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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.
having used all three, i find the oo (especially the last version) to have the features, availability and deployment options i need and a price i don't disagree with.
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.
It has most of the features of Microsoft Works 97. With less fonts. The UI is clunky and slow. Granted it is great for being web based however compared to Office or Open Office it is way behind. Also I think people like their documents to be on there system and be able to disconnect from the internet all together sometimes just so they get their work done without the internet whispering in your ear "browse me"
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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
"Oh noes! it takes 20 seconds to boot!" // as if those nerds have anything better to do with their precious time
The problem is not the nerd's time, but the perception of the MS users to whom said nerds show the suite. Startup time for OpenOffice programs directly conflicts with the assertion that wins OSS converts, that OSS software will better utilize existing hardware.
So first off, current incarnations of MS Office are considered the clear market leader. That's a fair observation. A traditionally installed local application manipulating files in a traditional way is popular.
OpenOffice.org is making inroads as a free alternative. More people are starting to find it a viable alternative for many circumstances, and opt not to explicitly buy MS Office. It behaves fundamentally the same way, and does basically the same stuff. Incidentally, I'm happy as it is a cross-platform application, but I think a greater portion of the userbase doesn't think about the source code or the cross-platform, they just didn't have to give money for it.
Then Google docs comes along. In terms of a strong brand to back the concept, it doesn't get much better than the word 'Google'. They find that despite the strong name and potential ability to fulfill at least the basic needs, people aren't excited about using it. The reason seems self-evident, people are more comfortable with traditional software models for this task. They feel they 'own' the software and have the most control over it. They may or may not back up to online storage, but they want to use a local application to edit it.
MS feels this means issuing their own webapp therefore would cement their lead. I think Google's failure indicates that such an offering is moot. People don't want subscription based software if non-subscription software can do the same thing or better. I've seen people throw out how it comes out cheaper in the long haul than buying the software every time, but it ignores the obvious, that people don't buy every iteration. I know people still using their copies of Office97 because they never had a reason to move. MS and many other companies hate this, but it is a simple fact.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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 work from explorer rather than from OpenOffice. A sever delay when I double click something is a royal pain. This is the same reason Adobe Reader sucks.
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?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
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.
The boot time may not be 20 seconds on our machines, but the guy who wrote it might be running old hardware or a bloated box.
Anyhow, here is a real world example of the perception problem from a small office I support with a custom app.
I got OpenOffice accepted at an office with old Dell p4s - don't recall the speed of the processors - and I'm a software guy anyhow, so I didn't make much point of checking before installing OpenOffice on the machines. I do recall that there was plenty of ram for XP machines under their use scenario.
The customer had upgraded to Office 2007, but was having massive problems including unexplained resource locks that would take down machines and lose all unsaved data (this was a number of patches ago, so the MS product may have improved stability since this happened).
Open Office worked fine for everything they needed, but the boot time was at least three times that of the MS offering on those specific machines. Luckily, the controller wanted stability first - but her employees still grouse about her being a cheapskate. Even after using OO for a while they think of it as second tier and the only specific complaint they can back this attitude up with is that OO is slow.
I know their usage pattern and the only slow thing is the suite's boot time, and only then when compared to the older version of Office they were all used to using. So transitioning the customer to OpenOffice was actually harmful to the suite's reputation among the rank and file, and this issue comes up when the controller has to give out bad reviews to employees. Apparently some have cited having to use shitty software as a reason they cannot perform their duties well.
Now any manager in their right mind would think that those employees need to get new jobs, but MS penetration of the market has made it difficult to find rank and file that view OSS as anything other than a 'cheap' alternative, and small companies are not usually willing to part with long time employees over software issues.
Take out Quick Load, and I'll bet the load time for Office is just about the same as for OpenOffice.
It doesn't. I've always disabled programs from pre-loading at bootup (for ongoing performance issues, not just initial boot times) and Word 2007 opens a fresh document in 3 seconds (no previously opened documents or Office apps). After closing Word and re-opening, it loads a fresh document in 1 second.
Comparing this to OOo 3 and it takes 7 seconds for initial launch and 4 seconds for subsequent launches. To me, this is pretty conclusive that Quick Load isn't the reason MS Office loads faster but probably speaks for the MS Office team doing a better job writing optimised, modular code. These test results are of course subjective depending on the hardware you have but it's the kind of thing people notice when trying to convert them away from MS Office.
It's been said before but OO's problem is the monolithic and legacy nature of the code causing it to bloat. I imagine if OO developers completely rewrote the code, stripped out all the shit and didn't use Java then they could compete with MS Office for performance. Maybe, just maybe...
There is no knowledge that is not power.
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.
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.