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

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.

Comments

Re:Is there a space in the market ?

[rduke15]

What makes Softmaker think there is room in the market for their product ?

I don't know how much room there is, but I can tell you why I use TextMaker:

Because I never liked MS Word which is terribly complicated and unpractical, and it is also very expensive.

Because OpenOffice Writer is an abomination of an awkward and slow as molasses would-be clone of that MS Word which I don't like.
(Yes, I guess this will modded flamebait, but I really hated OpenOffice every time I thought I would give it another chance)

TextMaker brought some fresh air into my (simple) word processing needs: it is extremely fast, it has all the features I need, and the ones I use (styles and occasional frames) are much more practical than in Word. Styles are accessible from the right-click menu, frames seemed much easier to work with than when I had to use them in Word, etc.

The only thing I don't like in TextMaker is it's proprietary default document format. I wish they would switch to ODF. (But maybe ODF is also an abomination like the OOo programs? I wouldn't know but I certainly hope not. We need an open document format)

(I bought the Windows version. Haven't tried the Linux version yet.)

Word is the route through these other things.

[aussersterne]

Go to any Windows publishing house (and this includes most of the major ones, a bunch of whom I've worked in or with). How do you make a PDF? Well, you start with a Word file and you run it through Acrobat. So making a PDF for such people involves... Word.

And yes, the book goes into Quark before going to press, but do the authors or editors work in Quark? Do the page designers even work in Quark? No, they all work in Word. It's the lonely guy at the end of the hall doing final layout that dumps everything into the formatter/publisher application just before it goes to press for a full run.

Until that point, all the way through most of writing, editing, and design, everything is in Word. Word gets used much more than I think people in IT realize. Word/Excel/Powerpoint are the bedrock of corporate America. Most small and medium size companies (and a few large ones, too) do all of their publications with Word, all of their PR with PowerPoint, and all of their databases as Excel sheets. That's just the way it is, like it or hate it. That's all people (all the way up through management) know.

Just try to get them to change... Or to let you bring something novel to the table. You'll be shown the door.