IBM Joins OpenOffice.org Community

Petrushka writes "In a press release today, with accompanying press FAQ, IBM announces a change in its relationship to the OpenOffice.org development community. The upshot is that they're making a long-term commitment to OOo; no organization has paid off any other organization for this; they're devoting about 35 of their developers in China to OOo; and they'll be contributing accessibility code from Lotus Notes to improve current support for assistive technologies. You may recall that an alleged shortage of assistive technologies that work with OOo has been one of the big criticisms leveled against the idea of governments standardizing on the OpenDocument format, which is a file format that OOo and several other office suites support."

Yay

[somersault (912633)]

One more step to not being locked into Microsoft (ie paying through the nose) for an application than can make writing look prettier, and is universally accepted \o/

Re:

[somersault (912633)]

wtf.. it's nothing to do with being a superior application, it's to do with it being bundled with machines by default and then everyone being locked in because the file format is pretty much closed. When it comes to jpegs and the like, any viewer works. When it comes to text files, any viewer works. When it comes to files with *shock horror* text with different sizes, colours and styles, everyone seems to want or expect word. The only thing that I think makes Office stand out is Outlook, which I find is a p

Re:

[somersault (912633)]

I don't even know if I want to read the rest of your post. When did I say bundled with Windows? I said machines. I know it's not always there by default, but it is the only option you get for buying an office application suite with a Dell PC for example. IMO it is dominant for the same reason that Windows is dominant, but I've always been happy to edit text documents using whatever I have to hand (Wordpad is fine for me, and I wrote a 13000 word essay on whatever version of Word that came with Windows 3.1 a

Re:

[SCHecklerX (229973)]

Sure, but it will be called the Open Office XML Standard ;-)

Assistive technologies

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

OpenOffice.org itself doesn't lack assistive technologies. OOo on Windows lacks assistive technologies. OOo with GNOME or KDE integration gets the accessibility technologies of GNOME or KDE, respectively.

Still, it's a welcome sight to see IBM participating in OOo development. OOo just keeps improving with every new release, and I find that I use it more than Microsoft Office, although I have both installed at work and at home.

Re:

[kripkenstein (913150)]

OpenOffice.org itself doesn't lack assistive technologies. OOo on Windows lacks assistive technologies. OOo with GNOME or KDE integration gets the accessibility technologies of GNOME or KDE, respectively.

That is a fair and accurate point to make. I do see a lot of value to this move, however, beyond just improving accessibility for Windows users. On the one hand, this may make accessibility more cross-platform, so it will be easier to migrate from one OS to another; with OO.org already cross-platform, mak

Re:

[xouumalperxe (815707)]

While you might make a solid point there (I don't really follow assistive technologies much), you're missing an important, more pragmatic point: The (perceived?) cost of migration.

Imagine I'm Joe CTO. If I just change my users from MS Office to OpenOffice, I have to handle transitioning just one piece of software (albeit a big one). Last thing I want is to change both office suite and operating system in one go. So I need Open Office with all the bells and whistles *now*, and once that transition is compl

faster!!!

[b1ufox (987621)]

Ok for end users this is a good news. For monopolists not so heartening news.

Anyway what i would also like to see in Openoffice -
-It is terribly slow. Looks like a huge piece of bloat. It will be great if it can be faster.

Re:

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

It is terribly slow. Looks like a huge piece of bloat. It will be great if it can be faster.

When was the last time you used OOo? Since 2.0, it's not that slow. It's slow in initial loading, but that's because OOo loads the whole suite when starting any of its components, so comparing load time of OOo Writer vs. Word, for example, is not an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Once OOo is loaded, though, it responds very quickly on any fairly decent hardware -- at least like a 1.5 Ghz processor and have a gig of RAM depending on OS.

MS Word is worse.

[DrYak (748999)]

I would bet that this is why it is always accused of being slower thet MS Word

MS Office actually load its whole suit in memory, *at boot time*.

But there's a taskbar widget for OpenOffice.org that can do the same stuff if you want to get the same startup speed and you don't mind wasting a lot of RAM.

Re:MS Word is worse.

[Macthorpe (960048)]

MS Office actually load its whole suit in memory, *at boot time*.

How did this get modded informative? That doesn't happen at all, and you can take that from someone who just installed Office 2003. There's no trace of a service or process related to Office, and physical memory usage is the same as it was before.

Re:

[xtracto (837672)]

Shut up with your objective comments, we are trying to bash Microsoft here!

Re:faster!!!

[Corporate Troll (537873)]

You're misinformed... OpenOffice.org has a few Java components (notabily in Base, I think) but it is not a Java application. You don't even need a JRE to run it.

Re:

[Checkmait (1062974)]

yeah, you need Java

Did you read the quote you pasted in carefully?

The minimum JDK/JRE version required to use OpenOffice.org features that require java is JDK/JRE version 1.3.1.
...
For full functionality, jdk/jre 1.4.0_02 or newer or jdk/jre 1.4.1_01 or newer is required

Certain features you might or might not want require Java but it is fully possible to install (compile) and run the rest of the office suite without Java. I'm sure because I compiled it just a few months ago without Java on my system (although at this point I have installed Java).

Huh?

[by Anonymous Coward]

and they'll be contributing accessibility code from Lotus Notes

That's about what, 2 lines of code? =p

WTF?

[spectrokid (660550)]

IBM has its own office package: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/sma rtsuite/ [ibm.com]
Is this another case of the one division not knowing what the other does, or is IBM giong to drop smartsuite?

Re:

[tsa (15680)]

Maybe they donate part of Smartsuite to the OS community, or they develop code for the implementation of ODF in both suites?

Re:

[simong (32944)]

Well, if they abandoned it, I'm sure all three existing users would notice.

Smartsuite is installed on all corporate IBM PCs but the option to install Office is the first thing in the global software repository, and it generally has to be used to share documents with clients. Sun have similar issues but at least StarOffice can talk .doc.

Re:

[mdm-adph (1030332)]

Aye -- IBM has apparently abandoned SmartSuit -- they don't plan on even making a Vista-compatible version, from what I hear. Trust me, I know -- it's what we use in my shop, and we're in a awful mess right now because there's so many spreadsheets flying around in SmartSuite's (unfortunately) proprietary format.

Re:

[Amiga Trombone (592952)]

Aye -- IBM has apparently abandoned SmartSuit -- they don't plan on even making a Vista-compatible version, from what I hear.

Maybe that's part of the rationale behind this. Maybe IBM wants to be able to promote OpenOffice as the migration path for SmartSuite users.

Good lord..

[Otter (3800)]

Any time you need interface contributions from Lotus Freaking Notes, something is badly wrong.

I'm curious about the accessibility support for that helpful feature it has, where entering the password characters puts up random numbers of bullets while hieroglyphics blink randomly around the input box, apparently to distract and confuse shoulder surfers. Do they have a similar function for blind users? And how about sighted users and blind shoulder surfers? Shouldn't it make random annoying noises as well, to confuse them?

Re:Good lord..

[Otter (3800)]

For those fortunate enough not to know what I'm talking about: see the last entry on this page [mac.com].

Re:

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

It gets even better than that. Ever tried using Notes on a Mac? Version 6 was the retarded little brother of the Notes family. Thankfully with version 7 they've managed to put him into a nice suit, but he still acts funny and drools all over himself...

Re:Good lord..

[hachete (473378)]

I've used and programmed Lotus Notes on and off for the past 10 years. It's not that bad for what it does. For a networked environment the database replication was way ahead of it's time, and it still has no real competitor in that field. OK, so the field has moved on; and the interface is shit. Still, admin wise it's pretty good, and IBM has done a lot of good work with Notes.

We've rolled out a wiki in the same breath as running a huge Notes infrastructure. What I don't understand is that, as crap as the Notes interface is, it's still way ahead of any browser for editing documents. Anyway, so the Notes database is the back-end, and the web-browser is the new client. Call it a wiki, and people love it. Call it Notes database and they'll run a mile. I suppose it must say something about the whole thing.

Re:

[file terminator (985503)]

I'm not defending Lotus Notes in general, but in this particular case you're wrong. I had to work extensively with Lotus Notes many years ago, and the reason for the hieroglyphs was NOT to confuse shoulder surfers, as you seem to believe.

It used to take quite a while to authenticate when using a modem (you know, the 56kbps stuff and earlier). The hieroglyphs were there as a visual clue that you had entered your password correctly, BEFORE you even attempted to authenticate. The same password always produced

Lotus Notes

[emj (15659)]

We all now Open office is slow so lets hope We get the fast and Wonderfull Lotus notes interface on Open Office.

Re:

[Dystopian Rebel (714995)]

Fork the OO code NOW!

35 chinese developers

[Colin Smith (2679)]

What's that as a level of investment? $50,000pa?
 

I wonder ....

[by Anonymous Coward]

if they are trying to kill OO with low quality code? I hope not, but China? Crap, I have seen the code that comes from there, and it makes their toys look positively great.

Re:

[speaker of the truth (1112181)]

35 American developers is a big investment in terms of money. 35 Chinese developers, is a signficantly smaller investment in terms of money. In skill, ideally, the investment would be the same though. Obviously the OP was talking about the financial investment, not the skills IBM is investing into OOo.

Re: Not competing at all

[TaoPhoenix (980487)]

Focused companies can have a senior executive order their devs to get something Out The Door. Apple at its best the last few years has done this. Microsoft DID do this for 8 years from 1993-2001 until their code imploded for Vista.

Open Source projects with good leadership can deliver efficiently with a "soft" approach. I think Mozilla has done some great work. But when a "Bazaar" project splinters too much, then Open Source loses its advantage.

IBM must be angry at Microsoft's previous moves. So this announc

Good news, and yet...

[downix (84795)]

This reminds me of an issue we have at work. At work, we run OpenOffice now, it gave us flexibility and yet fully functional... except for one guy, the Editor. He installed it, and the next day went to me "Frankly, it sucks. I won't use it." So, we have this one Office 07 guy out there, and he keeps getting angry when he can't read any documents we send him, or we can't read his documents, yet it's our fault because we won't pay for Office '07 when everyone else is happy with Open Office.

I know this guy, he just went home, installed it, looked, went "this doesn't look like Office 07" and left it at that. Until we can woo this kind of person, however, I fear that OO, and any open standard wp for that matter, will never truely break into mainstream, because he is the Editor, in charge of a whole department.

Re:

[flynns (639641)]

He'll get over it.

Re:Good news, and yet...

[stoolpigeon (454276)]

You bring up a good point Open Office will not cure stupidity. This is important to remember.

Re:

[mpe (36238)]

This reminds me of an issue we have at work. At work, we run OpenOffice now, it gave us flexibility and yet fully functional... except for one guy, the Editor. He installed it, and the next day went to me "Frankly, it sucks. I won't use it." So, we have this one Office 07 guy out there, and he keeps getting angry when he can't read any documents we send him,

IIRC Sun brought out an addon for MS Office which enables it to read OASIS formats.

or we can't read his documents, yet it's our fault because we won

Re:Good news, and yet...

[Lumpy (12016)]

We "wooed" employees by saying, "this is our new company policy. all computers will be changed over to this new standard effective XXXX" 95% had no problem, the 5% that did whined big time. but we had finance on our side so in the big shirts meetings when the whiners whines got to them they got shot down by the director of finance saying, "It will cost us $180,000 to switch back to MS office, replacing that employee with someone that is professional enough to understand business means change is not only cheaper but probably a good idea anyways."

It shut all the whiners up fast when they found that replacing them is far cheaper than catering to their whining.

You unfortunately have a high level whiner. so you need to have even higher than him do the smackdown.

Re:

[Corporate Troll (537873)]

He installed it, and the next day went to me "Frankly, it sucks. I won't use it."

What about: "It's Corporate Policy. Don't like it, feel free to search another job".

That's what they told me when I didn't want to use Microsoft Office 2003 at work...

Re:

[marcello_dl (667940)]

Well I wonder how different is office 07 to office 03 and how he managed to survive the change, if he ever did of course.

A sad story nonetheless.

I'd love to see the results of a little experiment

[jimicus (737525)]

What if....

...you took OO.o as it stands now, rebranded it "Microsoft Office 2009 Preview" (just the splash screen, title bar and help text should be adequate) and showed it to someone who'd made such a complaint. Tell them that "Microsoft found people were confused by the change of interface in 2007 so they changed it back again to something which looks more like Office 2000" or other such bull.

I bet most of the complainers would announce themselves to be perfectly happy with this, and far prefer it to OpenOffice.

Re:I'd love to see the results of a little experim

[ChrisA90278 (905188)]

In short, It works. You don't have to change anything just say it's "A new version of Office" and few people notice. The reason is that 90% of users, the only feature they use is _maybe_ change the font or font size. And File->new and File->save. That's about it for most users.

Notes is EVIL and must be killed

[Shadow_139 (707786)]

It was all good until I read : "....they'll be contributing accessibility code from Lotus Notes to improve current support for assistive technologies..." Lotus Notes is EVIL and must be killed, -- I forgive you Outlook & Exchange....,

Re:Notes is EVIL and must be killed

[tomstdenis (446163)]

Having used lotus notes while on assignment at IBM I can attest to it's evilness and lack of "straightforwardness." It's a bitch to setup without an IT support dude sitting at your ... wait a tick ... IBM makes money out of service contracts? No way...

Tom

Re:

[Manic Miner (81246)]

Notes can be a git to use, takes a lot of getting used to... but it is WAY better than Outlook & Exchange, Organising meetings is easier, the replication features make it easy to work "off-line" on a laptop then sync up your changes when you get into the office.

Once you are used to the user interface and have learned a bit about the power of notes, it makes Outlook look like a childs toy.

This goes without saying...

[russlar (1122455)]

I, for one, welcome our new IBM overlords.

Oh no

[bytesex (112972)]

We'll get Lotus Notes into OpenOffice now - run for the Hills !

Re:

[SEE (7681)]

Er, no. The first time someone created document editing software that collapsed upon itself, sucked all surrounding code into it, and slowed the computer to a halt, they called it EMACS.

Because three office suites isn't enough

[gelfling (6534)]

We use Lotus (Ami Pro/Freelance/123 etc) plus MS Office 2003 plus MS Office XP. Now we'll get OO. Gee I can hardly wait trying to open up some PM's 175 page converted Powerpoint presentation.

Lotus Notes 8 supports ODF

[swillden (191260)]

It's also worth pointing out here that the upcoming version of IBM's Lotus Notes product includes internal support for ODF documents (.odt, .ods and .odp). Based on what I see in the beta, it looks to me like the ODF support is provided by an embedded and tweaked version of OOo, but I think it's still worth adding Lotus Notes to the list of apps that support ODF.

Notes 8 is built on the Eclipse RCP, BTW, and runs nicely on Linux (which is my platform of choice) as well as Windows and OS X. I imagine it can run just about anywhere Java does. To be honest, I don't think the new version is hugely better than previous versions, and I've never been a big fan of Notes, but for Linux users whose companies use Notes it's really nice to have a native client rather than mucking about with Notes under WINE, or running a Windows OS on another box or in a VM. As an OOo user, it's also very nice to know that I'll soon be able to send ODF documents to my colleagues secure in the knowledge that they can read them.

Disclaimer: I work for IBM, but I'm not a spokesman for IBM. IBM is happy about that state of affairs, and so am I.

Work on Project Manager and visio

[WindBourne (631190)]

If IBM (and sun) really want to make a dent in Office, they should work on MsPM and Visio clones. In particular, if they first do the file format library (open, read, write close files), then it allows other OSS projects to move forward. Then followed up with clones/improvements. By doing these 2, they pretty much remove one of the large blocks to corporate adoption.

Re:

[WidescreenFreak (830043)]

You're reading my mind. That's the first thing I thought when I read that IBM was on-board.

I used to use Word Pro ever since it was AmiPro for Windows 3.1. OpenOffice replaced Word Pro a few years ago, but I still have a lot of legacy documents that I need to access every now and then. So, when I rebuild a PC I install Word Pro just in case. (It's only about 70 MB for Word Pro 9.8, so it's not like it's a burden on my 160 GB boot drive.) Having an LWP filter for OpenOffice would be fantastic!