8188122
story
Comments: 467 + - Technology: Is OpenOffice.org a Threat? Microsoft Thinks So on Wednesday December 30 2009, @09:15AM
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicbusiness.gif); width:64px; height:54px;
business
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicms.gif); width:75px; height:55px;
microsoft
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicsoftware.gif); width:65px; height:65px;
software
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."
Related Stories
E.T. GO HOME!!! (And take your Smurfs with you.)
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2010 Geeknet, Inc.
I use it because... (Score:4, Insightful)
...its GUI is more like Microsoft Office pre-2007 than Microsoft Office 2007 is, and I have never gotten used to the 2007 interface.
Re:I use it because... (Score:4, Insightful)
My 5 year old niece uses W2007, how hard can it be? Personally I hate all them GUIs, never got the point, only editor I need is nano or a good old typewriter.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It can be surprisingly difficult. I'm wondering a few things though: does you 5 year old niece use sections, macros, table of contents, or any advanced aspect to Word? I doubt it somehow, which suggests to me that they don't use advanced features.
Re:I use it because... (Score:5, Insightful)
99% of people couldn't care less for the advanced features in anything.
Parent
Re:I use it because... (Score:5, Insightful)
99% of people want 1 advanced feature in their word processor. Thing is, they all want a different advanced feature which the other 98% will consider unnecessary.
Parent
Re:I use it because... (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's why we have extensions. Putting everything in at the start just creates bloat.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
One? From what I can see it's usually more like zero advanced features. Choosing font/etc. while typing, exclusively using Enter and Space for formatting, sometimes Tab; getting lost with punctuations, never even heard of styles - that's the usual state of Word proficiency (and those people put familiarity with it into their CV...)
Something between Wordpad and Abiword is enough for them.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
My 5 year old niece uses W2007, how hard can it be?
This comment you are replying to is not how hard it is, especially not to a newcomer as you niece, but about familiarity.
One of the key arguments against MS Office alternatives prior to Office2007 was the inconvenience, and possible financial costs, of retraining for people already familiar with Office. It wasn't that the alternatives were harder to use (Office was no paragon of truly intuitive design and neither were the alternatives so the difference in that respect was a close to naught as makes not odds
Re:I use it because... (Score:5, Insightful)
The real evil here is not the features of MS Office but how it becomes integrated with third party applications. There are a number of "gold" or "platinum" Microsoft partners providing integration with business systems who will not support anything but MS products as they fear reprimend from MS should they support a product from "the enemy." I think MS should have been split a long time ago.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ooo has an incredibly ugly UI and some glaring usability issues. I think it would win many more converts if it focused on usability for its next release even if it never added a single new feature. Drag the UI kicking and screaming into the 21st century and smooth some of the rough edges in the process. From my own experience, I tolerate the UI simply because the suite is fre
Re:I use it because... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm aware of PDF printers and I use them, but none of them are as simple to use. The one built into OpenOffice works with a single click a button, and a file dialog. That's it. Most PDF drivers lead you through 2 or 3 dialogs and fail to pick up the document metadata or hinting stuff like column flow because they're being called as if they're printers. The Impress app also exports presentations as Shockwave Flash files which is also a similarly excellent feature. It would be great if Ooo exported into more formats, things like EPUB for example.
It certainly doesn't stop you adding a PDF printer driver (such as PDFCreator on Win32) and using it from other apps though.
Parent
Re:I use it because... (Score:4, Informative)
Not really gonna weigh in either way here, but Office 2007 has a free plugin from Microsoft that lets you print to PDF and it does preserve links.
Parent
Re:I use it because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I had to support so many different programs I can't develop a memory for all the different shiny icons there are. A few of them are alike, but most are just too different for me to know what's what in any program. So, with simple text menus I can just read and find what I need faster. Icons hold no meaning to me.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Luckily for me, my company is still using MS Office 2003. I really don't have any need for office software on my home PC, but if the need arises I'll surely go OO.
I do think Excel is the best spreadsheet out there, certainly the best of the three I deal with at work The other two are Quattro and Lotus, which makes it pretty easy for Excel to excel in the spreadsheet wars. Lotus wants to take over your whole computer like some damned virus. It's the most "in your face" spreadsheet I've ever used, and getting
My guess.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Is that while it currently is no threat, they are preparing for the future. Whether or not the threat actually does arise or not is irrelevant, as MS has the money to throw at this minor inconvenience, to attempt to stop it before it becomes a major threat.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft didn't get where they are by throwing money around just because they have it.
Flip Flop (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Protect the Cash Cows (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Protect the Cash Cows (Score:5, Interesting)
This reminds me of a story I think I saw here years ago.
Guy is told that they will be moving over to MS Exchange (this would have been in '97 or so). So he does his job and sets up Exchange. World goes to hell. E-Mail doesn't work several times a day, server crashes routinely, etc. His boss and users are on his ass constantly. It all becomes too much for the guy, who was told to do this over his own objections.
Monday morning, e-mail is working fine. It is all smooth sailing. Boss and users are happy. Management is content with their savvy in buying Exchange. A year or something later, the guy quits but not before leaving up to date documentation for the new guy.
First page of the documentation welcomes the replacement and says not to worry, everything he needs to know is in this folder. There are two sections: 1) What is official policy 2) What we actually do. The official policy is that we run Exchange for e-mail and here is the stuff to tell the boss about Exchange if there are ever problems. The actual policy is that we run Debian and postfix, since Exchange was a disaster, and here is how to do maintenance; tell no one except whoever replaces you.
Parent
This is how it's done... (Score:3, Insightful)
Would it be any different if WHOEVER_MAKES_WORDPERFECT_RIGHT_NOW did this too? Microsoft is not going to reach an "accommodation" with anyone trying to directly steal their business from them anymore than Apple is going to reach an accord with clone vendors, Japanese car companies are going to wink and nod at Chinese manufacturers trying to import cheap cars that use their designs into the US and Japan or any other scenario where an incumbent would "just welcome" competitors.
Be glad that Microsoft wants to fight in the marketplace first and foremost. 10-15 years ago, if you suggested that Microsoft would fight more or less above board rather than letting slip the dogs of war and running a scorched Earth campaign, you'd have been called a fanboi.
I think MS has lost the battle already... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been in IT for over 20 years now; and until 7 years ago, Office was my mostly used application. Nowadays though I hardly ever use Word or Excel, I've used Powerpoint more often though. At a hospital I consult; we changed to OOo and after changing the default save format option to the corresponding Office equivalents; the users hardly noticed the difference.
These days the only application used in offices is the browser, and Firefox has already won the battle and the war on that front.
Duh, of course (Score:3, Informative)
Check the tables at the end of this Comes exhibit [groklaw.net], its Linux/OO (when it was still StarOffice) in every region. Because the target is future developers and government contracts, obviously.
They should be scared (Score:5, Informative)
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
OO is a work-alike-mostly-sorta to MS Office... (Score:3, Interesting)
But, my wife, who is an MS Office expert, can't stand it. It is just too limited and clunky compared to Office, she says. So, for her PC, I fork out the $$ and buy Office. Oh, and MS Office is on our shared MacBook.
For the "serious user" market, OO is not currently a threat to MS Office. But for the casual, "use it once in awhile" market, it is. Now, given Microsoft's history of competing against incumbent, entrenched players by targeting the bottom end of a market and improving over time with increasingly competitive but still cheaper technology, they are probably very sensitive to seeing OO become the easy choice for the entry-level user.
The suitability of OO depends on target audience (Score:3, Informative)
I've recommended OO for a fair amount of home users who are casual users of office productivity software. For those folks it's _okay_ and fits their needs. Albeit the OO suite isn't lickety-split fast in terms of launch and whatnot for "Joe Six Pack" you can't beat free for someone who's looking to type up a quick letter, create a quick budget spreadsheet, or whip up a simple school presentation.
That being said, I've also tried implementing OO for my business users, in cases where their new PC's didn't come pre-loaded with Microsoft Office. I would preface their introduction to OO by mentioning that most of the familar menu commands and navigational elements were practically identical. A few weeks later I had no choice but to ante up and purchase full versions of Microsoft Office. Power users in a business environment required elements outside the scope of "Joe Six Pack." Anything from VBA to macros to other features weren't available or else didn't work as expected. And yeah, having budgeted expense goals had me wanting to purchase more Microsoft Office licenses like I'd want a hole in the head. :-/
And I know there are navigational and feature issues upgrading users from Office 2003 to 2007. I know with a mixed version environment opening documents is a PITA, and saving documents can result in formatting FUBAR's. Frankly I am dreading when I myself have to make the jump. That is almost as daunting as trying to migrate my power users at work to OO. Still all things taken equal it apparently will be awhile until OO is really an equal competitor, although it's closer than it was back in the days with Sun's Staroffice 5.x and whatnot.
Perhaps Microsoft is just keeping OO in its rearview mirror to protect its interests. Although the hints of Microsoft's covert infiltration into FOSS circles (while supposedly doing so for collaborative purposes) reeks of insidiousness. Now the cat's out of the bag I wonder how many FOSS projects will welcome them?
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds pretty normal for Microsoft.
I use IBM's Lotus Symphony [lotus.com] 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.
our big barrier (Score:4, Informative)
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...
There are many reasons to acknowledge a threat... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
There are many reasons to acknowledge a threat, and I'm not sure getting up close and personal is the tree that they are barking up here.
If Microsoft were to go around saying they they had no threats worth considering it would look like they have little competition and bring them under greater scrutiny from a monopoly policing point of view. Also such hubris would look iffy to current and potential inverters - investing in a company that is, or seems to be, resting on its laurels is not a good long-term strategy especially in a market where there are alternatives currently available (whether they are acknowledged by said company or not).
Ignoring the more cynical interpretations above for a moment: knowing the competition is important to any business. Whatever your opinion of the strengths (absolute or relative to other products) of OO.o it is a competitor in that particular market and MS would be foolish not to recognise that and be seen to be appropriately aware of the situation.
Jesus Christ, do you people listen to yourselves? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Openoffice has already affected Microsoft. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I installed the latest OO, definitely not a thr (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Parent
Excel doesn't even do CSV correctly... (Score:3, Informative)
OO does a better job, but, still not correct. GNUMeric does no better. They all fundamentally do the wrong thing. Here is what they do wrong. Lets say I have the following CSV: Smith,Joe,E,121 Mockingbird Lane,Metropolis,BS,(330)555-1212,0023456789
Now, the last field there is an ID number. The zeroes are significant. All of the above spreadsheets will import that as a number and drop the leading zeroes. FAIL!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
N.B. OOo suffices for most of my business correspondence; I prefer (La)TeX/LyX for the more scientific documents.
Re:I installed the latest OO, definitely not a thr (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:I installed the latest OO, definitely not a thr (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1. I gave one specific example so my post wouldn't be 1000 words. I don't have time for that at 8 AM on a work day.
It was nothing but an example of user error.
2. If a piece of software is a "threat" to Microsoft Office, then it better function like people who use Microsoft Office every day expect it to function. Resizing all the cells at once is B A S I C functionality, not some out of the way item that should be buried four levels down in the tree.
I just opened OpenOffice 3.1 Calc, a piece of software I ra
Re:I installed the latest OO, definitely not a thr (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Get hardware that isn't older than your Slash # (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox knows more than you do. For example it knows that the csv extension should not automatically be tied to OpenOffice, since you may not want to run Open Office just to view a .csv file. Neither Firefox, nor any other software, can save you from your own ignorance. In other words, you're fscked.
Re: (Score:3)
Can't be a very competent review with that kind of language.
I'll keep that in mind for when I write a review of OO for Wired or the New York Times. In the mean time, since this is Slashdot, I'll keep posting exactly like I have for the last 12+ years. Thanks!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That would be cool. I could be a Google Chrome commercial: "Fanboi for PC, Linux, and Mac."
Pay up GOOG.
Actually, Fanboi runs on all operating systems and even embedded devices.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well, right up till sentence 3. You lost me there. Can't be a very competent review with that kind of language.
You dislike the word "functionality," too? I understand where you're coming from, I fucking hate that word.
Re:This must be a big joke (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a threat to the advanced Office user market, but it is a threat to Microsoft's dominance in the "I want to send a recipe to my friends" type casual users. There's room for both, just like Paint is not a threat to Photoshop but Photoshop is not a threat to Paint.
Re:This must be a big joke (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Frist posat (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [boycottnovell.com]
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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. Rat
Re:duohce boag (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Why are you hitting yourself misses gnu? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:duohce boag (Score:4, Funny)
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".
Parent