad business plan

[martin-k]

We are hedging our bets. We have a common code base that compiles for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Pocket PCs, Handheld PCs, CE.NET, and Sharp Zaurus. If we add a feature today, it will be available on all platforms immediately.

Furthermore, all the applications (word processor TextMaker, spreadsheet PlanMaker, database DataMaker and some unannounced ones) share at least 50%-60% of their source code. For example, a sheet cell in PlanMaker is basically a small text frame in which much of the code of TextMaker is working to do the text formatting.

With this approach to development, we can even make a business case for less popular platforms, say, AIX workstations -- and Linux is much stronger than that.

Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Another app that doesn't fit in!

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn program uses its own proprietary toolkit and thus, doesn't fit in at all with my desktop. Why the hell didn't they pick Qt or GTK?

Kitchen sink?

[brunorc]

> I don't want Excel to try to do everything.

Erm, there is an Open Source product... which does this at this very moment. And it also stars with letter "E". AFAIK some non-aware users thinks it's ONLY an editor.

(Personally I use vim)

Why?

[peshwali]

Why would I want a clone that does "most" of Excel?

With an OSS product like Openoffice.org I can understand, and even something for Linux I can understand. I am actually trying to migrate to a complete OSS setup. But when it is a commercial product, this becomes a real business decision, not philosophy.

I have the newest Microsoft Office 2003 Professional edition for WinXP, upgraded from something that came free with my computer. I paid $300 and that included a usb flash drive. It includes Excel, Outlook, Word, Powerpoint, Access, Outlook Business Contact manager, and some other small unused things.

Why would I drop all the functionality and support to move to a small product that is trying to do the same "Excel" thing. I am sure the developer is a good guy, good programmer, and tries to provide decent support. But there is no HUGE (10's of thousands) user community to support me, or LARGE pool of 3rd party programmers adding additional macros and functionality.

So here is the real business question, especially when it comes to the Windows version of this program. Why would I drop all the advantage of Microsoft to use this commercial product for less than the savings of 2 days of my salary?

cloning Excel and software patents...

[tkanerva]

So, now when you've practically cloned Excel functionality and/or reverse engineered the file format (or can it be licensed?), how about the new EU comission push towards stringent software patents? Shouldn't it affect the product your company makes? I suppose only the biggest companies, and, usually the ones from U.S., will benefit from these new, strict software patent laws... unfortunately

Planmaker for MS Windows

[tkanerva]

it's good that this piece of commercial software is being rolled out on a couple of different software platforms, namely Linux and Windows. However, what about different ISAs? How difficult would it be to build a cross compiler for building PPC binaries so that I could run Planmaker on my OSX box (of course I have linux installed as well).

Re:Planmaker for MS Windows

[martin-k]

We have to clean up a few big-endian/little-endian issues in the source before the software runs successfully on PowerPCs, but this is being worked on.

But before the PPC version, we'll release a Zaurus version of both TextMaker and PlanMaker. The beta of TextMaker for Zaurus is about three weeks away.

-mk

Re:But the real Goal is win the corp cube farm

[Anonymous Coward]

To ram the stake through Bill' blackened shrivelled heart you need full MSOffice compatability. Do that and then large corporate IT departments will start to think about using Linux on the desktop. And only think about it.

Compatability comes up all the time. All the time. I drop projects from Mac development frequently because MS doesn't make their office products on MS and Apple the same. Period. So the direction becomes, "We can not/ will not do this on the Mac." Doesn't matter if you are only making a page layout with Arial text.

See, its really because the executives have no clue about how (or the time) to run their computers and they certainly dont have the how or time to run the computers of their secretary. They want to pick up a file from email. Look at it. Change three or four things. Mail it back and it all works. And they will scream and yell and get people fired if it doesn't work this way. And thats why corporate IT ONLY puts MS on the desktop. Lots of places I work here in NYC, if they have designers with Macs, the IT departments dont touch those computers at all. The designers take care of everything.

Since 1987? Impressive.

[leonbrooks]

My company has been selling word processing, spreadsheet, typefaces, and database software in Germany since 1987. It's not like we just entered this business yesterday.

Any idea why I haven't heard of you before? I'm reasonably widely read, and this announcement completely blindsided me.

BTW, non-free software for Linux is just fine. If you can always do a better job than the free-as-in-beer stuff, you will always have a market in people who aren't particularly worried about codebase death, spyware, trojans etc, and never want to customise beyond the level of the typical Tools/Options panels. That's a fair-sized market. More power to you, keep the bastards honest, and ignore the less reasonable zealots.

Oh, and please set up a regularly updated escrow so if your company does go kerplonk (you get hit by the proverial bus or whatever), your efforts aren't buried by the liquidators.

Re:Since 1987? Impressive.

[martin-k]

With 15 employees, we are much smaller than the better-known office suite manufacturers, and we have been concentrating exclusively on the German market till about 12 months ago. So, if you don't actively read German computer magazines, it would have been easy to miss us.

I have no problem competing with open source software, and authors of open source software usually don't have that towards commercial software. There is much more zealotry among the user base than under developers...

Martin Kotulla SoftMaker Software GmbH

Re:Since 1987? Impressive.

[leonbrooks]

if you don't actively read German computer magazines, it would have been easy to miss us.

Well, I hope to see a lot more of you in years to come.

didn't open my file

[igotmybfg]

and upon displaying some graphs i made in excel, all of the application's widgets were drawn as filled-in black boxes. i'll stick with gnumeric

Far Future

[nurb432]

I was thinking that perhaps by the time Office is written in *.net that mono ( or its successor ) might be compatible enough to do it.. We have another few years...

Today, its not and i realize that.. but one can hope for the future.

Yay!

[rofthorax]

Another package I have no use for.. Hmm well at least it will probably help keep Microsoft from leveraging the whole world into their products through differing file formats.. Hey take a lesson from blender, blender has forward and backward file formats, so it can be done, why doesn't Microsoft do this, there's a public relations nightmare for you big boys...