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Is OpenOffice.org a Threat? Microsoft Thinks So
Glyn Moody writes "Most people regard OpenOffice.org as a distant runner-up to Microsoft Office, and certainly not a serious rival. Microsoft seems to feel otherwise, judging by a new job posting on its site for a 'Linux and Open Office Compete Lead.' According to this, competing with both GNU/Linux and OpenOffice.org is 'one of the biggest issues that is top of mind' for no less a person than Steve Ballmer. Interestingly, a key part of this position is 'engaging with Open Source communities and organizations' — which suggests that Microsoft's new-found eagerness to 'engage' with open source has nothing to do with a real desire to reach a pacific accommodation with free software, but is simply a way for Microsoft to fight against it from close up, and armed with inside knowledge."
...its GUI is more like Microsoft Office pre-2007 than Microsoft Office 2007 is, and I have never gotten used to the 2007 interface.
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
The problem is they continually flip flop, one week they are seeking open source interaction and the next week they are attacking it and it's supporters. It all seems to be driven by nothing more than the current marketing image they wish to present. Although it does seem that M$ leans more to open source when they get screwed over by some patent dispute.
Really for them to put a foot forward they actually need to release their own branded version of a recognised open source software package and adhere to the requirements of the licence, even should their version substantially vary and they choose to host and make it available.
So what will it be, VLC, Firefox or maybe something Ruby. I think OpenOffice,org or a Linux distribution is way, way to far a stretch for them, they just lack that kind of mental flexibility and out of the box thinking.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Of course, these two products compete directly with their two big cash cows. OO may not seriously compete today, but these things change and Microsoft can't get complacent. Is it any surprise that they would take any competitors seriously? I think they are smart enough to know that both Linux and OO are strong products and you really only need a few leaders out there to use these things successfully before others start slowly migrating these products into their environments, and what was once guaranteed profits start to trickle away slowly. Even if companies target areas to use these free products in less critical areas this hurts them. I know in our organization we could easily replace some of our 1500 servers with Linux where right now no matter how light the load or low priority the system is we dump W2K3 or 8 on it. We couldn't do it on all, but easily on some and nobody would even notice. The only thing that stops it is fear of the unknown.
Firefox doesn't already know that CSV should be tied to OO? Shouldn't that have occurred at install time by OO? No, ok, I'll set it up--done.
In OO's defense, It seems that most of the time, CSV is not associated with any app, which is probably a good thing because CSV doesn't always imply "spreadsheet". True, some people want their computer to make all their decisions about which app to use for what. But those people usually also end up with a boatload of adbars in their browser and spyware and viruses on their harddrives. And they wonder why their computer doesn't work.
"Won't that be grand, the computers will start thinking and the people will stop." - Walter, from Tron (1982)
For years, Microsoft has raked in money with Office. It's been THE leading revenue generator for ages with $4.4 billion in 3Q 2009. Office and related business products bring in more money than their Server/OS division. However, that number is trending down to the tune of almost 500 million from the same time last year.
Maybe it's just the recession. Maybe it was the Vista impact. However, the decline is noticeable.
Source: MS Annual Reports and Earnings Releases
"Takes a long fucking time to open OO. I mean a LONG time."
unless you compare it to the full Microsoft office on the same machine it is not really a fair comparison.
"I select all the fields and go to resize them all with a single click but--nothing happens. WTF? I try again. Nothing. I look on the menu bar quickly--nothing. WTF?"
OO does not duplicate all the functionality and gui of MS Office, it is a slight learning experience as it is a different product. But i for one have had more "wow, this such a better and more intuitive way of doing things" then "where have they put that" moments using OO.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
You installed OO on a machine that wouldn't even run Office, then complained about start up times. You then played with the software for 5 minutes. It didn't do what you wanted. You didn't find a menu item and you moved on probably without even consulting documentation or Googling. It's possible that OO is lacking the functionality you wanted to use. Who knows. You didn't bother to find out, so why should I. Regardless, I'd say the problem is behind the keyboard in this case.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Rebuttals:
1. And Microsoft Office looks aged compared to anything I've seen on CSI. I'm not sure I want my office software looking like something I've seen on CSI, so being aged isn't a bad thing. Oh, and get off my lawn.
2. It takes a while to load because Office has probably already pre-loaded most of itself and just pops up a main window when you open a document. Ever wonder why Windows is so slow to boot?
3. Yeah, I wish I could do python scripting in Open Office, or save straight to PDF from my OpenOffice Writer, or create equations with LaTeX in my OpenOffice Impress presentations. Oh wait...
4. Educational Institutions are normally the first to try new things, since they have a higher proportion of geeks in the place. There's also well documented cases of local governments switching to OO.org and Linux. And some switching back after getting sweeteners from MS, but that's the point of the original article. MS sees a threat.
5. What do you want it to develop into ffs? Emacs?
I didn't read your entire post, but, MS Office can't properly handle CSV either. If you have an internationalized Windows and in the language settings of WINDOWS (not of office or anything!!), you have somewhere ";" instead of "," as "separator", then MS Excel can't read a CSV that uses "," anymore! It's called COMMA separated list, and yet excel can't read it and uses your localized settings, so that people with a computer of a different language can't even exchange such files with each other!
Come on, it's called CSV, why doesn't MS Office always use comma's then.
Sounds pretty normal for Microsoft.
I use IBM's Lotus Symphony package, myself. Good support, and it "looks" far better than OpenOffice (which sometimes makes all the difference when you're trying to convince someone to use it. That, and it's got native Mac, PC, and Ubuntu versions.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
1, many MS customers are still using old versions which by definition *are* aged...
2, looks are not terrible important, and load time less so... in the win9x days when you had to reboot constantly and reload all your apps it mattered a lot, these days people will leave it running all day.
3, it has a slightly different feature set and in some ways is more featured than the ms offering, that said many customers use old versions of ms and most only use a small subset...
Remember that when MS took over from wordperfect, it was MS who had the inferior product considered a joke by any serious users of wordperfect...
Traditionally, using OOo has been considered detrimental because of the prevalence of proprietary ms formats, but this is gradually changing.. And despite the best efforts of MS the world is moving towards more open data formats which makes alternatives to ms seem less risky.
At the same time, the economy isn't doing so well and companies are looking for ways to cut costs... For many of those companies, IT is a cost and not part of their core business so faced with the choice between several "adequate" products may well go with the cheapest.
The best product rarely wins, as MS have proved time and time again... It is usually the cheapest or best marketed product which wins. The people making decisions are rarely even qualified to judge which product is best, they will merely choose and expect everyone else to put up with it.
Staff at such companies will complain whatever you do, but ultimately their complaints will get ignored anyway.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I work at a medium size non-profit, and a couple of years ago I tried to get all of us to change to oo.org. I still use it for all my own use instead of ms office but everyone else rebelled and I had to drop it as an idea.
Like I said, it's been a couple of years now, and when we tried it what basically killed the whole thing is its problem doing mail merges. Arguably it had a BETTER interface to databases than any office product, but the problem is that everyone here has no technical inclination except for me and it requires thought. Plus back in version 2 it was buggy and it wouldn't match up formatting correctly. At lot of the research I did at the time pretty much seemed to indicate that the oo.org staff didn't care much about getting mail merges to work and it wasn't much a priority.
Maybe someone here can bring me up to date on any progress in this area. I hope that at some point oo.org can provide a really simple mail merge "wizard" (I hate that term) that works with spreadsheets that the plebeians can understand along with a database interface that can give programs like Crystal Reports a run for its money...
It would be nice, but most of the For Profit software companies don't seem interested in getting along. They're competing.
As for myself, I don't think Linux needs world domination on the desktop, it does need interoperability though. Because interoperability (through truly open standards) is what gives people choice. That said, I would be happy with 20-30% Linux and/or Ooo on the desktop.
By "truly open standards, I don't mean the OOXML farce that was pulled through the ISO. Rather I mean something like the internet RFC's. Royalty-free, unencumbered, fully laid-out specs that anyone can follow.
C|N>K
Your post makes it clear that you don't know what the word "Free" means in a FOSS context. And no, we can't all just get along, which is the whole point. We FOSS developers would love it if Microsoft had a goal of getting along with FOSS software (think standards), but this example is one of thousands that Microsoft will do whatever is in their power to make sure that we can't all just get along. You are doing the equivalent of asking the wife who is getting beaten by her husband why they can't both just get along. It is a phenomonally ignorant question to ask the wife, and it is equally ignorant to blame the FOSS supporter and/or developer.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
That summary was the most biased, paranoid rambling that I've ever seen. You might as well followed it up with a paragraph about how Microsoft uses those little plastic strips in $20 bills to track you when you go through airport scanners, so they know whether to equip your plane with chemtrail equipment before redirecting it to land in the secret tunnel between Washington D.C. and Area 51.
Comment of the year
I don't know. Why don't you ask MS that? This fight wasn't started by the OSS community, which was largely born out of necessity as much as altruism. It's closed-source guys like Microsoft that have been waging this war since the mid-1990s. Maybe you should ask them why they can't just "get along".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It has struck me how much more affordable Microsoft Office has become over the last few years for home use. A lot of this is no doubt because Openoffice.org is good enough for most people. Soon, Microsoft may be forced to give it away for home use, or sell it for a true pittance, and depend on business sales to make any money from Office. Microsoft's biggest threat on the Office front is that Openoffice.org (or another free office suite) becomes good enough that users don't want to pay extra for something they do not do much more than simple documents and simple spreadsheets with. I wonder why Dell et al are not offering users such an option. Microsoft is also experimenting with ad supported Office to try and counter the free office suites.
As for myself, I don't think Linux needs world domination on the desktop, it does need interoperability though.
You do understand that as long as MSFT has a desktop dominance, it would do anything to make sure that there would be no interoperability with any other competing OS?
Because interoperability (through truly open standards) is what gives people choice.
[...] I don't mean the OOXML farce that was pulled through the ISO.
And MSFT many times exemplified that in their opinion a "de facto" standard (they have complete control over like OOXML) is just as good as a "de jure" standard.
That's why as long as MSFT has >50% of market, there would be neither interoperability nor open standards.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Microsoft makes money, so obviously they would use this as a competitive advantage.
The problem is not that Microsoft would compete with OpenOffice. The problem is that Microsoft will unethically leverage its position as Monopoly to destroy OpenOffice. Many commercial companies will ethically compete with each other. As a corporate culture Microsoft does not want to compete in a market. They want to have 90%+ share of a market and will do whatever is necessary to shrink or kill all other competitors. This is not typical nor ethical behavior.
So you want to love those conferences to death. I’ve killed at least two Mac conferences. James Plamondon, Microsoft
Microsoft does not care if its competition is another commercial venture, a non-profit corporation, a hobbyist or a government. If it competes with Microsoft in any market where Microsoft does not hold at least 90% of the market then their goal is to minimize, marginalize and even torpedo, and kill the competition. Without regard for ethical behavior or what means are necessary to do so.
Some would say "Microsoft has changed, the now want to work with the FOSS community." To see if that statement is accurate, or if as a corporate culture they are still up to their old tricks, we need to analyze their motives. In this instance, this would be to analyze their motives in regard to OpenOffice AND to glean from it how seriously they take OpenOffice as a competitor in the market. The fact that they have a position entitled "Linux and Open Office Compete Lead" is an indicator of how serious they are about both Linux and OpenOffice.
Traditionally being in Microsoft's sniper scope has not worked out well for other companies. On the other hand as someone once said:
Q. What's the difference between Batman and Bill Gates?
A. When Batman fought the Penguin, he won.
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