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OpenOffice.org V3.0 Sets Download Record, 80% Windows
thefickler writes "The newest version of OpenOffice, version 3.0, has set a download record in its first week of availability. Most surprising is the fact that over 80% of downloads were from Windows users. As one commentator noted, when it comes to a choice between almost identical software (e.g. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice), price is the determining factor."
The question here is do the download numbers also reflect copies downloaded with package managers such in Linux distros such as Gentoo and Ubuntu, or does it only count people that only actually go to the webpage to download? The way Windows users and Linux users tend to get software these days tends to be a little different, where windows users expect going to the website, downloading, and using an something like Install Shield to install.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
Microsoft apparently prefers that people no longer pirate their software for home use, so that was an easy decision. Looking forward to seeing more Open Office files in the wild.
Why is 80% surprising? The article makes it sound like that's high, but Windows has more than 80% of the desktop market, so it's still a lower percentage.
People don't want to spend money on something they can get for free? That's amazing! Seriously, I know I'm not working at the only company that is getting ready to dump Microsoft Office. It's pretty sad when you realize that the vast majority of your workers would be happier going from Office 2003 to OpenOffice than going to Office 2007.
I would guess that a lot of Linux users will wait for OO.o to show up in their distro packaging system, and not download it directly. For the systems that I actually need to use to get work done, I am *very* reluctant to go outside the packaging system, because the many extra hassles are rarely worth it. If I wanted to have to monitor external web sites and manually do unpgrades on all my apps I'd still be using Windows. (OK, no not really, but you get the point.) I use Ubuntu on the desktop because, for me, it Just Works, with many fewer hassles than Windows.
It's a tie for me on Windows and Linux 3 & 3 machines.
Windows no problem uninstall and install.
Linux just a bit more.
Got the DEB file, installed and changed the links from 2.4 location to 3.0 location. So both are still installed and usable.
What matters?
I don't need to spend the additional money for features [collaboration, exotic formatting and bloat] that are Microsoft.
The most complex I have is a 38 sheet spreadsheet with rotated text boxes.
Does Joe Plumber even need that...didn't think so.
So no matter how you carve it up OpenOffice is a TCO winner.
Is that like saying a cordless phone and a cell phone is *almost* identical because they both make phone calls?
Or did I just get trolled by the summary?
OpenOffice.org 3 sounds like it's going to be great. And I'll start using it as soon as it shows up in the Ubuntu repository and I get prompted to update. Until then, I guess I won't. I guess that a lot of other people are having similar thoughts. (Not to mention, consider the number of MS Windows users compared to all non-MS Windows users, of course the majority of downloads are going to be for MS Windows.)
As for price, price is not a factor in me not using MS Windows (I just don't like it compared to GNOME, etc.). However, given the choice between MS Office and OpenOffice.org, it is.
However, it isn't the only thing, I just prefer OOo. I've been using it for a good number of years (and the only thing that used to piss me off was not being able to word count selections, they fixed that), and I've gotten used to the little quirks.
It also does things simply better! Take creating a business card, MS Word doesn't even come with a template for that job! (Not that OOo makes it easy... Why no bottom and right margin setting?)
I wank in the shower.
I've been scorched before on slashdot for praising MSOffice, but again I beg to disagree that this is a "choice between almost identical software".
The functionality, features and ease of use of MSOffice (as compared to Open Office) still make it far superior.
Particularly, the new interface of MSOffice makes it much easier and intuitive to use (for most users) compared to any other office automation software.
I've been using it since the .sxw days, and used StarOffice way back when they first released it for free. I find this news heartening given the recent announcements about OSS's supposed impending doom. Give it time; I bet by 4.0, OOo will be as popular as Firefox.
M$ is mostly talking about schools and libraries it gave its software to along with computers, of course...
I've seen plenty of P2P scams in my day, but none that blatantly use the name "Pirate Bay."
I think a lot of people might be looking at OOo because it is the only still-supported Office workalike that works mostly like MSOffice 97/XP/2003. For those of us forced to use MSOffice 2007 it's a no-brainer. Plus OOo can be installed alongside MSOffice 2007 with no problems.
I can't be bothered to RTFM. Hey, at least I'm honest!
Does this beat Firefox's record, or is this a different record?
Most Linux users get their software from their distro, so that's the reason for the predominance of Windows in the downloads. However, the conclusion reached by the author is arbitrary. There is nothing here showing that Office is "loosing" market dominance. All you have are OpenOffice download numbers, which don't prove anything about market dominance. Office isn't even available for Linux, so how is its market dominance changing from what it was before?
That was quick (especially considering they only support intel based macs).
Maybe in the future OSS products looking for market share will support official native Mac versions sooner, instead of leaving us with either X11 interfaces or third party ports.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
It's the cross platform & ODF (though we use Office 07 .doc as the default format because of sending them to third parties)
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
As one commentator noted, when it comes to a choice between almost identical software (e.g. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice), price is the determining factor.
And that's why more people use OpenOffice than Microsoft Office...oh wait
When downloading or updating java from Sun the default is to also install OO. Highly annoying if you ask me.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
... have been from the stupid openoffice installer that sun piggybacks on java installations and updates.
I'm not a huge fan of OpenOffice (which I refuse to call 'OpenOffice.org, because it's an office suite, not a webserver), but I'll say one thing - their main page is exactly right.
Go to www.openoffice.org and take a look. What do you see? A list of things to do, in big text, impossible to miss. I wanted to download. Normally I hunt for a link. Now, it takes me 5 seconds to grab what I want.
No wonder they got so many downloads - they didn't hide them three pages deep.
I would also ask how they accounted for BitTorrent downloads, which are provided on the main OpenOffice.org website (in addition to the normal third-party sites). At first glance, it seems like the most logical interpretation is to count each copy of the .torrent file downloaded from the main website as one full download of the corresponding file. Or are they only counting downloads of the software from their own site?
How is the pirate bay a scam? It's a bittorrent tracker. You need to read more before you make stupid assertions like that.
Unfortunately OpenOffice and Word are not identical pieces of software. Not by a long shot.
Um maybe you need to read more carefully but the link in the GGP is actually to a scam site (piratebay.com), not the legitimate Pirate bay (thepiratebay.com)
Click his link, Mr. AC, and realize that it is not the tracker. Perhaps it is you who needs to read more.
For some reason, OO.o isn't providing a PowerPC build of OpenOffice 3.0 in English. You can get 3.0 in French or Japanese, but the latest English build is 2.4. During development of 3.0, PPC builds have been provided by a third party, but they seem to have stopped at 3.0rc4. I wonder why.
I've been looking for a job over the past couple of months (I've now found one, thanks for asking). I used OO to write my CV (resume) and saved it as a .doc. I wasn't getting anything like the response rate I usually get from applications and really couldn't understand why. Until, that is, I loaded up my CV in Word and discovered the formatting was fucked - my CV looked like shit. I never bothered to work out exactly what happened, but it seems some small difference in font rendering or spacing meant half the dates wrapped onto the next line, so the whole thing looked a mess. I gave up on OO, switched to Word and heard back from the very next job I applied for. Perhaps I screwed up, perhaps there are some compatibility options I should have used, but the fact of the matter is I used OO, selected "save as .doc" and didn't get what I expect. That cost me a good few weeks work and as a result a few thousand pounds.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
For now, you can get PowerPC builds from a third party. (I have posted this information before, but affected users might be more likely to find it here.) They don't have 3.0 yet, but you can get 3.0rc4. The most annoying thing is that OO.o actually has PPC builds of 3.0, but only for a few languages, and English is not among them. What's up with that?
the 'popularity' of open office wouldn't have anything to do with the java update offering would it? do you know how many fucktards have downloaded oo and google toolbar because of these updates? tons, that's who.
don't think people are turning to open office as a solution. they're basically being hoodwinked into downloading it. but all the open office zealots are going to tell us it's because it's great. 90% of windows users who currently have it probably have no idea what it even is and have it only due to irresponsible practices on sun microsystem's part.
Not sure why the article sees the need to mention this:
OpenOffice.org 3.0 eases some adoption concerns. It is able to open all Office-formatted files, including the latest Office Open XML (OOXML) documents (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.), but it cannot save OOXML files natively.
Why would you need to save in this format? The existing binary support should be all you need if you need to collaborate with Microsoft Office users. It's their saving in Microsoft Office 2007 format that causes the roadblocks, not OpenOffice.org's lack of exporting to it.
when it comes to a choice between almost identical software (e.g. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice), price is the determining factor.
Actually, I'm currently doing my Master's thesis on this exact topic, namely the switching barriers between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org. I'll post a summary of the full empirically assessed results to Slashdot when the study is complete. Currently, however, it looks like that Apathy is a much stronger factor than price. In fact, the author of the article hints at this:
In the past, it's always been included on my computers which is fine
Another important factor which I have hypothesized (and the literature suggests is accurate) trumps price is user inconvenience. Most users will pay to avoid hassle of any sorts. Further, most users will pay to avoid PERCEIVED inconvenience, even if, in reality, there would be no inconvenience. The FEAR of inconvenience is enough to make them continue to pay.
If you would like more details about my empirical research on this subject, feel free to contact me. A paper on the subject will be published by the Open Source Business Resource in the spring.
In the business world, where nobody worries about games etc, MS Office is the "lock-in app" for Windows. Once people realise that OpenOffice provides a desktop solution, then they might also realise that Linux runs all their favourite software, except viruses.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
How fonderfully evil! The next level of anti-piracy fight for RIAA and MPAA: scam the teens, damage their systems and make money while doing it! I wonder what could be said about DRM systems effect on a computer, which no longer plays songs or movies. Perhaps that could be classified as system damage.
I don't remember the exact Firefox numbers a while ago, but did OpenOffice beat Firefox too?
Google is nothing but a couple little improvements to Archie and Veronica. Typical of marketing losers, they take a working search engine like Veronica, "embrace and extend" GOPHER to use HTTP, and then plaster it with useless ads and graphics.
I have my copy of Lynx complied with HTTP off. Screw those corporate bastards!
If you are a dedicated ms-office user, and you really need 100% of the functionality of ms-office; then get ms-office - don't even think about anything else.
But, if you are like most of the population, and you just need a good office product, that is basically compatible with standard file formats, then openoffice does the trick.
JMHO.
I use Word 2000 at work, and downloaded Open Office 3.0 in order to read .docx files from coworkers with newer versions of Word. (The rollout of the new version of Word was incomplete across our organization).
did anyone else notice the article had "loosing" instead of "losing"? 3rd paragraph, 5th line. /grammarnazioff
WÌÌfÍ--ÍSÌÒÍ...Í...ÌHÌÍfÍÍÍ--ÍÍÍ
Most of the Linux and FreeBSD users get OpenOffice from a repository or as a package prepared by the authors of their distro. I personally have downloaded OpenOffice.org 3.0 as an update from a PC-BSD server.
Swing, and a miss.
This bogus statistic keeps resurfacing. Having x downloads doesn't mean you have x users.
The statistic I'm interested in is the percentage of people that downloaded it and then later updated - that's a much better representation of satisfied customers. The time between update release and downloaded update by a user is correlated to how much that user relies on the software package, especially so for OSS which is typically low in pre-release testing on different boxes compared to commercial software.
"Violence is the last refuge of the competent, and, generally, the first refuge of the incompetent" - Thing_1
I'm an English speaking PPC OS X user, you insensitive clod. I finally gave up waiting and grabbed the Spanish language version. But there still in no English version for OS X on the PowerPC.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
thepiratebay.org, not thepiratebay.com
(Even though thepiratebay.com redirects to thepiratebay.org via HTTP 301.)
proud caffeine whore
Exactly. I have used Word and Excel for ~15 years. I'm not what I'd consider a "power user," but I've grown comfortable with the UI and basic features over this time. Since approximately version 2.0 or 2.1, I haven't felt the need to use the real Word or Excel even once.
Just for comparisons sake, I am a heavy use of Excel (a "power user" if you will) and while I would switch to use OO.o in a heartbeat I simply cannot yet. Why? Two reasons fundamentally. The first is that Excel has a HUGE installed base in the finance world and that isn't going away any time soon. Want to work in finance? Better learn Excel - substitutes need not apply. I don't like it but that's the way it is. Excel is a de-facto monopoly in financial analytics. (disclosure: I'm a certified accountant as well as an engineer)
Second reason is that there are some things that Excel (as of OO.o 2.4) simply does better. (I'm just now checking out 3.0) Pivot tables, charting, and a lot of statistical tools have been better in Excel so far. I genuinely hope that changes. Excel has PLENTY of flaws but it's simply had more development time. Not to say you can't get excellent quality work done in OO.o but as someone who uses pretty much every feature Excel has I can say with authority Excel is the better tool overall - so far. If your needs are rather basic, OO.o is terrific but for many advanced users so far there simply hasn't been a choice.
Most windows machines come bundled with office
Really? At work we buy it separately or install OpenOffice if the user prefers.
Trolling is a art,
I work for Adobe on the ODF Technical Committee. ODF made some great decisions that make the format much more admirable over others (use of RelaxNG Schema, open formats wherever possible etc.). I am happy about the growing use of OO. Jon Bosak also has posted some great thoughts on this. Jon's thoughts on ODF, OOXML and PDF.
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
I actually made the switch from Office to OpenOffice, and so far it's gone surprisingly well--I've been able to fix the handful of problems I've had. I wish I could say the same for GIMP vs. Photoshop--that attempted switch has been a tremendous headache.
I've searched systematically for something better, and haven't found it.
For writing your own documents, learn to use LaTeX. It's a learning curve that take a while to climb---you probably never run out of new things to learn, but reach a level of self-satisfaction---but the result is great-looking documents.
Also, since you'll be entering text plus markup, it's easy to put in a versioning system. It's also easy to enter math (it's based on TeX, by Don Knuth, so go figure).
With a bit of make-fu, it's also easy to insert figures made by gnuplot, graphviz and dia.
For reading m-sword files, I can recommend catdoc ;)
Check out the number of spam sites already, google for openoffice (http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=openoffice), and you get sponsored links like these -
# OpenOffice.org 3 www.office-soft.net Get the Free OpenOffice Download the latest Version |
# OpenOffice 2008 - Free OpenOffice.org-Suite.com OpenOffice Latest Version. Fast & Easy - 100% Guaranteed.
This one is quite nasty http://www.office-soft.net/uk/
Click the link "You must accept the terms and conditions to download any program"
PRELIMINARY WARNING:
THE COST OF EACH SMS FROM THE USER'S MOBILE PHONE IS 1.5 POUNDS (VAT INCLUDED). UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED, THE DOWNLOAD COST SHALL BE FOUR SMS.
Please read these USAGE CONDITIONS carefully and, if appropriate, use the download service which shall imply the express and complete acceptance of each and every one of these USAGE CONDITIONS. Otherwise, please close this website.
ONE. PREMIUM SERVICE DESCRIPTION
1.1. Through this website (hereinafter the Website), users can download executables that contain the selected computer program from our servers to their hard drive (the SOFTWARE).
1.2. Netlink Network Corp. offers a PREMIUM high speed download service that is efficient and virus free. In exchange, the user shall first send three SMS under the conditions specified in clause 2.2 that defines the commercial conditions of the service.
TWO. USE OF THE PREMIUM SERVICE
2.1. In order to access the PREMIUM service, the user shall first send three SMS to 88889 as per the detailed instructions provided at all times in the download section of the Website.
2.2. The cost of each SMS sent by the user to said number is 1.50 pounds + VAT; therefore the total cost of access to the PREMIUM service shall be 3.60 Euros + VAT.
2.3. After sending the three SMS, and always in accordance with the detailed instructions provided in the download section, the user shall receive a code that will enable him to perform the high speed download through the PREMIUM service.
etc. The others are similar scams, they want you to give your email address, sent them money by credit card, or by SMS, and have bogus stamps of officialdom and verisign secured etc.
Of course, when the scammers want in, it means the project is a success.
Some differences between Word and WordPerfect:
1. Word handles word count differently to WordPerfect. WordPerfect counts all words, even those in footnotes. Word didn't for a long time (I think they might have fixed that now).
Word was unwelcome as a format in many legal courts in the US, because some types of filing have word count limits and users or Word consistently over-ran, thus filing documents that the court could not accept.
2. Word has a paragraph-based formatting engine, which is very different to the stream based one in WordPerfect. That's a huge difference - it's like saying that Word is a bitmap painting package, and WordPerfect is a vector one.
Those are two differences off the top of my head. I'd say that switching from WordPerfect to Word could well require training, especially if these kinds of differences were ones you used a lot in your work.
Here's one practical example I found many years ago:
Word has no concept of right-justification within a line unless you use tabs. WordPerfect does. If you right-justify in WordPerfect and then change your margins, paper size or paper orientation then WordPerfect just handles it for you - the text snaps to the new margin with no effort required on your part.
When I had to use Word, I had to learn the tab-based workaround. And I had to change the formatting of some kinds of documents I produced, as switching from portrait to landscape meant much more extra work as I then had to change all the tab stops on those pages too.
(I eventually solved this by creating styles with the tab stops in them, one for each page orientation. But that solution took time to arrive at.)
Whether your word processor is Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice.org's Writer, AbiWord, or something else - any heavy use will likely expose you to some feature that either has no direct analogue in other products, or that works differently in them.
If all you ever do is write one-page letters with no real formatting beyond basic text appearance, right-justifying paragraphs and indenting text, then what I've written means nothing to you. You're in the 80% of people who use only 20% of the features. (Possibly even 90%/10% these days.)
For the other 20%, switching word processors will always mean retraining to some degree, as they find these differences by trail and error.
When I was installing the VM it prompted me to download and install open office. Now as I already have a licenced version of Office 2007 Ultimate edition (which I got for $70 yay M$ sweet selling to uni students) I did not proceed to download it as there was no point.
I think the whole suggested sell method employed by fast food restaurants also works with software
Ok... let's take a look at those numbers. There are about 1 billion PC's in use today:
...so very *conservatively* speaking, there are about 800 to 900 million office installs out there.
About 90% of which are windows installed. Most windows machines come bundled with office, so almost that entire number has office on it.
Doubtful. A large percentage of home machines do not have MSOffice bundled. They get, and use, Works (gag) for 'free'. Anecdotally, no one I know got MSOffice with their most recent PC's.
And it's not an either/or situation. People generally don't uninstall MSOffice when they dl/install OOo.
... but not enough to pay $500 for it. I like it better than OOo, but not THAT much better.
Download free e-books, lectures, and tutorials at bookgoldmine.com
I made the switch to Linux (including Kubuntu, Xubuntu, DSL, Kanotix, Knoppix) due to the high quality alternatives provided by Open Office, Firefox, and Thunderbird.
I know a lot of people that switched to OO just to get the pdf output format. Sun continues to do an amazing job with the open source community on OO.
> M$
It's Microsoft, unless you want people to think you're a 12-year old child with badly suppressed anger issues.
> moved everything around in 2007
I haven't met a single person in my company that hasn't been as productive (if not more) with the ribbon interface than
with MSO2003. And if someone wasn't, we could just turn it off. You can do that, you know.
You must be one of those people that think *all* change is bad, even when it happens to be good.
> Price.
Fair enough, but compatibility tends to rank higher.
> Freedom, freedom, freedom. Bitten several times by DOC
Who has been "bitten" by DOC again? People who don't use Office, I presume. And those are still
the minority. This isn't even an argument.
> your Office cash cow is dead.
Could you please provide some proof that MSO2007 is not selling? I'd be curious to see it. AFAIK
Microsoft is selling it just as well as 2003.
OEM PCs nowadays will almost always come with a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office 2007, and if the user is really lucky, Microsoft Works (full). Yes, that's lucky.
Most Linux users kinda have to wait until their distro updates the program in their repositories (unless you jump the gun and use and unofficial package). I downloaded OO.o 3.0 on my Windows box, but when it came to installing it on Debian I decided it wasn't worth the effort.
People are going to flame you and call you stupid, so let me just head off some of their inevitable criticisms:
You should have checked!
No, you shouldn't have had to have checked. Besides, this assumes that you still have to have MS Office and OO.o, and isn't the whole point of this bru-ha-ha to say that you don't need MS Office if you have the free and wonderful OO.o? No, Word did not screw up your CV. OO.o does not export to Word correctly. It's OO.o's responsibility to properly support the de facto industry standard.
You should have sent a PDF!
Okay, smart guys, you try sending PDFs instead of Word documents. There are still lots of moronic HR departments (well, are there any other kind?) who don't even know what they are. The first time I started sending those, I got a call back from an angry HR person saying "We don't take scanned CVs!" I was honestly confused. "I'm sorry, but that is just a PDF of my CV. It's not scanned." "We have to be able to search the text. Please send us the original Word document."
Well you know, and I know that you can very well search the text of a PDF, but that isn't the point; the point is whether HR knows, and, as I think I've already established, those people are borderline retarded.
Also, a lot of places actually request .docs. If OO.o can't produce them correctly, then you look like an idiot. In my case in the above story, where I was requested to send a .doc? It meant I had to get ahold of MS Office, because I'd been using (and liking) OO.o for a year.
Hell, the next problem I had was that I had my "letterhead" in my header in Word, and an HR guy called me complaining that I'd used a "gray font," and that it was no wonder I didn't have a job if I didn't know how to format a Word document correctly. "It's conventional to make your name and address legibile to the person looking at your CV," he said. So I went back and reformatted all of that stuff by hand, like an idiot who can't use software.
In all of these cases, I did the right thing. In none of these cases was the company itself really to blame. They might have been nice places to work. But when you're applying for a job, you first have to get through the imbeciles in HR who stand guard at the gate. Anything that they don't understand--and that's a lot, it turns out--is going to get your CV tossed in the bin.
Why would you want to work somewhere that wants .docs and doesn't worship at the throne of OSS???
Because he needs a job so he can, you know, eat.
OO.o is damn nice for being free, and I really liked some of its features that are missing in Office. But, in all honestly, Office does more better and is the industry standard.
And finally, to all the people going on about having to pay for PDF export? Um, sourceforge up yourself some PDFcreator. It's free. I've been using it for years without issue.
No. Most Windows machines are bundled with MS Works. It's basically 'free' in Dell systems for example. But I won't be surprised if OO3 will be included in the future as nothing opens Works files without a plug-in.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Microsoft Works comes as a standard option on the lower end PC's. It's so stripped down that it is actually aggravating to use. It won't even open most existing XLS or DOC files properly!
Open Office was a breath of fresh air for those of us too cheap/unwilling to purchase the full MS Office 2007 (especially given it's lackluster reviews).
It works smoothly, has all of the interfaces we've come to learn and love, and opens/closes Microsoft Office files unlike Microsoft Works...
As one commentator noted, when it comes to a choice between almost identical software (e.g. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice), price is the determining factor."
Except OpenOffice and Microsoft Office are anything put "almost identical", unless "they're both office suites qualifies as being almost identical.
As others mentioned it will be in backports though and if you're impatient, you can get it right away by adding the PPA: https://launchpad.net/~openoffice-pkgs/+archive
Just add the deb and deb-src lines from the top of that page to /etc/apt/source.list
Then do a sudo aptitude update or whatever your preferred package manager is and then 3.0 will be available for install through your package manager. I realize it's not just there and easy for the taking, but the above isn't too hard if you want 3.0 now. In fact it works for Hardy too if you change the source.list entries appropriately.
So... how much do you weigh now? /ducks
I wouldn't be surprised of #3 captured the essential truth of the situation. OOo is one of the worst pieces of OSS I use. I've searched systematically for something better, and haven't found it. At this point, I feel like OOo was a dead end that had the unfortunate effect of killing off interest in competing OSS office software.
While I'm inclined to agree that OO is one of the worst pieces of software out there (open source or otherwise), office suites tend to suck period, OO's crapiness reflects that it is in fact trying to duplicate something which needs to be rebuilt from concept up, or perhaps done away with entirely, except the user base is too firmly entrenched into ideas about what productivity software should do.
Note that I don't lay this blame on Microsoft (which is strange...) the business world expects a lot of things that are either misplaced, or a waste of time. Database like functions from a spreadsheet, fancy document layout tools (not useless, but not really suitable for a program with the primary purpose of writing letters and memos), powerpoint (the whole thing). About the only thing in the entire office suite set that doesn't need a complete rework would be email clients, and even then I've had users complain that the email client doesn't render javascript...
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
Because OO is free there is no cost to downloading it. So even if you have MS Office on your box you might as well download.
For this reason, the statement in the post that price point is a factor is tremendously stupid. You could make a statement like that if you surveyed users and found out how many of them used ONLY OO. But knowing how many downloaded a free application does not tell you how many purchased a pay-for application.
-- Henry
Many popular (but apparently poorly designed) job-search sites do not work with PDF. Doc files only. Moreover, 90% of the recruiters I've talked initially request .doc, and at least half that didn't ask for a .doc after I've sent the initial PDF. It seems that the employers/recruiters like to be able to add their own notes to the resume. These days I send both, with the added note of "PDF version included as the .DOC file may not render as intended on all versions of word" (and it doesn't... I've seen it do weird things on computers other than mine even when I've edited resumes in MSOffice rather than OO.
80% for Windows users is normal cause they can't download this software from somewhere else like Linux user who can download it trough its package manager or repositories.
I only ever hear bad things about recruitment agents. I really don't know why more companies don't advertise directly.
I have had mixed experiences with recruiters. My last two positions were obtained via recruiter. I suspect the reason that so many use recruiters is that they hire people on contract first and only "promote" to regular employee those who work out.
I, for sure, wouldn't hire anyone who did that, nor would I want to apply for a job where they required such applications. It's a sign of cluelessness.
I have very strong opinions on what kind of work I will accept - I refuse to do Microsoft Windows, but even I do not go that far. I've been in the job market in the US and Japan and there's a term for someone who refuses to make available a resume in .doc format - permanently unemployed.
Sad to say.
Fortunately, monster.com will let you enter a resume into their system and then let you download a copy in .doc format. I have no idea what it looks like in Microsoft Word, nor do I care.
Sorry, but I wouldn't want to work at place with an HR department like that. Would immediately disqualify them from my search. Seriously, they don't know how to use a PDF? And you're applying for technical position? Do yourself a favor and forego the pain.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
And finally, to all the people going on about having to pay for PDF export? Um, sourceforge up yourself some PDFcreator. It's free. I've been using it for years without issue
In my experience PDFcreator will just output what's sent by the printing function of the application. The export to PDF function in OO.o does things like including proper links in the table of contents, etc... it actually makes use of PDF document features.
To get the same in Word, as far as I'm aware, you have to pay for Acrobat or similar.
Agreed, the last time I was on the job hunt I continually got people whining that I was using PDF format for resumes and wanting the Word copy. Explaining that I was using a script that generated a LaTeX document or HTML or TXT formats was more or less a waste of time.
Sure from a technical perspective you'd think pdf would be fine, but simply put, it is not what they want, and they are the ones offering to pay the right person...
You know, I might be more sympathetic to your arguments that these problems with .doc translation are OOo's fault, except for ...
all of the the problems I've had translating .doc formats between different versions of MS Word, including MS Word 2007. I.e., I've had problems with Word 2007 incorrectly opening .doc files created in earlier versions of Word, and earlier versions of Word opening .doc files created in Word 2007.
Note that I'm not talking about .docx format, or some new weird .doc format, just plain old .doc.
So if I can't expect MS Word to correctly translate .doc, how can I blame OOo for it's .doc export?
I'm being completely serious. I gave up on communicating with people using .doc, .odt, or any other format mainly because of Word-to-Word export and import of the same .doc format. I only use pdfs now, and it's saved all sorts of hassles.
Now, I sympathize with the original poster having to deal with the idiocy of HR and whatnot, but that's a totally separate issue from either OOo or MS. Don't blame OOo for the stupidity of the employers he was applying to work for.
Am I saying MS Office sucks? No. I think it's a fine program. I personally haven't used it on a regular basis for years. At some point in the past, I had problems with Word's equation editing, which is a complete joke, and discovered that it's actually decent in OOo. Not perfect, but livable. At some point, I stopped noticing that I wasn't using MS Office anymore, at least on a regular basis. I didn't hate MS Office, I just noticed one day that I don't use it, when a supervisee was looking for it on a computer and couldn't find it.
What are you talking about? PDF export is free to Office 2007 users:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F1FC413C-6D89-4F15-991B-63B07BA5F2E5&displaylang=en
That said, I use PDFCreator because it supports all programs, not just office...
And while OO.o is great, it still doesn't support > 64K rows like Excel 2007 (it will open the doc, but silently truncate the rows!). And before you all start flaming me, no, I do not think it is a good idea to use Excel for spreadsheets with 64K rows, in general. But from time to time, someone makes one, and being able to read it is nice.
-Dan
I haven't met a single person in my company that hasn't been as productive (if not more) with the ribbon interface than with MSO2003
My experience is totally different to yours - most Windows users in my office are sticking with Office 2003, because they don't like the Ribbon in Office 2007. Personally, I do have Office 2007 installed, but I ALSO have OpenOffice 3.0 installed, and it gets far more use. The only thing I use Microsoft Office for is PowerPoint (which I loathe, but mainly because I loathe all "presentation" software I've seen to date, and also hate giving presentations)
we could just turn it off. You can do that, you know.
Ummm... no, I didn't realise that... and a few Google searches and I still can't see how. You can show/hide the ribbon, but it doesn't give you back the menus you had in previous versions of Office, which is what anyone really means/wants when they talk about turning off the Ribbon.
Who has been "bitten" by DOC again? People who don't use Office, I presume.
A few of my co-workers have been bitten by .docx, always asking me to open/re-save it for them since they're not running anything that can handle it. Since the new version of Open Office, I've been pushing them towards that now. (Yes, I'm aware of the "Compatibility Pack" from Microsoft, but many of my co-workers aren't, and I'd rather push them towards OpenOffice than that)
More directly on being bitten by .doc, I assume the GP was referring to some of the odd behaviour it can display across different systems - there have been cases I've seen in the past, where a document saved on one computer will look different when opened on another (usually alignment and end-of-page issues where a page break hasn't been forced). I put this down to compatibility between versions (honestly, it's less of an issue than the differences opening Word documents in OpenOffice, but I've never seen the issue when opening OpenOffice native documents with other versions of OpenOffice, which is a fairer comparison)
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
have you used the new Microsoft Office?
it's f'ing weird!
OpenOffice 3 is very comfortable for users of previous versions of Microsoft's suite.
>>>
Besides, this assumes that you still have to have MS Office and OO.o...
Microsoft provides a Word viewer for free.
Never.
That's why your numbers are bullshit.
Like anything else, it's an indicator.
For instance, I admin school systems - guess how many times we download OpenOffice to install across our entire network, and any other school that might happen to ask for it? Once. From there it's distributed to technicians, schools, parents on CD, etc. And we *do* do it for the price factor. Admittedly, the statistics don't show you much but they are an indicator. What it says is that the "majority" (using a certain measure) of OO users are people who run on Windows but probably don't want to pay for MS Office.
And I very much doubt anyone who's got MS Office will have OpenOffice if you surveyed the world as a whole, whether it's a free download or not. I'd imagine far less than one percent of MS Office users also have OpenOffice installed. And I would say that the same was true in reverse. If nothing else, novice users are unaware of file associations etc. and they would just think that OO "broke" their Office because it tried to assign itself to ".doc" etc.
There are, of course, millions of other factors in the "80% Windows" statistic - Linux users are more technically minded, so are more likely to download one copy and distribute. Linux users can get the software through their package managers and OO is included with some distributions which may have a million users so does that count as one download or a million?
Anyone taking these statistics seriously deserves whatever conclusion they jump to. If you want to know something properly, do a professional survey. However, I don't think that anybody's really intended to take them seriously at all. It's more of an "Oh, that's slightly interesting" statistic.
If you run one of the longer term Linux distros (SUSE Enterprise, RHEL, CentOS primarily), then the current release of those probably won't ever see OO.org 3.X as an update. We primarily run CentOS 5 at work (both for servers and desktops) and I've hand-upgraded every OO.org release via manual downloads from the official site since we moved to CentOS 5. I just wish there weren't 47 (!!) RPMs to install - what's wrong with 5 or 6 [core plus each app]? - plus where's the 64-bit version of OO.org?
Wow - I am 53 now and have worked in several government and IT surroundings and never ever in all those years have seen a >64K row Excel document. And now you are saying you are seeing them on a regular basis? What kind of weird places do you work?
Anyway - this is another attempt trying to prove you can't live without MS-Office, because some never ever used function is missing in OpenOffice.org.
OpenOffice.org IS usable for the majority of people, just because they don't need all those whistles and bells they never use.
While maybe in your country the staff of a company is not capable of using .pdf documents, I can assure you in my country they are. Seems like those people are a bit undereducated. Not a company I would like to work for.
And yes - English is not my native language, so I make spelling mistakes.
Monthly Gets for an Office 07 torrent will still be greater than the total gets for OO.org 3.0 .
At least for me ;-)
At the company I work for, Word 2000 is still widespread, including "my" PC. It has an annoying tendency to shift formatting in unpredictable ways or simply crashing. Other MS Office products have lesser but still annoying quirks.
Over the years, I have depeloped a sufficient aversion to ban it from my privat PC. And considering that Word 2000 is the fifth major release of Word, I have little faith in newer versions being better.
Open Office, OTOH, has so far worked fine for me and I'm actually getting into apathy territory the other way:
why bother checking out Microsoft's latest turd?
C - the footgun of programming languages
Linux's market share is 0,91% and you are surprised that 80% OO downloads are from Windows users? /. users are so dumb.
Paranoia!
Real gentoo users will never use binaries for OO, X, kernel and other small things like that. Its the only true benchmark for "ROTFL, 3 days?!! My box compiles it in just 1.5!".
If Asimov were still around to read your comment, he'd probably knock off a story as to how new versions of OO.o aren't actually developed the way we think; instead, they're reverse engineered from compiled binaries found on pre-release laptops!
I thought it was piratebay.org?
These are nonsense numbers. Each major Linux distro will pull the OpenOffice.org source and put it in their own repository. So for Linux you'll see about 30 downloads (one per distro), plus a number of "early adopters" who don't mind doing the work themselves. Most Linux users will just wait til they're packaged, and pull from that. In other words: The Linux users are dreadfully undercounted by this count.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
I'd generally agree with you except for here:
Okay, smart guys, you try sending PDFs instead of Word documents. There are still lots of moronic HR departments (well, are there any other kind?) who don't even know what they are.
While that might be the norm, the last job I applied for, the HR department actually preferred PDFs, since they had enough trouble just dealing with problems between different versions of Word (especially 2003/2007).
I call "bullsh*t" on kklien!
(Sorry I haven't gotten around to creating a Slashdot account.)
I just opened my resume with OpenOffice v2.41 and it renders my resume perfectly.
If you have such arcane formatting in your resume that OOO can't open it properly, you should go back to school on how to create a resume.
Too much 'fluff' means your resume is going to end up in the 'circular file' instead of a manager's hands.
There is definitely a spike in OpenOffice interest with this release. I see a 15% increase in traffice at Plan-B for OpenOffice.org
Also there was a race of Tweats announcing different servers where you could find the 3.0 final release before its official release.
Many of the Twitter comments referred to OS X capability.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
Is there a way to get this to work? I get a lot of junk... no usable displayed values though.
Yeah I know. My wife has a perfectly good Dual 2.0Ghz G5 Power Mac with 4gb of ram. There is NO need to upgrade that machine. It works perfectly good for her photography work and video editing. It's fast. I see no point in spending $1600 on up to get an Intel CPU iMac with the same amount of memory and really no other improvements. (400mhz faster, big woop.) When I NEED to upgrade her machine I'll upgrade it to the top end and not buy another one for 5 or 8 years.
But then Apple is saying the next version of OSX won't run on the PPC cpu either.