Marketing Planet

Benjamin Horst: Sumitomo Corp Adopts OpenOffice

Thu, 15 May 2008 13:02:53 +0000

Kazunari Hirano blogs “Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. Adopts OOo Company-Wide.”

The company began pilot testing of OOo in April, and on May 12 announced (Japanese announcement) they would migrate completely. They plan to download OpenOffice to their existing computers, and pre-install it on all new PCs the company deploys.

I’m not sure how large this migration is in total, but Hirano reports that just “One of SEI group businesses, Sumitomo Electric Information Co., Ltd., maintains 15,000 PCs within SEI.”

While 2007 saw many large government migrations to OpenOffice, 2008 seems set for even more large migrations in the private sector.

Erwin Tenhumberg: Another cool OpenOffice.org review

Wed, 14 May 2008 23:10:34 +0000

"The first noticeable item is how quickly OpenOffice 3.0 beta loads, even when compared with Microsoft Office 2008. In less than five seconds you are at the welcome screen ready to create your next masterpiece. Where the X11 interface felt choppy and looked…like an X11 interface, OO 3.0 definitely looks and feels like a fully integrated Aqua application, with menus being very responsive and keyboard shortcuts working (mostly - hey, it’s beta) as expected. How does each behave in this newly integrated world? Let’s take a look.
...
I was truly impressed by just how well the two programs worked together, making me a bit more confident if I ever have to use OO 3.0 to edit/share docs with others. I did not have an opportunity to test the new collaboration (i.e. track/merge) feature.
...
Some features spread across the individual components and others were just noteworthy or interesting. For example, when comparing the PDF export feature in Calc, it wound up creating a smaller file than the OS X “print to PDF” option and created table of contents labels based on the spreadsheet tab names."

Found here.

Erwin Tenhumberg: More OpenOffice.org 3.0 on Mac OS X Feedback

Wed, 14 May 2008 22:41:51 +0000

"Just a few words here... The Openoffice Aqua is still only an alpha version, - not even a beta.:-)

but when this said, I can only say that the last build of OpenOffice 3.0 Aqua is running very, very stable on both OS X 10.4.11PPC/10.5.2PPC as well as on a MacPro with both 10.4.11 and 10.5.2.

It is more that three times as fast as NeoOffice and more than twice as fast than both MSOffice 2004 and 2008! - And until now i haven't had a single 'unexpected quit' with the last two builds of OOo3.0. - Also the fonts handling is quite a lot better than in NeoOffice and MSO2004/2008. - I have apprx. 1550 fonts active in my main set, and apprx. 23.000 fonts on the HD - all 100% managed by Linotype Fontexplorer.

So now printing with quite a lot of various fonts and various typefaces within the same font is just like a dream, though the OOo crew still tells us that printing can be a problem.:-)

So what can't we expect, when first OpenOffice 3.0 Final is released? - Mmmmm.... I can hardly wait.:-)"

Found here. What are your experiences on the Mac?

Erwin Tenhumberg: Cool OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta Feedback

Wed, 14 May 2008 22:38:32 +0000

I just came across the following OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta feedback:

"I've been using the beta version of Open Office 3 for a week now and am quite impressed. It is a Mac-native build that doesn't require X11. It seems quite stable and noticeably faster than NeoOffice and Office 2008. There's no Entourage equivalent but an interesting database component. The spreadsheet and presentation components seem more or less equivalent to Office. And OO does have a pretty robust macro system built in.

The database component isn't really a complete db in and of itself, rather a front end that connects to database servers like MySQL. As such it requires a bit more technical savvy than the average user is likely to have, but opens interesting possibilities for custom database management.

Import and export of OO and Office files is very good. I'm worked with some heavily formatted Word files and a reasonably complex Excel spreadsheet. OO maintained the formatting and formulas better than iWork 08.

OO has a seemingly deep built in help system that provides on-hover pop up boxes that explain extra functionality.

As an open source project the fit and finish are not up to Microsoft standards let alone Apple's, but OO is not butt ugly either.

My biggest quibble is that scrolling with a scroll wheel is slow, even on 5 page Writer documents. Also the conversion between Windows/Linux conventions isn't complete. When mousing over an embedded hyperlink, OO instructed me to "Ctrl-click" on the link to open it in my browser. Oops. With a Mac that's Cmd (command)-click. (I did submit a bug ticket)

Still, I'm very impressed with the first public release beta of OO for OS X. It is both faster and more stable than the Office 08 demo I tried out. Since I'm not working in a corporate setting and don't need absolute compatibility with Microsoft, I see no reason to purchase Office 2008 for an Intel native office suite. The presentation module isn't near as slick as Keynote but the word processing and spreadsheets are more capable than Pages and Numbers. If you need that extra functionality then give OO a try."

Pretty cool! I found the feedback on this page.

Charles Schulz: The standard that was not and the Hague Declaration

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:35:42 +0000

We are on the 14 ^th of May and OOXML is an ISO standard. Slight problem: there is no known specification or definitive draft of that ISO standard. To be sure, we know what the first version of Ecma 376 looks like, and we know it pretty well, although it’s 6000 pages long. What we also know is that over a thousands of comments were being addressed during the Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva, although a great part of them did not find a satisfactory solution. Regardless of the slight glitch in the JTC-1 rules that was witnessed in Geneva, it is likely that these 1000 comments will require some thorough rewriting of the first and only known version of Ecma 376 in order to become an ISO standard.This point was addressed partly by ~~forcing~~ having the national standards bodies worldwide to approve that specification even without reading a second draft.Some people including me do find this situation to be extremely damageable both to the standardization processes and the burgeonning digital public sphere.

Some others take a more pragmatical approach, but even that one is very much telling about the whole OOXML farce. In this category, we find the OpenOffice.org project. Despite what Microsoft will tell you, OpenOffice.org does not and will not provide OOXML « interoperability » . It will however provide an import filter that users will be able to use in order to import documents formatted in the format used by Microsoft Office 2007 and 2008 that bears the name of Microsoft Office Open XML(OOXML). What this means is that the OpenOffice.org project has to work directly on the files edited and created by MS Office 2007 and 2008 in order to provide compatibility and does not use the OOXML specification, as it is not implemented by MS Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2008. So much for interoperability. The jury is still out, by the way, on the search for OOXML implementations. The ones that exist are either broken or else very limited (even the famous Novell plugin).

Sometimes, life can unfold its course like a novel by Borges. Despite the fact that OOXML does not exist , the DIN has invited the Afnor committee to participate in its convergence committee. This committee is in charge of studying the compatibility issues between ODF 1.0 and OOXML. But since OOXML as an ISO standard does not exist, I can only imagine how interesting their work sessions can be:

« - Say Herr Dingsbumms, what do you think about the capacity of OOXML to rename every existing concept humanity has created so far in its very own way?

Herr Muschelschwantz, I think this is a great idea. But I don’t think it will map very well with the present ODF standard.

And what about OOXML’s ability to deal with every known and spellable word in any past or present language?

That is for sure a very interesting feature, Herr Muschelschwantz, but I think it’s too limited. We should work in the sense of having OOXML integrate every IMPOSSIBLE combination of letters, otherwise nobody will be using it.

But Herr Dingsbumms, that feature is already included! You just have to imagine it and it pops up inside the spec!

Really? Mein Gott! That’s is wunderbar! But tell me, how does all this map to ODF?

That is a problem to be sure. We cannot map these features to ODF…-Enters somebody from Microsoft-

Gentlemen, we found a solution: we’ll label these features transitionnal while you think very hard about other mapping issues between OOXML and ODF and the solutions to these issues will be the ones you decide!

Super! Well I think we worked very well today Herr Dingsbumms.

Indeed Herr Muschelschwantz, what an interesting job we have! »

That little episode being over now, I would like to tell you about an existing initiative: The Digital Standards Group, of which I am one of the proud co-founders, has published a manifesto called the Hague Declaration. My respected colleague in this group, Andy Updegrove has written a very nice introduction about it.

In short, what does the Hague Declaration and the Digital Standards Organisation stand for? The Hague Declaration ackowledge the growing role of information technologies in the daily lives of citizens, businesses and governments worldwide. This growing importance should not be understimated, and neither should the amount of our rights and civic processes be underestimated too. This is how the Hague Declaration makes the case for the use of openness and freedom in software and networks, and does it by recommending the use of Free and Open Source Software and Open Standards. In fact, Open Standards, more than Open Source, is the focus of the Digital Standards Organisation. It thus calls governments and vendors to realize both the challenge and the opportunity of Open Standards as technology now governs increasing portions of our political, civic, and social lives.

By doing so, the Hague Declaration continues a worldwide conversation that has started with the development of OpenDocument Format. This conversation is far to be over; in fact, it is just starting, and everybody should take part in it, as vendors are rushing to propose evermore proprietary solutions relying on closed specifications, ultimately forcing us to relinquish our control over our data and our rights.

We hope you will join us by signing this manifesto.

Erwin Tenhumberg: OpenSolaris running on popular Eee PC

Wed, 14 May 2008 05:19:06 +0000

Very cool! I just found out that OpenSolaris can be installed on the popular Asus Eee PC. Yesterday at the local book store I also noticed the first books about the Eee PC showing up on the shelves. During my recent trip to the US, I noticed the Eee PC everywhere, at JavaOne, at Starbucks, etc. For example, I asked the guy at Starbucks how happy he was with the pre-installed OpenOffice.org. He told me that he is extremely happy and that he is recommending OpenOffice.org to all his friends. He also recommends OpenOffice.org to all his evening class students. Thus, it's nice to see the Eee PC have such a positive impact on OpenOffice.org's market share.

Benjamin Horst: OpenOffice.org Extensions: Writer’s Tools

Mon, 12 May 2008 12:43:17 +0000

As the library of extensions continues to grow, OpenOffice’s ability to be enhanced with extensions will become an ever-stronger “selling point” (it’s free, so they don’t actually “sell” it) for the application.

One of the most popular is Dmitri Popov’s “Writer’s Tools,” a suite of about 20 tools to simplify professional writing tasks in OOo. (Development is handled on the Google Code site.)

“Writer’s Tools is a set of utilities designed to help OpenOffice.org users perform a wide range of tasks. Using Writer’s Tools, you can back up documents, look up and translate words and phrases, manage text snippets, and keep tabs on document statistics.”

Get it; it’s really good!

Leif Lodahl: OpenOffice.org 3.0 - videos

noreply@blogger.com (Leif Lodahl) — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:59:49 +0000

OpenOffice.org 3.0 was released for beta this week. Here is a few videos from the Danish version: New front page: New zoom function New comment function

Charles Schulz: OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta: Creativity Extended

Fri, 09 May 2008 15:55:33 +0000

We’re now on the 9 ^th of May and the final version of OOXML is still not be published either by the ISO or the Ecma as they had to do so. This ongoing scandal affects the industry as a whole and proves once again that OOXML has never been an open standard.

The OpenOffice.org project has just released the first « public » beta version of OpenOffice.org 3.0.This first beta version may not support all the expected features that will be included in the stable version but it does give a very good feeling of how the 3.0 will be like. You will find a more detailed list of features on this page. As you can see the 3.0 will sport a number of very interesting and useful features, such as the ability to import PDF documents, switching language inside one document, a new StartCenter, new icons, etc.I wanted to go a bit beyond the list of new features and tell you about the effect that OpenOffice.org 3.0 will have on its users and ultimately on the way we create content share it and stay happily productive in this always-on world.

Perhaps what matters the most with OpenOffice.org 3.0 will not so much be the flurry of new features; perhaps what will ultimately matter is the brand new architecture of OpenOffice.org that has been introduced with this new release. You already knew about the ability to use extensions in order to add features to OpenOffice.org. With the 3.0, OpenOffice.org becomes even more modular, allowing even more interested people to develop their own features on top of the 3.0 platform.In the long run, this completely revisited, rearchitected platform will play an essential part in extending the yield of OpenOffice.org .

The concept of office suite has kept evolving ever since its appearance in the eighties. At first, what mattered was the wordprocessor and the spreadsheet application. Then, Powerpoint came in and started to control our minds, becoming both a tool and a concept. We then learned about the concept of productivity suite, growing the office suite with all kinds of tools, from a PIM module to specific financial applications and elementary document management features.

Today, the paradigm has changed, but it does not necessarily involve the fattening of the whole suite. Rather, I believe that this new paradigm is about creating all sorts of content and sharing it freely. Sharing freely involves two perequisites: The easyness of sharing and the use of open formats, open standards that allow the users to master their own data and content and does not push them into vendor lock-in. This assumption also implies another, subtle point: the boundaries between applications are blurring and the applications themselves become easier to use.What this means leaves some room for interpretation and unveils new, different paths. Let’s see first what these new paths will not be, and second, let’s see what options there are and what are the options Openoffice.org chose.

The new paradigm in office suite rests on the following elements:

Creation of open content through the use of open and free formats, ideally standards
Freedom to share and distribute this content
Ease of use, simplicity

These three elements ultimately make up for an interesting consequence; they don’t just liberate the content and the creativity of users, they also lower significantly the barriers of adoption for people who could never afford this before. In doing so, this paradigm puts forth the urge to enable participation. Ultimately, that’s what office suites should be nowadays: Participation Enablers.

One can understand now why I think MS Office 2007-2008 has already missed this shift of paradigm: The use of proprietary formats and spreading confusion around the concept of openness will not really help in the end. Yet, the latest versions of MS Office suffer from their excessive integration with MS SharePoint, the mother of all office technologies by Microsoft. This CMS/Groupware platform may be very easy to use, but it does create a fortress of formats and DRMs beyond which users are forbidden to go, and share. This centralized process is also very telling of a deprecated mentatlity even before being a compelling offer for certain types of organizations.

The truth here, tools such as SharePoints will fade away, as wikis take the lead. And precisely, OpenOffice.org allows you to export your content in certain wiki syntaxes while choosing directly the server that needs to be accessed. So much for command and control…But lets go back to our topic.

The appearance of online office suites such as Google Docs and Zoho shows a new path and illustrates the shift of paradigm in office suites. Online office suites make it easier to create and share content while making the issues of platforms and applications fall thanks to their online nature. The ability to import and export from and to multiple formats, some of whose being open standards (ODF, PDF) is also present. At the same time, online services such as Slideshare add value to traditional tools.

Nobody wants to have to deal with proprietary barriers of any kind. It is about creating and sharing freely, and ultimately, it is about enabling participation.OpenOffice.org is not an online office suite. But by enabling people to share and to communicate, OpenOffice.org works like a hub for content creation. Its features set covers the full range of functionalities expected by advanced users, and its inherently free nature (in beer and in speech) allows anybody to use it in order to create and share in the easiest way possible.Its extendability not only creates an ecosystem, it creates something more powerful: A community of users contributing to OpenOffice.org in order to serve their needs, and ultimately enriching the codebase.The modularity of OpenOffice.org (turning it into a set of modules running on top of a runtime environment, the URE) also make it possible to turn the overall platform into a RIA (Rich Internet Application) , thus addressing even more use cases.

In any case, OpenOffice.org is on its way to become the hub of your digital content, by enabling freedom; freedom to use, freedom to share, freedome to modify, and freedom to distribute.

GullFOSS: A New User Experience Team Logo

Fri, 09 May 2008 06:33:08 +0000

I'm happy to announce the new logo of the User Experience Team.
The main goal of the logo is to penetrate core values of the project:

Usability,
Productivity,
Enjoyment

The three terms summarize in a very short manner what the User
Experience Team's overall goals are. The list below describes the
meaning a little bit more in detail:

Usability:
This term explains the ease with which people can work with
OpenOffice.org to archive their goal in a particular context in an
effective and efficient manner. Sadly, this term is usually meant to
describe the “user friendliness” in the field of computer-human
interaction.

Productivity:
This term accompanies “usability” because of the general
misunderstanding of meaning “user friendliness” only. Again, it
emphasizes that working with OpenOffice.org should raise the
“productivity” significantly.

Enjoyment:
Working with OpenOffice.org should be pleasant. This is important, if
OpenOffice.org wants to attract new users and keep the experienced ones.
Currently, OpenOffice.org loses many potential users who dislike the
overall behavior/look of OpenOffice.org. But there is also a serious
fact: people which are happy with a product tend to be more creative in
their solution findings.

The logo is the first step to improve the external communication of the
User Experience project. If you want to know more, then please have a
look at:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/User_Experience/Project_Strategy/External_Communication

As always feedback and comments are highly appreciated.

Christian

Erwin Tenhumberg: 199 Euro laptop with OpenOffice.org pre-installed

Thu, 08 May 2008 16:32:36 +0000

I just found about this offer in Germany. A vendor called "one" is selling a low-cost laptop with Linux and OpenOffice.org pre-installed for 199 Euro. This special offer lasts until May 12th according to the website. Cool to see more and more hardware vendors bundle OpenOffice.org!

Erwin Tenhumberg: New ODF API available

Thu, 08 May 2008 11:56:13 +0000

A new ODF API just became available. A first preview version of ODFDOM has just been released.

Benjamin Horst: Linux Journal’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2008

Wed, 07 May 2008 22:16:48 +0000

Linux Journal’s annual user survey has arrived in the form of Linux Journal’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2008.

More than 5,900 readers completed the survey this January and February to voice their opinions on open source tools, programs and services.

Some of my favorite programs had very strong showings: Ubuntu was the favorite primary Linux distribution for 37.4% of respondents, Firefox the preferred browser for 86%, and OpenOffice the favorite office program of 85.1%.

Many of my other favorites appeared, such as GIMP, Eclipse, WordPress, Drupal, Frozen Bubble, the Nokia N800, OLPC XO, and more.

GullFOSS: New: OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta released

Wed, 07 May 2008 14:38:10 +0000

OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta (build BEA300_m2) has been released.

If you find severe issues within this build please file them to OpenOffice.org's bug tracking system IssueTracker.

For US English installation files please use the following link
http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/index.html

Localized builds and Language Packs can be downloaded from one of the mirror servers listed at http://distribution.openoffice.org/mirrors#extmirrors
OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta files are within the ../extended/3.0.0beta directory.

MD5SUMS:
http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/md5sums.html

OOo Marketeers: OpenOffice.org wins the 2008 Duke's Choice Award

noreply@blogger.com (floeff) — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:27:41 +0000

OpenOffice.org wins the 2008 Duke's Choice Award for Fans' Choice. "The Duke's Choice Awards program recognizes the year's most influential Java technology-based applications submitted by developers and companies around the world. The winners are chosen by Vice President and Sun Fellow James Gosling, along with a panel of Java technology experts at Sun." Read more in the official press release.

OOo Marketeers: OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta has been released

noreply@blogger.com (floeff) — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:31:39 +0000

The first public beta version of OpenOffice.org 3.0 has just been released. We're keen on your feedback to this new version. Read more about it at http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html

Leif Lodahl: Behind or ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Leif Lodahl) — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:10:30 +0000

Clarifying versions: OpenOffice.org 2.0 - 2.3.1ODF 1.0Approved by ISO OpenOffice.org 2.4ODF 1.1Has not submitted to ISO for approval OpenOffice.org 3.0 (upcomming) - ?ODF 1.2Under development The problem with Alex Browns validation test (http://www.griffinbrown.co.uk/blog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=f0384bed-808b-49a8-8887-ea7cde5caace) is, that he is using a document from OpenOffice.org 2.4 and

John McCreesh: Where’s OpenOffice.org’s Desktop Publishing program?

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:16:40 +0000

From time to time I receive emails asking me when will OpenOffice.org have a desktop publishing (DTP) program. My reply is always the same: “Have you tried Writer”? Although we position Writer as a word processing package, in the hands of an expert user it can do so much more, well into the realms of what I would consider DTP. No doubt if we were selling OpenOffice.org, we’d split Writer into two products: Writer for word processing, and Publisher for DTP - but as OpenOffice.org is licensed as free software, we really don’t have a motive for doing that

However, I can’t really claim to be an expert in this area, and I make no claim whatsoever to having skills in graphics, layout, etc. That’s why I was pleased to read an article in Linuxworld from the folks behind GNUzilla magazine, who do know what they are talking about. As enthusiasts for free software, they have tried a number of different packages to produce their magazine, but have not found anything to tempt them away from Writer:

During the first year of GNUzilla’s existence, several
observations were made in sense of using some more professional tools like Scribus, or maybe Tex/LateX, but Writer followed the requirements very well. In the past three years OpenOffice.org became faster, Writer started to produce more and more optimized PDF’s, and remained everything GNUzilla needs right now.

Judge for yourself - have a look at their magazine (in Serbian), and think what OpenOffice.org Writer could do for you!

John McCreesh: Extend and Conquer

Tue, 06 May 2008 06:49:31 +0000

GCN reports on Juergen Schmidt’s talk about using OpenOffice.org Extensions as an alternative to conventional macro languages. Macros have introduced many people to ‘computer programming’ - sometimes with disastrous results, for example when the office ‘macro expert’ quits the company, leaving a mass of incomprehensible code behind. Maybe extensions could be a better solution?

OOo Marketeers: OpenOffice.org wins Linux Journal Readers' Choice Awards 2008

noreply@blogger.com (floeff) — Sun, 04 May 2008 17:17:14 +0000

Belltown Media, Inc., publisher of the award-winning monthly magazine Linux Journal, has announced the winners of its annual Linux Journal Readers' Choice Awards. The 2008 winners appear in the June issue, with awards presented to vendors and organizations in 34 categories, ranging from favorite software development tool to favorite Linux laptop. OpenOffice.org was awarded the prize in the category of favorite office program.