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IBM Challenges Microsoft with Free Office Suite

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the helping-openoffice-seems-a-bit-insincere dept.

BBCWatcher writes "Reuters is reporting that IBM plans to announce a free, downloadable office suite today in a direct challenge to Microsoft. The news comes only a week after IBM announced they were joining OpenOffice.org and dedicating 35 developers to the project. IBM is resurrecting an old name for this brand new software: Lotus Symphony. The new Symphony, based on Open Office, is yet another product to support Open Document Format (ODF), the ISO standard for universal document interchange. There are about 135 million Lotus Notes users, and they will also receive Symphony free. IBM support will be available for a fee. There are no details yet about platform support, but IBM is supporting Lotus Notes 8 on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, so at least those three are likely."

63 of 378 comments (clear)

  1. Ms, your case is lost by unity100 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ibm is a much more trusted source in the eyes of all sizes of businesses. its joining the open office movement have made the movement pass the critical mass. now open office and variants are practically de facto office suites of future.

    --
    Read radical news here
    1. Re:Ms, your case is lost by SCHecklerX · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And since IBM isn't really in the PC operating system business any more, they aren't abusing a monopoly position to do this. This is a beautiful move by IBM.

      There's still a long way to go to bring back open standards and real competition, but whittling away at the office suite is a good start.

    2. Re:Ms, your case is lost by PunkOfLinux · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Did anyone else notice the lack the mention of Openoffice in the actual article?

      --
      Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
    3. Re:Ms, your case is lost by fermion · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Probably not. IBM provides solutions. The problem was that thier solutions were expensive. MS response was to allow businesses to buy cheap hardware, buy at the time not extravagantly priced OS, and then use whatever IT support one can afford. This allowed firms that previously could not afford an IT solution to have at least a facade of one. Of course reliability and effeciency was often much less, but of course so was cost.

      Recall that Sun also tried this office competition, and tied it to a system that would allow firms to have predictable office application costs. It did not seem to work so well.

      My suspicion is that firms like the flexibility that the MS solution provides. Computers will work well enough with almost no support(I have seen no MS shop staff support at adequate numbers to keep the machines running), and the support personal are usually semi-skilled so if they complain about over work, they are easily replaced. Combine this with the fact that the MS Office suite is often in a web of legal limitations, and I can't see that this IBM offering is any better than anyone else. Perhaps existing *nix users will gravitate toward the IBM name, but I doubt others will.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    4. Re:Ms, your case is lost by speaker+of+the+truth · · Score: 3, Interesting

      now open office and variants are practically de facto office suites of future. Which is a shame because the latest version of Open Office Calc is inferior to Excel 2003 (as I said here). I hope that IBM's support for OOo can make it a better program so that it quickly surpasses the old "de facto office suite" in functionality and use.
      --
      Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
    5. Re:Ms, your case is lost by unity100 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Let me put it this way,

      in the past, ibm was for big business. ms was medium and small businesses' friend.

      with this move, ibm, who is still the friend of the big businesses is pushing forward something that is more flexible and cheap - open office. it is free and it is going to get so much flexibility with modules, 3rd party apps and so that its going to be a blast of flexibility.

      many big businesses happily using something that is free and they can control means that any small to medium businesses doing business with them will feel compelled, even felt necessary to use the same suite in regard to ease and compatibility.

      then, so long microsoft, in regard to office suite.

      --
      Read radical news here
    6. Re:Ms, your case is lost by Gr8Apes · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My suspicion is that firms like the flexibility that the MS solution provides. Computers will work well enough with almost no support(I have seen no MS shop staff support at adequate numbers to keep the machines running), and the support personal are usually semi-skilled so if they complain about over work, they are easily replaced. And those are the reasons why most MS shops are riddled with spyware, adware, viruses, etc.

      Lots of people think they're capable of supporting MS software just like lots of lemmings believe they can walk on air....
      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    7. Re:Ms, your case is lost by Renegade88 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I use Calc at least casually and I prefer it to Excel, of which I consider myself an expert. I didn't get your "cut and paste" example at all. Calc pastes data exactly where you say and you're upset because it overwrites data that you left in the target area? What? So thanks for your opinion, mine differs.

    8. Re:Ms, your case is lost by bealzabobs_youruncle · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yea, I would much rather become IBMs bitch than MS bitch... or not. Just ignore IBMs absurd pricing, neglect of Lotus Notes (where is the Linux client???), massive lay-offs replacing workers with H1-Bs and offshoring, etc... Yea, bunch of fucking saints over at IBM, until you have to do business with them.

    9. Re:Ms, your case is lost by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ibm is a much more trusted source in the eyes of all sizes of businesses.

      I'm not sure how you can support that claim. Pretty much all businesses today are heavily reliant on Windows and Office. I suspect a rather small proportion of all businesses use IBM kit, and I suspect that nearly all of those that do are medium-sized or large businesses, not the small businesses that drive economies.

      now open office and variants are practically de facto office suites of future.

      Sure they are. Also, this is the year of Linux on the desktop and Firefox will have a majority share of the browser market by 2008.

      The fundamental problem here is that OpenOffice just isn't as good as MS Office. If all you want is something to type a letter or a quick table of calculations, sure, it's fine. But it lacks the power, usability and feature completeness of MS Office. Pretending otherwise is just wishful thinking by OSS fans, as is pretending businesses are going to change their office suite just to avoid spending a few dollars per employee on a more productive tool.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    10. Re:Ms, your case is lost by mh1997 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      now open office and variants are practically de facto office suites of future.
      As long as most contracts from the Federal Government (USA) require electronic deliveries in MS Office format (companies buy MS products to ensure compatibility, they can't risk a document not opening properly), and the Government requires computers, networks, email, etc. to be MS products, MS will do just fine.

      Most of those contractors and federal employees will use MS office and other MS products at home because it is what they are familiar with at work. Their kids will use MS Office, and their schools will also - because it is familiar.

      Sure there might be a lawsuit here and there when MS forgets to pay their congressman/senator, but as long as the DOJ uses MS products while suing MS for monopolistic practices, buisiness will continue as usual at MS.

    11. Re:Ms, your case is lost by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 3, Insightful
      "The fundamental problem here is that OpenOffice just isn't as good as MS Office."

      People keep saying this, but not backing it up. I can think of a few things MS Office has that OOo does not. But I can think of a few things that OOo has that MS Office does not. People who have trouble with OOo seem to be people who were originally trained with MS Office, and so it should come as no surprise that they are having trouble. Yes, things are in different places. Yes, things have different names.

      There is always room for improvement, but what we need is more people trained to use OOo. There is room for improvement, always, but if people were trained on OOo, you would see much wider adoption.

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    12. Re:Ms, your case is lost by Idaho · · Score: 4, Informative

      Open a spreadsheet in Excel and label 6 cells from A1-A6. Now select row 5 right click and select cut. Select row 1 and right click and select "Insert Cut Cells." You still have 5 labelled cells, the order they're in is simply different. Now trying doing this very basic activity in Calc and see if you get the same results. Nope, you don't.


      Goodness my...instead you have to select 'Insert', press enter to select the default option to move the other cells down 9i.e. insert a row), and paste the cell you just cut. Involves 1 extra mouse click/key-press, in exchange for a simpler right-click menu.

      Yes, I would certainly call that a showstopper bug, uhhhuhhh.
      --
      Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
    13. Re:Ms, your case is lost by speaker+of+the+truth · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well the beauty of bitching publicly is that someone gets to show you a solution. Thanks, I'll resume testing OOo now :)

      --
      Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
    14. Re:Ms, your case is lost by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      People keep saying this, but not backing it up.

      I've backed it up, in great detail and with many objective examples of features and specific bugs, in multiple previous posts. I didn't see the point in repeating all of that here, but please do Google my posting history (search for things like Writer and Word) if you're interested.

      There is always room for improvement, but what we need is more people trained to use OOo.

      I respectfully disagree. While I really am grateful to the OpenOffice guys for giving me a basic office suite I can use for free at home, I think OO is damaging in the long run, because (a) it insists on trying to be a Word clone, and (b) it sucks up most of the community volunteers, commercial resources and publicity that could otherwise be used to work on a better alternative.

      No-one in Windows world has yet produced a really good tool for writers who want to produce beautiful documents efficiently, nor a really easy-to-use spreadsheet that still supports powerful data analysis and well-presented graphs, nor a presentation package that actually supports making good presentations rather than bullet-laden monstrosities, nor for that matter a good PIM that supports serious corporate infrastructure but still provides good e-mail, scheduling, etc. There is huge demand for these things, but since no-one is currently doing them (in part because they're all working on Office, OpenOffice, and various other less good versions of the same things, I presume) the market doesn't even realise what it's missing.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    15. Re:Ms, your case is lost by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Okay, cut, insert, and paste does the trick. Excel has a menu item for this doing the insert and the paste in one go. What's the big deal? If you really want to, you can add it as a macro.

    16. Re:Ms, your case is lost by unity100 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      at least ibm doesnt try to wrest control of MY pc at my OWN home/office out of my hands. thats what i care about.

      --
      Read radical news here
    17. Re:Ms, your case is lost by Bert64 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The row limit is 65535, and excel has the same limitation i believe.
      OO is in an unfortunate position that, if they were to have a higher limit, people would use the extra cells and then try to save their files in ms formats, resulting in them not loading. And this would be blamed in OO for having poor compatibility, rather than MS for having the 65535 rows limit.

      --
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    18. Re:Ms, your case is lost by seasunset · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I am guessing that you either did business with IBM a long time ago or that you really don't know what you are talking about.

      Currently, most IBM solutions are fairly open. This up to their mainframe offer where you can install a very standard Linux distro (mainly SuSE, but also Red Hat or Debian).

      Most of their frameworks (like application servers) are standard based. Sometimes they suck from a technical point of view, but from an openness perspective they are more than OK.

      Yes, 10 years ago IBM was really bad (TM) with regards to lock in. Not anymore from my experience.

    19. Re:Ms, your case is lost by sydb · · Score: 2, Insightful



      user inserts rows

      Warning!

      If you add more rows you will not be able to share this spreadsheet with Microsoft Excel users, as Microsoft Excel does not support more than 65,535 rows.

      Would you like to continue adding rows? [yes] [no] [ ]don't ask this again.

      --
      Yours Sincerely, Michael.
    20. Re:Ms, your case is lost by TopShelf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It looks like the limit for Calc is indeed 32K, unless the documentation is obsolete.

      I would have liked to use Calc for some of my blogwork (which entails spreadsheets of 70K+ records), but went with Office XP instead.

      --
      Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
    21. Re:Ms, your case is lost by CAIMLAS · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'll back it up - and I not only hate MS Office and MS's behavior, but I have a philosophical fondness for open source. I have quite a few 'operational problems' and frustrations when I attempt to use the later versions of MSO; I cut my teeth on word processing with WP511, and then later with MSO 95/97. But it's still "better" (and I have similar 'problems' with OOo, too).

      In my mind there are two, maybe three things which make MS Office simply "better" than OOo. And they're not simply features which MSO has that OOo doesn't. These differences are:

      1) Simple document scrolling. If I have a 30 page document with images in it (or even without images, as is often the case) on a system with a 2Ghz processor and 512Mb+ RAM, hitting the 'page down' key should not result in a lengthy delay. Neither should I see "typing lag", even if I'm editing in the middle of a large document. OOo does all this (and more, including outright momentary and permanent freezes while editing), and I've only experienced brief freezes/lag while opening large MSO documents.
      2) Stability and file support. I've lost close to 20 pages of (single spaced, fictional/creative) writing to OOo 2.x's ODF now, whether it's due to the program crashing while I'm working before a save, or the document getting corrupted on save/crash (likewise for the backup, in two instances). This is why I'll use the older 1.x OOo strain over 2.x if I'm going to use OOo.
      3) It's slow. This pertains to the first two, but it does NOT feel like finessed code in the least bit! (largely a criticism of 2.x, again).

      If IBM can help 'fix' the first two problems, they'll be well on their way to an 'enterprise' application - and they'll likely fix #3 simply in the process.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    22. Re:Ms, your case is lost by Anubis350 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Lemmings don't *think* they can walk on air, they *know* it the problem is, gravity doesn't agree with them (SAT time kids, lemmings::most MS techs as gravity::_______ ):-p

      --
      "goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
    23. Re:Ms, your case is lost by MadChicken · · Score: 2, Funny

      Did anyone else notice the lack of a *link* in the actual article?

      --
      SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
    24. Re:Ms, your case is lost by Odin_Tiger · · Score: 3, Informative

      Better articles w/ links:
      News.com
      The Guardian (Blog)
      CNN Money
      ZDNET

      And also, actual Lotus Symphony page on IBM's site, with download link.

      --
      Unpleasantries.
    25. Re:Ms, your case is lost by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "This is non news except that it's IBMs name and not some single dev schmuck in the middle of the Ukraine, modding OO."

      Uhm, that happens to be what makes it news. As an article mentions, Lotus Notes is used by millions of people who might be further interested in this - which means OO (and ODF) might - I say, might - get a big boost.

      More importantly, since this appears to be based on a 1.x OO fork, how does it compare with OO 2.x? That's what I'd like to know (without going to the trouble of downloading, installing and testing it myself since I don't have the time right now and besides which, I'm lazy.)

      If it's not as good as OO 2.x, why bother (other than the Lotus Notes integration, which is mostly a boon for IBM and Notes users)? In the latter case, it's like Thunderbird and the Eudora client - it's mostly just useful for former Eudora users. An OO useful for Lotus Notes users is fine, but it's not going to really change the track for OO 2.x if it's not compatible enough except for document opening.

      --
      Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
  2. Hmm... by bhtooefr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Funny. IBM creating a branch of a project that was a fork of a Sun product (which is now a branch of it.)

    Even funnier, IBM already had a product to do just this, Lotus SmartSuite. (Then again, seeing as it was last updated... what, in 2000? 1999? Somewhere in there? it wasn't going to succeed. ;) Wonder if Lenovo will end up putting this on every ThinkPad that doesn't ship with MS Office... they DO hand out SmartSuite licenses already...)

  3. Re:Is it? by Ajehals · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ahem - This may clear it up for you.

    Although the word "universal" may be a bit much.

  4. Re:Is it? by MountainMan101 · · Score: 2, Informative

    No.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument

    It's the MS format that doesn't have ISO status. The free and open OASIS standard does.

  5. Not a news story - no details - what is this? by scottsk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Okay ... so what is this? The "news" article had no details at all. Have they open-sourced SmartSuite? If you throw out the stupid third paragraph which has no meaningful information, and cull the meaningful information from the first two paragraphs, the story says "document, spreadsheet and presentation software in a group of tools" which doesn't tell you what these are - are they re-branding OpenOffice like StarOffice does? And it will be "called Lotus Symphony" -- is this a Lotus product? Are they open sourcing SmartSuite with Lotus 1-2-3 like I've been dreaming for years? Is this brand-new software technology IBM has developed? I want to know more!

    1. Re:Not a news story - no details - what is this? by beaverbrother · · Score: 4, Informative

      It looks like it is actually available for download here

    2. Re:Not a news story - no details - what is this? by tji · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Wow, those screenshots look about a decade behind current versions of MS Office or Apple iWork. AbiWord looks significantly better than the Lotus word processor (judging only by the screenshots and having used AbiWord). The least they could do is spice up their marketing pages a bit, and put their best foot forward.

      Are those apps from their old Lotus suite? I used those way back in the OS/2 2.x days, when they were the only option for OS/2 Office Suites. The apps don't look like they've improved much since then.

      Or, are they (as some here claim) based on OpenOffice?

  6. Nobody gets fired for.. by Dareth · · Score: 2, Funny

    Nobody gets fired for buying IBM.
    Nobody gets fired for buying Microsoft.

    Will anybody get fired for buying both?

    --

    I only look human.
    My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
  7. Re:Is it? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not premature, but undue hype all the same. You would think that after ISO lost most of its credibility in this field following the recent OOXML mess, people wouldn't assign much value to any document format just because it's been ISO certified.

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
  8. NYT piece on IBM's move by MLCT · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/technology/18blue.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=technology&pagewanted=print

    Coverage of the announcement plus some comments on the fact that 3 of the "big" firms, IBM, Google & Sun are now squarely behind ODF. As for the announcement - the 35 FT developers on OOO can't be a bad thing - OOO has the potential to become a large force for good, but it has always been a couple of steps away from where it could, and should, be - hopefully this might help rectify that.

    1. Re:NYT piece on IBM's move by 2Bits · · Score: 2, Insightful

      the fact that 3 of the "big" firms, IBM, Google & Sun are now squarely behind ODF.

      Yeah, I'll be more impressed when these firms ditched MS Office totally, and replace it with OO for internal use, and maybe force their suppliers to also use OO (otherwise, no deal!). I want to see all their sales people use exclusively OO too.

      I remember that a few years, when OO was just out, a Sun's product manager was doing a presentation using PPT (surprise, surprise!), while bitching about how MS Office was so bad, and how OO was going to be the future. After listening to half an hour of bitching and moaning, I couldn't stand it anymore, and said:"Listen, if you think that MS Office is so bad, and OO is going to be the future, why are you not using OO? And what are you using right now?" He wasn't amused though.

      Seriously, these companies need to eat their own dog food. We use OO internally in our company.

  9. In ten years, MS was an annoying paranthesis by aim2future · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My serious and optimistic view: Soon we will see computing interoperability and software development flourish and we will look back upon the MS dominant time where they were holding free software innovation and interoperability back as an annoying historic paranthesis.

    The next important step in the world of computing now is to Stop software patents! To achieve the similar stimulance to software development as when the movie industry moved to California to avoid the film patents that were holding the film industry back on the east coast.

    Support FFII and EFF

    I guess noone is seriously interested in OOXML any more, but I collected some arguments about our company's opinions about OOXML recently.

    If you are interested in reading people's blogs, here is mine about SCO finally dead! MS next?

    1. Re:In ten years, MS was an annoying paranthesis by mister_woods · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Soon we will see computing interoperability and software development flourish and we will look back upon the MS dominant time where they were holding free software innovation and interoperability back as an annoying historic paranthesis."

      There might also be a large gap in the historical record due to the myopic reliance on proprietary file formats for record-keeping by public authorities all round the world and the subsequent inability of future generations to read them.

  10. notes by g4b · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does that mean they will migrate Lotus Notes into OpenOffice to beat Outlook?

    Just imagine that.

    The OOo logo will be expanded with a big fat third bird on the right bottom, all painted in blue and orange.

    (No, I have nothing against IBM, OOo or Notes, but I have to use Notes on a daily basis)

  11. And will it... by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So, will this office suite, which is being sent to Lotus users, be backward compatible with what the recipients are currently using?

    Will it be based on OpenOffice.org?

    Will it run faster than OpenOffice.org?

    Will it have a less clunky interface than common office suites?

    Just some questions from a curious observer. :-)

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    1. Re:And will it... by mdm-adph · · Score: 2, Interesting

      First off, I like the interface -- it's still familiar to users of current office software, but with a nice sorta "new" feel to it (the colors remind me of Office 2007 or the Notes 8 Beta).

      I've tested it with a couple of SmartSuites files -- Word Pro and 1-2-3 -- and it seems to open them fairly nicely. They've must've tweaked the OpenOffice engine a bit to get them to work better with SmartSuite files, which "vanilla" OpenOffice sometimes had problems with.

      One thing I like about it is the "tabbing" system -- whether I've got 1-2-3 files or Word Pro files open, they're all presented in a unified window, with tabs denoting the different documents. Now, that's something I'd like to see in other office suites.

      --
      It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
  12. Notes on Linux by oyenstikker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "IBM is supporting Lotus Notes 8 on Linux"

    No. IBM is supporting Notes on RHEL and SLED. Attempts to install on other distributions will result in silent failures of the installer, undocumented files all over the place, or if you are really lucky (as I was) it will install, but then inexplicably fail to launch after two weeks of very buggy use.

    --
    The masses are the crack whores of religion.
  13. hmm. by apodyopsis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just goes to show that even if MS get OOXML adopted as a standard by ISO by their various mechanisms and shenanigans - it would all come to nothing if there is a "de facto" standard already. And ODF is looking to be positioned to be just that.

    It's not always the standards that people recognize and certify that win the day.

    I look forward to the day when MS are forced to implement ODF filters for Office just to stay in the game. They once said that they would not support ODF - like any business they might have no choice if their sales are on the line. Once ODF is the standard then Office is going to have some real problems in the face of free alternatives that support the same format - MS biggest fear will be realized.

    MS main weapons is proprietary formats and proprietary software and OOXML/Office is one of the biggest examples. (Yes I know OOXML is not "technically" proprietary anymore).

  14. already released by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    see http://symphony.lotus.com/

    (less or more) rebranded lotus productivity tools -> ooo1.3 bloated into eclipse with some eyecandy.

  15. screenshots by 4play · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Lotus notes looks so much better than openoffice 2.3
    http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/product_ss_wpe.jspa documents
    http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/product_ss_pe.jspa presentations
    http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/product_ss_sse.jspa spreadsheets
    hopefully this can help eat into Microsoft's market share in the office world.

  16. Free? by mmcuh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Will it be free, or just "free"? I can't find any information on that.

  17. the Notes 8 client without the Notes part by dominux · · Score: 5, Informative

    Notes 8 is a major architectural change for the Notes client, it is now presented through an Eclipse framework where it can live alongside other applications in the same Eclipse instance. The Notes 8 client has a bunch of "productivity editors" wordprocessor, presentation tool, spreadsheet, and these live in the same Eclipse instance as the regular Notes client bit. Symphony is the exact same code without the Notes client part. At the moment it is based on a fork of OpenOffice.org 1.x from before the SISL license change, however in the next release (or thereabouts) it will be based on a new LGPL cut of OpenOffice.org. This is really cool, it isn't quite competing with OpenOffice.org, improvements and contributions will flow in both directions. It is competing with Microsoft Office and the branding, packaging, support etc from IBM might go down quite well in some companies. I am not quite sure what the business model is for IBM, I guess they will do OK on the support and consultancy and it is a bit of a loss leader for the Notes client. Plus there is the bonus of screwing over Microsoft which has got to be worth a lot.

  18. WordPro Filter by Jason+Levine · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This sounds great. I wonder if they would offer a WordPro import filter. At my company, they use Lotus Smartsuite (which includes WordPro) as the "official" office suite. Some people use Microsoft and a bunch of the IT folks (myself included) use OpenOffice.org. It would be great to get something which was basically OpenOffice.org, had corporate support backing (useful due to a co-worker/boss who thinks all freeware is inferior to payware by default), and could open our old WordPro documents.

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  19. Visibility and discussion itself is good by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2, Interesting
    As others post suggested and contradicted, IBM may or may not be trusted by corporations. Its execution could be very much ham handed or not. The ISO might yet fast track OOXML in Feb08, or not. Despite all that, the high profile discussions about the issue of file format compatibility, interoperability, archival endurance, upgrade treadmill, vendor lock etc itself will have some amount of good effect on the software world.

    It could be that OpenOffice clearly lacks features. But that could be the effect not the cause. Because it does not have enough traction, not enough people are working on it to add features. Further one of MSFT's strategy is to bloat MS-Office with features mainly to claim this point. One must-have feature by one person in an important position is enough to thwart the adoption or stymie the feasibility studies of alternatives to MS-Office. With big names signing up and with corporations creating a second-source policy will put money on the table. That will attract developers and the lack features in the alternative office software will be remedied in time.

    People know what happened when IE was left alone with no competition. The user base is more aware now a days. Further most developers have stopped trying to come up with the next killer application on the Windows platform. If they really come up with a real run away hit, MSFT will create a me-too app in the next release and usurp the market. So where is the incentive to create killer applications or run-away hits? That is one of the reasons why people looking to hit home runs look at the web not the stand alone PC.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  20. Re:Oh God Puhleeeze! Not the LOTUS xxx brand! by MemoryDragon · · Score: 2, Informative

    IBM also has a history of successful products. Eclipse, WAS, WSAD, Lotus Notes, Rational Developer etc... The utterly failed in the office market with Lotus (They probably didnt have a clue on what to do with it)

  21. Whoope! by WhiteWolf666 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The install base of the ODF format plus the user interface of Lotus Notes!

    I can smell success!

    (just a joke, I'm actually a fan of both :) )

    --
    WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
  22. You're crazy by DogDude · · Score: 2, Insightful

    First off, please learn how to capitalize.

    Secondly, Open Office is nowhere close to "critical mass", and they're certainly nowhere near de-facto. In order for either of those things to be true, lots of people have to be using said software. Open Office usage, in my experience, is virtually non-existent.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  23. The proof is in the pudding. by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I'm on OSX and when it comes out on OSX, I'll DL it and see if it is good enough. I'm hoping so... I'm SO sick of MSWord...

    What could make it suck?

    1. If it comes out on OSX, but requires X11.
    2. If it has crapola text control, esp. orphan and widow control. MSWord completely sucks at that, so this should be a fairly easy target to beat.
    3. If it doesn't have a keyboard command to import an image. MSWord AND PowerPoint don't and I HATE THAT. It is such a simple thing...
    4. no support for pdf. I need pdfs for my work.
    5. The presentation tool had best BLOW PowerPoint away. Completely. I hate using PPT, but my students have it, not Keynote, and there is no Keynote for Windows. Grrr...
    6. The spreadsheet had better be MUCH easier to use than Excel. Again, that can't be hard, because Excel oozes puss.

    Any of the above would make it suck for me.

    That said, I am looking forward to working with it to see how it goes.

    RS

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
    1. Re:The proof is in the pudding. by mla_anderson · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Have you tried NeoOffice on Mac?

      --
      Sig is on vacation
  24. Re:Meanwhile by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2, Funny

    The protest is currently planned for 9/25 at IBM's corporate campus in Second Life.

    That is, quite likely, the stupidest thing I will have read all week.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  25. Re:Why by Whatsisname · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why don't you learn to spell?

  26. This seems to have become a MS bashing session... by Big+wet+dog · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So, as someone who runs an IT shop for a non-profit, I thought I'd mention MS's pricing for non-profits:

    Office Professional = $20
    SQL Server 2005 = $240
    Small Business Server 2003 = $68
    All of their products are available to non-profits at similar discounts at TechSoup.
    http://www.techsoup.org/stock/Category.asp?catalog_name=TechSoupMain&category_name=Microsoft&Page=1

    And of course Bill Gates will give more money to non-profits then everyone who has ever posted on Slashdot x100.

    I'm not saying competition isn't bad, I'm just saying...

  27. Re:Requirements by mapinguari · · Score: 2

    Good god! RedHat5? That's gotta be 10 years old. They should really do themselves a favor and support 5.2

  28. Whoa! by loki.jf · · Score: 2, Funny

    I just saw a chair fly by!

  29. Competitor emulation = inferior software. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I turned a friend onto OO.o a couple of years ago. He used it for about a year, then went back to Office. He said he gave it a shot, but just couldn't get comfortable with it. To me, that is an HONEST assessment. I don't buy the blanket argument that OO.o is "just as good". MS Office is the leader, they have to be knocked off... it has to be proven, most likely repeatedly, that OO.o is just as good if not better. Hopefully with someone like IBM behind it, it can get a foothold in the business world. You can reach a lot of people that way. The problem, as I see it, is that OpenOffice spends an inordinate amount of time trying to be Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint. That's not a recipe for success. No matter how hard they try, they're never going to be MS Word. And to a certain extent, I think there's a sort of "uncanny valley" for software: if you make a piece of software that tries to feel like something else, and you get 99% of the way there, the 1% will drive people nuts. Sometimes it's better just to go for compatibility and stop trying to emulate the other guy.

    What I'm a little disappointed in is that there isn't more emphasis on doing things better than Word. If you look at the places where other OSS software has succeeded, it's generally because the software is just honestly better at something than the commercial/closed-source competition, not just because the OSS one happens to be free of cost. Linux gets used a lot by industry because it's a good server platform, and for many years was a lot more stable and had a lot more features that Windows (arguably both are still true but I don't want to get into a discussion of it). The purchase price of software is a very small factor in most people's decisions to use it, as it should be.

    I think Apple does a fairly good job of this; at least philosophically (their execution sometimes stumbles). You don't see them trying to doggedly emulate Excel in Numbers. It's generally compatible with Excel, and they tout this as a feature, but then they seem to have sat down and said "what can we beat Excel at?" And so it has a much slicker interface, produces nicer charts, etc. And it's adoption rate is faster than Calc's (although it's limited only to Mac users so the market it can hope to grab is smaller).

    As long as a project has as its aim the emulation of an existing piece of software, it's always going to be burdened with an inferiority complex. And users may not totally understand that, but they'll sense it, and in many cases decide that they want the "real thing" even if it costs them extra.
    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  30. Re:This seems to have become a MS bashing session. by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Office Professional = $20
    SQL Server 2005 = $240
    Small Business Server 2003 = $68

    OpenOffice Extreme Ultimate Edition: Free.
    PostgreSQL: Free.
    Every popular network daemon ever written plus the platform it was probably written on: Free.
    Realizing that you're running a smaller version of the platform that powers Google and you didn't pay a dime for it: priceless.

    For playing video games, there's Windows. For everything else, there's Unix.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  31. Lotus Notes and Linux by misterfalcon · · Score: 2, Informative

    Lotus Notes has a Linux client starting with Notes 7 and continuing in Notes 8. The Linux client for Notes 8 was released the same time as the Windows version.

  32. NeoOffice? by cheros · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There is a version of OpenOffice.org ("OO") that uses the beautiful graphic elements of the Mac interface called Neo Office. I don't have a Mac, but I use OO on both Windows and Linux (with less and less taking place on Windows).

    I've been using OpenOffice.org since version 1, and I'm quite happy with it. More importantly, very few people seem to notice that I'm using it so the compatibility isn't as big a deal as they want you to believe.

    Just give it a try, it's not like it costs anything :-).

    --
    Insert .sig here. Send no money now. Owner may sue, contents will settle. Batteries not included.