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OpenOffice Five Times As Popular As Google Docs
CWmike writes "Confirming recent comments by Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, an independent report released Friday found that OpenOffice.org's free office suite is five times more popular than Google Docs. This was according to a survey of 2,400 adult Internet users conducted between May and November. Microsoft's share was 10 times that of OpenOffice.org. Microsoft hopes to cement that lead with its upcoming Office Web, as well as online versions of its Exchange and SharePoint products to be announced on Monday. OpenOffice.org may provide some resistance, however. The latest version, OpenOffice.org 3.0, had a strong first week in October, with more than 3 million downloads. After one month, OpenOffice.org 3.0 had been downloaded 10 million times." And reader Peter Toi informs us of the open source release of yet another office suite, Softmaker Office. Its claimed advantages are its compactness and speed (making it suitable for netbooks), its excellent MS Office filters, and the fact that it can be installed to USB flash drives.
Softmaker Office looks like a freeasinbeer release of the 2006 version to promote sales of the 2008 version. There's no link to sources on the site, anyway.
Perhaps they haven't hear of http://portableapps.com/
Or, more likely, they have but are just pretending...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
The CEO of ClickStream, the independent company that did the research, used to do the exact same market research WHILE HE WAS AT MICROSOFT. Though they claim Microsoft didn't pay for this research study, they do say that Microsoft is a client for other studies...I'd hardly call this independent.
http://www.clickstreamtech.com/about.html
That's all true, plus no footnotes. Absolute deal-breaker.
I used it for a while when I was writing short texts that I wanted to access anywhere, but I quickly discovered that this offered no more advantages than writing these texts in emails I sent to myself. The formatting and other capabilities of GDocs are just that bad.
I also tried using it collaboratively, but I found that the changes I made while simultaneously working on a doc with a colleague were not instant enough to be of any synchronic use - we spent a lot of time discussing (on skype) what changes we did or would make. So again, not much better than asynchronous email.
Something is wrong with your setup, OO.o is snappy and responsive, even on my netbook.
You're part of the problem. Usability is key, and if an application takes 20 seconds to start, people will complain. The IT department can railroad it in, but that will lead to resentment, especially if they have attitudes like yours. People who are using office applications are not necessarily nerds, you know.
Anyway, OO is nowhere near as bad as you a painting it. It does not take anywhere near 20 seconds.... I don't know where you got that from.
I tried it. They have versions for Windows and Linux, apparently not for Mac. It's not open source. They have a trial version that you can download for free and use for 30 days. The trial version is crippled: can't save to any other format besides their own proprietary .tmd format. They also offer a non-crippled 2006 Windows version for free -- but not the 2008 version, and not for Linux. The download page wants your name, country, and email address, and tells you that you'll automatically be subscribed to their email newsletter. It doesn't say that you can opt out of the newsletter. However, down below the form where they ask for this information, it says, in microscopic type, "Leave empty if you do not wish to register." It works if you simply click through to the download without filling anything in. They have the Linux download packaged with installers in rpm, deb, and shell flavors. I downloaded the deb version, but it wouldn't install on my machine, because my machine is x64. I copied the deb to an x86 box, and it installed fine. It made menu entries for itself in the Gnome Applications/Office menu. The first time you run it, it wants to set up a documents folder for you, which defaults to ~/SoftMaker. (I find this kind of thing annoying, and believe that it discourages people from developing good habits for organizing their files.)
I'm a little bit baffled right now as to why anyone would choose it. They claim "compactness" as an advantage, but the download is 80 MB, which doesn't seem very compact to me. (The 2006 Windows version is smaller.) Their web site says, "The Microsoft Word-compatible word processor that is so easy to use that you will wonder why you bothered with Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org for so long," and then lists some bullet points. One is "Fast, powerful, reliable." Actually it didn't really seem any faster than OOo. On the machine I tried it on, the startup time was basically the same as OOo. "Reads and writes your Word documents seamlessly (Microsoft Word .doc 6.0 to 2007)" AFAICT the only advantage over OOo would be if it can read OOXML. (Although OOo can't write OOXML, I can't see why anyone would care; if you save in an older Word format and give the file to Word 2007 users, they'll still be able to read it.) The price is $80 US. Although that may be a lot less than full retail price for Word, it's a heck of a lot more than OOo. And of course I'd have to live with all the usual hassles of proprietary software. I won't get an x64 version unless they deign to compile one for me at some point in the future. I won't be able to upgrade without paying money. Sorry, I'm just spoiled -- apt-get and OSS work fine for me.
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I like it, a lot, especially the very fine equation editor - it's top-notch, although I am used to the style in Open/StarOffice.
However, what I don't like that much is: it does not allow for creating of .pdf files, and it asks me for registration every freaking time I start it. It was supposed to be free as in beer, I thought!? Also, and this is minor, but still: the default document format is proprietary. It does allow you to save in .odf, which I think every non-MS office suite SHOULD do. It just would be nicer if this was their default format. I don't like the idea of yet another proprietary office format around.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
And precisely why I ditched Acrobat Reader for FoxitPDF which is small and fast.
OpenOffice is a great alternative to Microsoft Office if you want open formats. OpenOffice is also fairly feature-rich. However the app does take considerably longer to start (cold or hot) than MS Office on the same hardware.
That complaint is not only valid, but one share by many OOo devs who complain themselves at the performance. OOo's codebase is mammoth (comparable to the entire KDE codebase, including Koffice) and ancient. It is also very monolithic, as the suite exists as one huge app. Throw in the occasional Java feature that forces users to wait for Java to fire up, and they're just not going to be happy with performance.
I believe that OOo provides all the features that 95%+ of the users will want. Really I'd like to see Sun/Novell/Whomever to focus on stripping legacy code, making OOo more modular (don't load every aspect of the program unless it is needed at boot, move some features/aspects into libraries that can be loaded later if needed) and improve the interface.
I don't believe copying the MS Office 2007 ribbon is the way to go, but a more intuitive, clear and attractive interface would go a long way towards winning over more users.
Derivative works like Red Office and Symphony have nicer UIs. How come OOo's UI has remained so static over the years?
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I recommend to everyone to use Novell's fork/not-fork located at go-oo.org as it is. It uses less memory, provides more features, runs faster, etc. Yes, Novell signed a deal with the devil, but they're putting out a good product for free, so using it isn't supporting Novell. It is just using the superior product.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
One of the reasons MSOffice loads so quickly is that it adds a "quick launch" app to Windows Startup. Part of the code loads every time you boot (adding to boot time and sucking up system resources) so that Office can load quicker. Nice, if you're constantly using Office, opening, editing, saving and closing. Not so nice if you only use it once or twice a week, and you're wondering why your computer takes so long to boot. Of course, the installer doesn't mention it's doing this unless you do a custom install and decide not to load that module. Take out Quick Load, and I'll bet the load time for Office is just about the same as for OpenOffice.
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I'm a big fan of KDE and their products, but KOffice is a very different beast than MS Office and OOo. To some that is a very good thing, but it isn't going to replace OOo for me, despite being lean and mean. I'm not entirely sure it is meant to compete in the same arena.
However, run it for yourself and make your own determinations. Pull the packages in your distro if you're on Linux, or grab them here on Windows.
http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/KDE_on_Windows/Installation
There should be native packages for Mac and OpenSolaris as well.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
That Microsoft Office only beats OOo by a factor of 10. I'm not being facetious -- That is a really good chunk for OOo! For the record, I removed MS Office from over 100 lab computers in my organization last year in favor of OOo. I'm also strongly urging staff to use OOo for at least a month. If, after that, they still insist on MS Office, I get it for them. Sadly, most opt for MS. Blows my mind, especially given the fact that the differences between Office 97/2000/xp/2003 and OOo are small compared to the differences between Office 97/2000/xp/2003 and Office 2007.
I am not left-handed, either!
I just tested it on my system (a core 2 duo laptop running Ubuntu 8.04). OpenOffice 2.4 loads up in 12 seconds and the splash screen appeared after 4 seconds. I closed it and ran it again, the second time it loaded in 2 seconds.
OpenOffice is also very fast for me at least at opening new files when it's already running. If I'm doing a lot of office suite work (like, all day at a job for example) how likely is it that I'll be closing OpenOffice completely and relaunching it every time I need it?
Honesty, I think the big problems people have with adopting free software are brand loyalty and natural resistance to change. Microsoft is out there constantly delivering messages to people that their software is empowering and helpful. Windows and Office are easily two of the most recognizable brands amongst people that use computers. It's easy to see how people will dislike an alternative that they had never heard of until recently. Especially if they equate cost with value as many do. Office is several hundreds of dollars, so OpenOffice must seem terrible if it's just given away.
I can confirm this 12 seconds and then 2 seconds after initial starting. My guess would be that it has something to do with ubuntu/linux's resource efficiency. I experience the same thing after not having used compiz effects and then all of a sudden using a bunch. After a second or two, they're running perfectly smoothly. Not sure why this is, but I think my box would run slower if this method was not used. Anyone know what I'm talking about specifically?
Last week my mom signed up for a gmail account. A few hours later she called me up. "I sent someone an e-mail about about my car and then there were all of these ads for my model of car? Why are they reading my e-mail; I don't like it."
If someone feels uncomfortable with letting someone lean over their shoulders why they send an e-mail, they are going to feel even more uncomfortable letting them peer at their spreadsheet.
As a writer over at The Register put it, Google fixes problem no one asked them to fix.
I think there is also a "quickstart" app that pre-loads parts of it: i.e. make it behave more like MS Office.
The cold start is slower than warm start because you first start from hard drive, the second time you're probably loading from the cache in RAM.
I believe that OOo provides all the features that 95%+ of the users will want. Really I'd like to see Sun/Novell/Whomever to focus on stripping legacy code, making OOo more modular (don't load every aspect of the program unless it is needed at boot, move some features/aspects into libraries that can be loaded later if needed) and improve the interface.
At the heart of it all, I understand that OOo's immodularity is rather fundamental. Remember that it used to come with its own "Desktop" that would literally replace your desktop with its own when you launched it - think GEM if you go back that far. It *is* a very nice application from the user's perspective - but as far as modularity goes, it left alot to be desired since it was written to NOT be modular.
They've done a great job with what they started with, I wish them good luck as they continue...
Oh, and at my software company, Foxit is on our "Recommended Software" downloads list...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
To see the difference between loading from disk and loading from cache was why I ran it twice.
Even on older computers if OpenOffice took a little while to load at first, it's always been plenty usable for me once it's running. A few of the features I tried to use in Base took a few seconds to load up, but only the first time I used them in that session. So even less efficient features of OpenOffice benefit from the disk cache.
Out of curiosity I ran Abiword and it loaded in about 4 seconds from the disk, and less than 2 seconds from the cache.
And that there is a major advantage to using OpenOffice in the first place. With ODF I can start writing almost instantly with one application and switch to another when I need to use different features.
OpenOffice isn't really the biggest threat to Microsoft, it's ODF.
Unlike Notepad, Wordpad has bold, italic, etc - and no doubt there is a linux equiv (or ten). Launches instantly. Free. Perfectly good for 99% of uses.