OpenOffice.org 3.0 Wants to Compete with Outlook

jason writes "At the OpenOffice.org 2007 conference about a month ago there was a presentation on what to expect in the next major milestone for their Microsoft Office competitor. "The presentation mentions bundling Thunderbird with their Office Suite, and refers to it as an 'Outlook replacement.' This is all assuming that Thunderbird recently losing two of its main developers doesn't affect the decision, because I'm sure OpenOffice wants to ensure that Thunderbird will continue to progress before including it." This probably won't sway large corporations away from using Microsoft Office, but it could make it more intriguing for the smaller businesses that are looking to cut some costs."

Comments

You gotta be kidding.

[SatanicPuppy]

Jesus. How about they compete with Word first, eh? Calling Thunderbird an "Outlook Replacement" just shows they have no idea what people use Outlook for. Outlook Express replacement, sure.

The great thing about Office is all the damn pieces work together. Excel is friendly with Access, Access is friendly with Word, Everything is friendly with Outlook. To beat Office, you have to have an Office suite that works like that. Not just all the pieces in one package.

There is not one single thing in OO that doesn't have an OSS equivalent stand-alone application that is at least as good. Bundling a mail client with the rest of your apps doesn't suddenly make you competitive, especially when your whole user base could have already installed that mail client if they wanted it.

There are OSS projects that are actually making a push toward doing the things that Outlook does (like Kontact). But Thunderbird is still lagging behind Evolution imho, and neither of them play all that great with any of the groupware servers out there, open or closed.

I used to try and push OO on people, but I've completely lost faith in it. I keep thinking, maybe they'll get their crap together, but then they do stuff like this.

Re:You gotta be kidding.

[SerpentMage]

I wish I had mod points left over...

I know exactly how you feel. I used to use Office 2000 since about 1999. Since then I have been waiting for Open Office to serve as an Microsoft Office replacement. What happened? I upgraded to Office 2007 a month ago. I as well have given up on OO. Maybe one day, but then I will be ready for retirement and won't care.

Re:You gotta be kidding.

[niiler]

First, let me say that your experience with OO will depend on what you use it for. As I use it mostly for writing papers for publication in scientific journals, quick spreadsheet applications (usually for classroom illustrations), and for "powerpoint" presentations at conferences, it works just dandy for me.

I do have to respond to your comment that "There is not one single thing in OO that doesn't have an OSS equivalent stand-alone application that is at least as good." I like the concepts of KOffice, and Gnome Office, but KOffice really isn't as functional as OO in any way, shape or form. It used to open faster than OO, but recently, OO has taken just three seconds from click to start on my computer, so I can't complain about that. Gnome Office is not integrated. Abiword is great for very small documents of limited functionality, but is no where near the abilities of swriter. Gnumeric is arguably equal with scalc, but then it doesn't have the same sort of interapplication communication with documents as scalc shares with swriter. As a long time simpress user, I have yet to find either a problem with it interoperating with powerpoint, or another opensource program that holds a candle to it.

So to finish, you are probably right in that OpenOffice has a long way to go in matching every type of functionality as MS Office, but I still can't say it has any real competitors in the OSS world at the current time. [Note to KOffice users: I have seen quite an improvement in functionality over the last couple of years, but you all need another couple of Google Summers of Code to catch up. - No flames intended, it's just my humble opinion.]

Re:You gotta be kidding.

[Fieryphoenix]

There was exactly zero vitriol in the parent posts, and, as well, they explained precisely what makes OpenOffice unsatisfactory for their needs. In spite of all this you're complaining, behaving like they whipped your pet software. Why's that?

Re:You gotta be kidding.

[SerpentMage]

Have you tried using OO for anything related to earning money? I use Office for two purposes; writing manuscripts, and investing. And in these two respects OO fails miserably! (And I have tried to use OO)

WRT to manuscripts I can't keep comments, styles, formating etc straight.

WRT to investing the OO spreadsheet is way to limited, and to extend the spreadsheet with custom functionality is absolutely painful! OOBasic bites, and their component architecture is anything but simple. OO extensions are a joke when compared to Microsoft Office.

So in the end OO is not usable except for extremely simple things. I am complaining because after eight years of using Microsoft Office 2000 OO is not close to the capabilities of 2000. Yet I have and use Office 2007, and that is the sad part.

Re:You gotta be kidding.

[Blakey Rat]

To most people there is no difference, unless they work for big companies.

Well der. The point, to spell it out more clearly, is that the people who are developing OpenOffice aren't coming up with features that big companies want, and big companies are the ones holding the majority of Office licenses.

I was rather under the impression that the integration of office components with each other and tightly with windows, while nice in theory, actually made it a horrible security threat. Applications that co-operated but existed wholly apart from the OS, other than running on it would be a good thing.

Not enough of a security threat to bother any of the hundreds of thousands of companies that have purchased it. But more seriously, macros are completely reined-in, Outlook restricts everything, IE7 has as many security features as Firefox and runs in a sandbox in Vista to boot. (It's not part of Office, but I figured someone would bring it up.) And, frankly, it's been years since anybody has seen a macro virus, or another virus that uses Office to spread, and so even if there is still some security threat to these products more-so than to OpenOffice (which frankly I doubt), there's a sense of calm in that area right now.

Speaking of security, Office does have a nice feature where you can encrypt sensitive files before sending them out of the office to prevent your data being read by nefarious third-parties. Does OpenOffice have anything of the sort? (I haven't used it in a few years, and their website is so horrible it doesn't even have a basic page describing the features of the product, nor does it have screenshots, or basically anything you'd want to see before downloading it.)

Openoffice is very nice MS Office has the edge on maturity, but I don't like the locked in nature of the document formats.

I can guarantee if you go to a professional writer and ask:

Which would you rather have?
A) An outline view where you can instantly re-order your work, including notes and references?
B) A slightly more open document format?

There isn't a single one who's going to answer B.

Re:You gotta be kidding.

[Chandon Seldon]

OO.o writer is not usable for manuscripts because comments and edits get buggered up. If you want to write without edits, and comments, sure Writer is fine...

What you're basically saying is this: You can't possibly use any tool but Word because you're attached to the exact implementation of two specific Word features. That doesn't mean that other tools are bad - it just means that you're inflexible.

Re:You gotta be kidding.

[amorangi]

I don't know how you were rated as "5 insightful" - in fact there was zero explanation as to why OOO was unsatisfactory.
If you don't like OOO don't use it. If it fills your requirements then do so. Personally I have both OOO and Office 2007, but only use Office 2007 to open documents sent to me in that proprietary format and for Outlook, as I am used to OOO and it fulfils my requirements. I would love for there to be an alternative to Outlook - the only reason I use it is that Thunderbird won't sync with my phone (N95) - thanks a lot Nokia.
Office software is not really something to get excited over - people getting uppity over one alternative over another need to get out more.

Re:You gotta be kidding.

[kklein]

What you're basically saying is this: You can't possibly use any tool but Word because you're attached to the exact implementation of two specific Word features. That doesn't mean that other tools are bad - it just means that you're inflexible.

And what you're basically saying is this: "Your preferences are wrong, and it's because you're stupid." It's the classic Slashdot rebuttal, and it is often modded as insightful, but it's not.

I don't purport to know what someone else needs to do his/her job. When a guy says OO.o doesn't cut it, despite trying, I tend to believe him. What makes you think you know what he needs?

Personally, I used OO.o for a year (Writer, to be precise) in grad school because I wanted to get rid of pirated MS Office, and I didn't have the $125 for the student version, and besides, I wanted more than the student version had... Why, I don't know, since I only would have used Word at the time. Anyway, I got quite good at Writer, and there are some great features in there (predictive input!), but ultimately, I had to call it quits and buy the $100 volume license of MS Office from the school.

What were my problems?

OO.o tables do not save correctly to .doc. If I needed to work on the document elsewhere, or was collaborating with someone, they had to be reformatted every time.

Making tables is an arduous process in OO.o. And being that I use a lot of statistics in my writing, tables are abundant. Word table formatting is quick and easy, and you can get them to look exactly as you'd like in a number of different ways (this has always been the best part of MS software--any way you can think of doing something probably has a way to do it).

Indent sliders don't snap to sane intervals. This is in violation of the UI metaphor: Those sliders snapped on electric typewriters. Last time I complained about this on Slashdot some pompous ass told me I was too stupid to use styles so I'd better just stick with Word. Except, I did use styles, and I use them in Word, too, and those sliders are the easiest way to set the indent in Word--why the hell should I type everything in when there's a damn GUI slider there? Why doesn't the OO.o slider work right? You can't get the same indent twice. It's maddening.

I have to work with other people, and they don't know or want to learn OO.o. This obviously isn't a problem with the software, but it is a big problem with using it.

I finally decided that getting things done was more important than being different. And this is what it comes down to, really, with a lot of FOSS. There are a few things that are improved by the removal of the profit motive (video software that plays anything, PDF writers --utilities like that whose proprietary counterparts are too worried about making money to be any good), but major applications don't seem to benefit. FOSS requires people to learn something new that doesn't do as much and isn't as compatible with the rest of the world's software. And that's why uptake is slow. Not because people are stupid, but because they are smart enough to know it's not worth it for them to switch. Until OO.o is better and more compatible than MS Office, this will be the case, and people will stick to MS Office in droves.

I value supporting FOSS projects in theory, but at the end of the day, I have work to do, and OO.o doesn't cut it. And I say that as the world's leading expert on how to do my job and live my life. That ought to be a satisfying enough reason for anyone.

Re:You gotta be kidding.

[Chandon Seldon]

People who spend a significant chunk of their time working in a given piece of software tend to get attached to the details of how it does things, regardless of the technical merit of those design decisions.

Your complaints about OO.o are a perfect example of this effect. "Indent sliders don't snap to sane intervals"? Clearly this isn't annoying the crap out of the OpenOffice developers (who have to use the program to write any number of internal documents), so it's not a major problem with using the program - so it must be an artifact of your learned workflow.

Now, having trouble unlearning that sort of workflow artifact is a real issue. OpenOffice really will suck for you until you've gotten used to the native workflow for every single task that you do. Let me clarify: Until a Microsoft Office user adapts to OpenOffice almost completely, Microsoft Office really will be marginally better for them.

None of this means anything but the simple fact that OpenOffice, being different from what you have the most experience with, is harder for you personally. You can't get any sort of objective data about other people using the program from a biased sample of one.

Exchange

[sc0ob5]

When it can sync with exchange servers without having to use webdav I think it will be a contender, until then I don't think so. Still, nice to have it included in the office package I guess, but does it really make a difference?

Re:Exchange

[jimicus]

But Thunderbird is not a replacement for Outlook.

Outlook's shared calendar integration, while being a minor thing to most geeks, is one of the major features which get Exchange installed in businesses.

And Exchange requires Active Directory, which requires a domain driven by Windows Server rather than Samba, so even if you weren't planning to before, you may as well authenticate other systems through that. Then people start looking at other things like Sharepoint and third-party applications which expect a Windows domain, and before you know it you've got an entire infrastructure built around Windows.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how Windows became a popular server platform in places where you might otherwise expect to see Unix, Netware or OpenVMS.

Visio would be better

[Helmholtz]

As many people have already noticed, people don't choose to use Outlook. Somebody else choose to use Exchange, and that means you're using Outlook. There's no way a third party could attempt to compete, since Exchange uses totally proprietary hooks and methods.

Personally, I think it'd be better to focus on something like a Visio replacement. Use Dia as a starting point, etc.

Not what we want

[markdavis]

Apparently the OpenOffice team is not listening to what users want. Most of us don't want a "bundled" Email client to add to the bloat.... we already choose the Email client we want to use. I don't want an IM client, web browser, or music player bundled into it either!!!

This is what they should be concentrating on:

1) Faster. Fast loading, faster opening documents, faster saving documents, faster menu response.
2) Smaller. Higher efficiency. Smaller downloads.
3) More stable. Better code. Less crashing.
4) More compatible. With more types of files (for example, docx, wp, svg)
5) Better documented. End user docs, help, and developer docs.

Re:Not what we want

[niiler]

I agree with most of what you've said, although I'd like to comment on some points:

1) Faster. Fast loading, faster opening documents, faster saving documents, faster menu response.
2) Smaller. Higher efficiency. Smaller downloads.
3) More stable. Better code. Less crashing.
4) More compatible. With more types of files (for example, docx, wp, svg)
5) Better documented. End user docs, help, and developer docs.

1) Currently I'm starting up in about 3 seconds using Vector Linux 5.8 with a custom built OpenOffice 2.3. So start time is not an issue. Save and load time are, although I think these may be related to the zipped/XML type format that is used. I have no experience with Office Open XML for comparison.

2) This probably is desirable, although the last time I downloaded it took about 5 minutes. For those without superfast broadband connections, a smaller package would be nice.

3) I haven't had crashing problems with OpenOffice in two or three years. At this point, it just works.

4) Docx is theoretically supported by Novell's OpenOffice, but I've heard bad things there. I suspect that since it is theoretically "open", that OpenOffice will support it sooner or later. As a former WP fan, I would also like this support so that I can import my dissertation. Finally, I'm also with you on SVG.

5) The documentation does leave much to be desired, although it's getting better by leaps and bounds. The really key issue here is that the OO.org website sucks. I'll be the first to sing the praises of the program, but their web site looks bad, and is poorly organized. Even when you know what you are looking for, you can't necessarily find it unless you have inside information.

Wrong prority!

[ecbpro]

Please this is so wrong, who needs yet another mail client?
How about first finish cleaning up the OOo code?
Then make Impress make slides look nice! Graphics output is so ugly I have to be ashamed when I use Impress, drawings in Powerpoint look so much nicer. Why cant they make good anti-aliasing of curves? What is really stupid is that when I export my slides as pdf they look really nice! Oh boy... but no, first they want to add a mail software into an already really slow office suite, THANK YOU!

No real competition

[plusser]

I think that the problem with Open Office is that Microsoft Office has no real competition, hence it can afford to ignore everybody else.

The problem is very simple, when it comes to using Operating Systems there is very effective competition to Windows, namely Unix, Linux (and its many variations), BSD and MAC OS. While many of these systems are low cost to own, they do provide Microsoft with an incentive to provide a better operating system.

However, Microsoft Office has no real competition. Some people will say "but what about Open Office", but the problem is that while it may be free, there is no incentive for anybody to develop program other than for the simple joy of it. Unfortunately developing a office tool today is not like developing an operating system, as you have to offer dictionaries, grammar tools, paper formatting and tool integration to support every country in every region of the world; something you either buy or pay for a lot of work to be done. The problem is that the commercial alternatives to Microsoft Office have all but died out (Word Perfect etc..), hence the market share for Microsoft Office is probably greater than that of Windows.

The solution is that somebody needs to take Microsoft on where it hurts, i.e. offer a proper Office suite that costs less than Office. Unfortunately the only company that is any position to do this is Apple, but having been hurt by Microsoft when Explorer was withdrawn for Mac OS after Apple launched Safari, I doubt whether they would even attempt to tackle this problem as Mac without Office would be a problem for interoperability with documents in the future. There is of course Star Office, but that is just a commercial version of Open Office.

So the solution is that we get total bloatware and zero innovation. While I have not used Office 2007 yet, I suppose that like 2000, XP and 2003 there is little innovation over 97, which was actually quite a good piece of software.

For your information, I do use Thunderbird as my home email client along with Open Office on my Home PC. But believe me, if I was running a small business, I would have no option but to pay the "Microsoft tax", even if I was not using Windows.

I personally think that the only reason that Microsoft does not sell Office as part of the operating system (which for many people it could be described as, especially when it comes to Outlook) is that not only do they make most of their money from Office, but if they did they would suddenly find being themselves being prosecuted for anti-trust by the EU and US.

Re:Excel for investment? _you_ must be kidding

[SerpentMage]

> A copy of Office Pro costs less than your hourly billing rate, and you have no interest in this debate, so why are you posting?

Why am I interesting in this debate? Because I had to buy Office 2007! I was holding out for the longest time, hoping that OO would finally allow me to do what I want. The days of Office pro being less than an hourly rate is long gone, just like the dotcom bubble.

>You should not be using Excel at all. You should be using a proper financial modelling system connected to a relational database, e.g. Business Objects with various add ons. Again, for the level of investing that this necessitates, the cost is unimportant to you.

I advise that you actually look at the tools that investment banks use. They in fact use Excel! Sure there is back end stuff, but traders and quants like Excel because it lets them very quickly come up with ideas and strategies.

>Alternatively of course you are just someone playing at investing. In which case your opinion is not particularly valuable. Given how expensive professionals have been getting it so wrong lately, anyone who trusts the financial models of an amateur without access to proper business modelling tools and data...deserves to buy a share in this wonderful toll bridge I just bought that links England and Wales.

I find it amazing that instead of actually doing a constructive argument you mock me. I could just as easily mock you since you did not even know that professional traders use Excel. Are you a quant? Do you follow the market?