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SoftMaker Rolls Out Office Suite for BSD, Linux, and Others

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the momentum dept.

martin-k writes "Commercial office suite software is coming to FreeBSD, Linux, Windows, Sharp Zaurus and Windows Mobile. SoftMaker, a German developer, recently released SoftMaker Office, a multi-platform office suite that excels in Microsoft Office compatibility, claims to be much leaner and faster than OpenOffice.org and works on many operating systems, down to PDAs." While SoftMaker certainly isn't new, it is nice to see them roll out a finished suite as opposed to one-off programs.

7 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Is there a space in the market ? by quiberon2 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    What makes Softmaker think there is room in the market for their product ?

    As far as I know, there are only 2 forces in the world; 'love' and 'money'

    OpenOffice.org has a monopoly in the 'distributed for love' channel.

    Microsoft Office has a monopoly in the 'distributed for money' channel.

    Who will buy Softmaker Office, and why ?

  2. why give a fuck about office compatability? by timmarhy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    i don't see why people are so obessed about being compatable with office documents. the whole point is to force office out, adding compatablity only give it greater leverage to change their formats and screw you over. far better to create a suite that uses open format documents in xml. while you continue to pander to the make everything compatable with MS products crowd, you will not win.

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  3. Re:how much better than OpenOffice? by swillden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My experience with OpenOffice has not been nice. Two years ago, I used for serious stuff and, boy, did I regret it. This friggin' bug made me loose all pagination. They told me OpenOffice was production-ready. So they told me. They lied, they were just a buch of free software fanboys who never wrote more than 20 pages with the thing. So, this is from someone who actually had to used OpenOffice for more than 20 pages.

    Interesting.

    This is precisely the reverse of my experience.

    When I'm working on large, complex documents (100+ pages, lots of headings, lists, tables), I'm constantly terrified that Word is going to crash on me and destroy my work. I save frequently, and make backups every few hours.

    That's *why* whenever I possibly can I don't use Word. OpenOffice is so much more reliable, there's just no comparison, and it has been for the last three or so years. Especially when documents get big. Lately I'm leaning toward using LyX/LaTeX, which I think is an even better option for large, highly structured documents that need to be consistent and nice-looking. But I have a lot to learn before I can do that. LaTeX documents look so much prettier and more professional than any word processor output I've seen that I think it's worth the effort.

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  4. Re:how much better than OpenOffice? by asuffield · · Score: 4, Insightful
    for business I use Word running under Crossover, because exact formating is crucial for me


    If exact formatting is crucial, why on earth are you using Word? It's really not very good at precisely reproducing formatting. It only works reliably if both systems have the same *printer drivers* installed (yeah, wtf?) - the rest of the time, it's pot luck whether things go where you want them, or get moved by half a millimetre, knocking all your carefully arranged lines out of position...

    If you want exact reproduction of formatting, use PDF. Or latex.
  5. Re:how much better than OpenOffice? by misleb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Indeed. People should not be using a word processor as if it were a desktop publishing or layout application. That is what Quark/InDesign/PageMaker/etc are for. Word processors are for.. processing words. But people shouldn't use email to share large files or use spreadsheets as databases, but they do anyway. Unfortunately, Microsoft crams so many features into Word that using it for desktop publishing is just too tempting for some people. I've even seen people use Word to produce web pages! Ack!

    -matthew

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  6. Re:how much better than OpenOffice? by Constantine+Evans · · Score: 4, Insightful

    100% Microsoft Word compatibility is impossible. While complete compatibility with specific versions might be feasible, Word is notorious for being incompatible among versions.

  7. No OS X version? by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...FreeBSD, Linux, Windows, Sharp Zaurus and Windows Mobile.
    Great. They take the time to make a version for a pratically non-existant marketshare such as the Sharp Zaurus, but they skip over OS X? What are they smoking? And don't tell me that Microsoft Office is available for Macs, because it's also available for Windows and that didn't stop SoftMaker from making a version of their office suite for Windows. It's also not about a dev. suite cost, because it's bundled with all Macs, even the Mac mini.

    Bah, if they're aiming for "Microsoft Office compatibility", that means more Microsoft-formatted documents, not less. Vote with your usage, stick with OpenOffice and their open formats.