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Why Google Should Embrace OpenOffice.org
CWmike writes "Preston Gralla has a decent idea that could move the office needle: If Google really wanted to deliver a knockout punch to Microsoft, it would integrate OpenOffice with Google Docs, and sell support for the combined suite to small businesses, medium-sized business, and large corporations. Given the reach of Google, the quality of OpenOffice, and the lure of free, it's a sure winner. Imagine if a version of it were available as a Web service from Google, combined with massive amounts of Google storage. Integrated with Google Docs, it would also allow online collaboration. For those who wanted more features, the full OpenOffice suite would be available as a client — supported by Google. wouldn't be at all surprised to see this happen. Just yesterday, IBM announced that it was selling support for its free Symphony office suite. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine Google doing the same for OpenOffice, after it integrates it with Google Docs."
What does OpenOffice offer the average user that Google Docs is lacking?
And why would Google use OpenOffice to fill that gap when they could just improve Google Docs?
You can already import and export to OpenOffice from Google Docs. What more do we really need? Furthermore, I doubt that Google would gain much from taking sides. They are the premier provider of web services and that is where they should stay. Desktop applications are the past, web services are the future. Microsoft Office as a desktop application will eventually fade, too.
:)
Now, if Google wanted to give OOo a nice grant, that would be most welcome
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Imagine the repercussions if a large technology company like Sun Microsystems helped the development and support of OpenOffice.
They could twin its codebase with their own corporate version and then the sky would truly be the limit.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I was working with a teacher on Sunday night trying to prepare a presentation in OpenOffice (it was running incredibly slowly) and she said "I hate OpenOffice". She isn't a geek, she doesn't particularly like computers, but to her it was a huge disappointment to have to use OpenOffice instead of being able to use PowerPoint.
So far from a knockout punch, I think OpenOffice barely registers in terms of it's disruptive influence. I don't use it, my employees don't use it and everyone I know who has to use it hates it. Perhaps it's time as a community we considered alternatives. The "quality" of OpenOffice isn't something I think people are particularly happy with.
--- Nick, hard at work
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/ooo2gd
Actually, Satan is known to be an avid rollerblader.
>What does OpenOffice offer the average
>user that Google Docs is lacking?
Why should we ever improve on software? Why should software ever do more than perform basic tasks poorly?
These are the attitudes behind your statement. Google docs is not as good as open office. Open office is not as good as microsoft office.
The arguments that people usually make are, "do you really need those extra features?" and to some extent it is true. I don't *absolutely* need everything that Microsoft Office has to offer, and so I save myself some money and download Star Office via the google pack.
Indeed, a lot of free and open source software tries to succeed, not by being the best software of its kind, but by being the *cheapest* software of its kind. Sometimes that strategy works, and sometimes it doesn't, but as a *developer* I'm always kind of disgusted by it.
Really, what's the point of being a software developer if all you ever aspire to do is put out crappy software that people will only use because it is free?
Get your -1 Troll points ready, but unfortunately this is the truth. Sun has a stranglehold on OOo, which often stops developers from contributing code, or playing nice. Because of that, there are a variety of OOo forks out there. China's RedOffice has an Office 2007 ribbon-type sidebar that looks very promising. Symphony's UI is a huge step up over OOo. Go-oo.org and OxygenOffice provide many often requested features, templates, fonts, clip-art, a better solver, etc. NeoOffice seems to be the only one really focusing on solid Mac integration.
All these improvements could be contributed upstream, but because of Sun's tight gripped control, they won't be. Sun isn't just going to hhand it over to Google, and I doubt Google is just going to sell Sun's product, unless Google felt like they had a strong-enough influence in the product's development.
I agree that Google Docs is poor in its execution, but I doubt that OOo is the way to go for them. I see a product like Zimbra, that was developed with the web in mind, not an app forced into a browser, and that is where the future lies.
When Google has an office suite that was designed with a web interface in mind, that works as fast as Zimbra, please let me know.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Google hired developers to work on OpenOffice.org, but found it difficult to fill all the vacancies. They seemed unwilling to work on the project understaffed and the people they hired now work on other things.
You can see a C|Net article about their hiring from a while back:
http://news.cnet.com/Google-throws-bodies-at-OpenOffice/2100-7344_3-5920762.html
Hands up all you home users using MS Office... yep, millions of you.
Now hands up all you home users using MS Office that have legally purchased a copy rather than copying it from work or downloading a torrent... anyone?
I rest my case.
So... your point is that OO is so crappy, people would rather break the law than use it?
No sig
Also, since when is Google Docs under the GPL?
All your base are belong to Wii.
Never! When satan skates to work! What rock have you been hiding under?
Google Adds Star Office to Google Pack
You can get Google Pack Here.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
But this article isn't referring to Google Docs per se but the widgets that allow desktop integration - which is what the OP was whining about.
Okay, they're not released under the GPL, I'll give you that, but they are released under the Apache License which is still pretty much "here's the source code, have a play with it".
I just don't get you people that moan about getting stuff for free - who gives a shit? If you don't like it then either contribute some useful criticism or piss off and try something else. You've not lost anything in the process...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I'd rather they (or anyone else) would develop a word processor that doesn't make me want to cut my hands off and write raw HTML by whistling morse code into a telephone because it would suck less.
I am SO tired of every word processor out there, including the one by the white kool aid clan, mimicking the worst drawbacks of word because it makes it a bit easier to roundtrip documents to and from Word. I'd rather have the native format something like Docbook, but I'll take HTML if that's the only way to get real nested document structures and markup as THE native format.
It's analogous to using $your_favourite_mail_client to access Gmail via IMAP. You still have the web interface if you want/need to use it but you can also take advantage of a familiar application running locally that's specifically designed for the task.
Stupid flounders!
Seriously, why should Google want to focus on delivering a knockout to Microsoft? Google doesn't need to do an office suite, and Google doesn't need to do an OS. Google's doing just fine being Google.
Were there a lot of people running around in 1980 saying Apple Computer had to start building mainframes in order to knock out IBM? I mean, that would make just as much sense.
IBM tried to knock out Microsoft with OS/2. How'd that work out?
Novell tried to knock out Microsoft with its purchases of Unix, Digital Research, and WordPerfect. How'd that work out?
Sun has been trying to out Microsoft with Java and StarOffice and whatnot. How's that working out?
And now, Microsoft's been obsessively focused with trying to knock out Google, pouring billions more into MSN. How's that working out?
ooo2goo
meep
I hate it that OpenOffice is so often associated as "one of the best open source software" among with Linux and Firefox. Every time I've tried OOo (on Linux) I've immediately hated it. It's slow, bloated and annoying to use. Disabling its annoying "helpful" features takes a lot of time. So a while ago I bought MS Office 2008 for Mac, in part just so that I can say I would rather buy MS Office than use OOo for free.
(And no, I won't try to help them make it better just because it's open source. I'm busy enough as it is with my own open source projects.)
Google is an advertising company. They might make a little money providing search, but they make most of their money selling advertising (which is why the spend so much time developing products that people will want to use, it gets them eyeballs).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Seriously. Everything[1] Google does, they do well. Internet search, desktop search, usenet, picasa, Google Earth/Maps, browser applications like Docs and Gmail, all phenomenal successes.
OOo is a piece of crap. No, really. I do not think you could come up with a worse productivity suite without specifically designing it that way, and you certainly wouldn't have as much adoption.
OOo is a (bad) clone of Word, mixed in with XML-pedantry and a really bad case of the second-system effect (made all the worse because none of the people involved had anything to do with the first system, which is Word itself).
It, in a nutshell, shows the reason why getting free software onto the desktop has been so difficult: half the community is focused on feature-for-feature competitiveness and replication of the original product, and measures its success in market-share, and the other half of the community just hates MS software and tries to do the exact opposite, under the guise of "doing it right the first time." As a result we get something that actually manages to be slower than its MS equivalent in every respect, because on top of all the original features we copied without trying much in the way of procedural abstraction or optimization, we have even more stupid ideas bolted on, like using compressed XML files for the native data format, questionable default parameters that someone decided are "more correct", and the occasional bizarre bug.
The same sort of thing is starting to happen to Firefox, too. It started out just trying to be fast, but then a number of advocates got on board and decided that more people should use it, and in order to get them to do that the browser should try to be all things to all people. Now Firefox is getting bigger, more bloated, and slower, and in a few years will just be another bald, fat, middle-aged, useless browser program that got passed by.
All this is a long way of saying that Google shouldn't touch OOo with a ten-foot pole. It goes against everything they stand for: simplicity, usability, obviousness.
[1]: Except Orkut. Sorry.
which is totally what she said
I believe the correct term is pedantry.
</pedantry>
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