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- einfeldt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19hi armbar,
"Hopefully this will turn out well. I know so many people that immediately switch to OpenOffice once they find out that it exists."
Thanks a lot for your support. It's actually pretty easy for anyone to help out, simply by asking your friends to Digg this story. If we can get the story on the front page of Digg, that helps us out immensely.
And I agree with you. OpenOffice.org OOo is basically good enough. I use it in my business, and my personal use. I also am a volunteer for a public middle school in San Francisco, and they use it for teaching their students basic office productivity work. - armbar, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20Hopefully this will turn out well. I know so many people that immediately switch to OpenOffice once they find out that it exists.
- wardrive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Fry's electronics happens to use open office as their main office suite, and runs novelle and linux all over the place. So does Micro Center and Circuit city, OOo Rules
- Celeron, on 10/12/2007, -6/+18I started using OpenOffice when I reformatted and couldn't find my Office XP cd. OOo will liberate you. ;)
- prab, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Open Office works fine, but I have both MS office and OO on my system and tend to use MS. One of my main reasons it the ease of rotating images in documents. I do this a lot and in MS office it is just one click and drag. In Open Office, I have to do several more steps including launching another program (Draw).
- puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Expect MS to counter with another FUD campaign, much like they did against linux.
- xymor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13@D4r7h3v1l
"I would not switch to OO as a replacement for MS office. It simply lacks features and usability. I will switch when I don't want to buy the next version of Office and OpenOffice has more features than the old one."
So you're part of the 0.01% that actually uses those obscure MSO funtions that noone else knows about?
Seriously OO is perfectly fit for 99% of everyone who needs an Office app.
(+ it's free and + doen't require you to retrain everyone in your company just because every new release they dramaticaly change the hole interface(ok, a little exageration)). - puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10If MS loses the software lead because their software cannot compete, then they deserve it (though I think MS Office is slightly superior still). Better that they lose some market share and learn a lesson, and come back stronger with better software than to let them stagnate. It's called competition, and its the cornerstone of American capitalism.
- puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Actually I can think of a simple and dishonest one they can run right now. They could have a poster ad of a .doc file open in MS Word and OOo, and have it deliberately formatted so it looks messed up in OOo.
...oh ***** did I just help the enemy? - puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10i know =P
at least with OOo I don't have to feel guilty because it's free - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11I'm not going to act like OpenOffice is for everyone, hell, there's alot of people that should stick with MS Office, and MS Office 12 is looking to have some amazing features to it..especially that contextual spelling.
But i will have this to say. MOST people, use simple spreadsheets, simple presentations, and do basic word procssing. These people don't need to blow that much money on office software and OO.o is a pretty powerful suite to accomplish a good many tasks.
Where i think it fits best, is not only at home, but in companies and especially in government. How many low level secretaries could switch to OpenOffice and save the consumer, and the tax payer a ton of money merely b/c all they do is fax cover sheets, basic form letters, '
OpenOffice upon first use really did shock me with it's functionality, but i am also rooted in realsim. It can't do everything needed that other suites can provide, but i do have alot of hope for this project and so happy to hear the news of this campaign.
Personally i use a combination of Abi Word with the Open Office Calc and Impress. I find Math to be useless (but then again, i'm not into math) and Base has a long way to go to catch up to access. Writer would be better if it had a grammar check and handled .doc files a wee bit better. - puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12I know what you mean. I was actually forced to switch to OOo when MS started killing my internet connection because I was using a pirated Office 2003. They even took the liberty of making it impossible to uninstall, thus forcing a reformat. I can verify this has happened on at least two of my friends' computers, they all had to reformat.
- thushan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8After using Office 2007 since November last year I dont think i can go back to pre-Office 2007, iv'e got so acustom to the GUI now its hard to go back again... OOo is good and stable (and i dont deny that), but performance is lacking on the Windows port (its java based, what does one expect?) so I use the "real office" instead;-)
But on the linux boxes obviously I use OpenOffice:-) - thushan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Its like drinking cheap cola instead of Coke... Its still cola but it aint Coke.
- puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10"Readers of the ad will be directed to the OpenOffice homepage at www.openoffice.org, NeoOffice for Mac..."
They might want to wait at least until NeoOffice for Intel Macs is free starting July 1st. Right now you have to pay something like $10 for the early access program. That might put off some people with Intel Macs who visit the sight expecting free software.
(I apologize for leaving so many comments on this thread, but this topic excites me =P) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12OpenOffice can be configured to run very quick by changing a couple defaults in Tools--> Options--> Memory.
- superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I really like OO as well, and have switched to it at home as a Word replacement.
However I have to say that in my last attempts that the Powerpoint portion was very buggy and still far behind. I mostly use Powerpoint for simple diagrams (not really as much for slides) and the diagramming features have problems.
Still, every now and again I pick up OO again and try a few things out to see how it is progessing - it's not hard to see that improving to the point I could accept it Next time I'll try to file more bug reports though, I was very bad about that and I realize nothing will get fixed if no bugs reports are filed. - Ashiro, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14I hate to go against the open source evangelists but I have to agree with Bill Gates when he said Open Office is akin to Office 97. There are some startling omissions from OO that I simply can't live without and until they are sorted I won't switch. The ones that spring to mind would be: Grammar check, smart tags, task panes, document recovery, etc.
I think OO will take a long time to bring these to fruition and unlike IE where Microsoft took its eye off the ball giving Firefox a chance to get a hold - MS has consistently developed top end office software. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Many people think OpenOffice is the only open office suite for Linux. There are three primary open office suites: OpenOffice, Gnome Office, and KOffice.
I find that I don't use OpenOffice that much, but rather use Gnome Office (Abiword and Gnumeric). They are faster than the Open Office equivalents, and Abiword includes a grammar checker, which people seem to like. - EochaidRiata, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10I wouldn't say it sucks, but loading times are still a serious issue.
Performance analysis of OpenOffice and MS Office:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=120 - puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13It really isn't so bad if you use ODF. The only time I have problems is when I need to read .doc files with weird formats and oddly placed tables. Once everyone starts using ODF instead of MS proprietary file formats, everything will be gravy.
- puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8D'oh! I'm retarded, should have finished RTFA:
"We plan our ads to be placed in early July, to coincide with the USA's Independence Day."
NeoOffice for Intel Mac will be free by then. - detour27, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"BTW, how many people read this rag? Can't they shoot for the NYT"
The Metro and AM-NewYork are probably read by far more people than the NY Times (at least in JC and Manhattan) because they are handed out for free at PATH and Subway stations during the morning rush. Believe me, millions of people see this. Awesome. - spyres, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It's quite ignorant to imagine that all that OO can handle is a "letter to mom".
- Chasuk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5 D4r7h3v1l 2 wrote:
"I would not switch to OO as a replacement for MS office. It simply lacks features and usability."
What features are missing that you actually use? What lack of usability? - bingbongnana, on 10/12/2007, -1/+51) Because it's free, so you are ALWAYS getting A LOT for your money.
2) Because if you think it's crap you can improve it. - pabster, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Gotta love the Microsoft employees / fanboys coming in with their FUD. They must have a filter on any thread with 'OpenOffice' in it.
Face the facts. OOo is good enough for 99%. The 1% who actually use the 'advanced' features that your great Microsoft Office offers can go ahead and keep getting ***** up the ass for $700 or so a pop. The rest of us will enjoy OOo and pass it on to our friends.
People who read my comments know I'm certainly NOT an open source fanboy. I routinely give Linux a hard time. But OOo really IS a great open source effort and I use it all the time.
PS let me know when I can put MS Office on a USB thumb drive and run it on any PC I want, without installing it. Thanks. - Rosco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I agree with you armbar, although I might not have a while ago. I remember trying OO.o many times during its early stages and just could not adjust to it. But now with it being at version 2 (2.0.2 to be exact) I have to say I have finally dumped MS Office for personal use. It has really improved since the earlier versions. Unfortunately I cannot convince them to do the same at my place of employment, but I hint about it to our IT folks once in a while. I think MS Office has become to crowded with features that I will never use, and for personal use the costs are just way to restrictive.
- D4r7h3v1l, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9I don't trust OpenOffice. It has an undefined performance:price ratio. Sounds pretty devious to me...
(joking, of course) - TravisS, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7maybe if they renamed the product it would be better, I know this sounds petty but the name is one of the things that bothers me most about the program, the whole having your domain as the name thing is cheezy. The icon set it also bad, thankfully you can change that.
- DarkSorrow, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7To any person who think OO.o need improving on preformance, there is a option to do that. OO.o have a option to entirely run on Java or not. most of the time, it can run without java, that increase the performance of OO.o.
And OO.o is a great suite, you have to remember OO.o is still a baby, it taking it time to grow, like MS did before. Im sure OO.o will catch up MS very quickly. - NeoRicen, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8Ugh, Open Office is TERRIBLE, why does everyone automatically LOVE anything that's open source? It can be just as crap as regular software.
- pabster, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Amazing that a tip to speed up OOo (which actually works!) is modded down.
***** Microsoft fanboys. - puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Personally I wish I knew about OOo Math back in high school and undergrad when I had to make tons of math and science formulas for homework and research projects. MS Word's Equation Editor is decent, but OOo Math is so much more elegant (copy paste!).
- raynevandunem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No, in this context, *Office suites* are like coke.
Only that OpenOffice is like RC. - jzimmerman, on 10/12/2007, -7/+9Thats too bad that you were forced to stop using software illegally.
- Classicgamer, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7In Washington, there are a lot of metro buses that have OOo ads on them. It's pretty cool that they're advertising in Microsoft's area.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I agree with travis.
Just buy the "OpenOffice" trademark so we don't have to keep calling it "OOo"... - DoubtfulSalmon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@EochaidRiata
Performance calculations are irrelevant. Microsoft wrote the OS, Microsoft wrote the office suite, so *of course* the OS will cover for the office suite and make it artificially faster.
Articles like that zdnet one don't count for ***** because they're implicitly incapable of presenting unbiased results. Run it on a third OS... OS/X or maybe Linux, and then lets see the figures. - mitrovarr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I think it'll be interesting to see how Open Office holds up against MS Office. Firefox is making headway against IE, true, but Firefox is better than IE, which as much as I like Open Office, it's not quite up to the MS Office level. However, IE and Firefox were both free, while Open Office is free and MS Office is pretty damn expensive. So Open Office has that going for it.
In response to the person above from Microsoft who said that Open Office was only good for 'writing letters to mom', I'm willing to bet that the majority of your user base (even the business user base) doesn't do anything more complicated than that. I think, for a lot of users, the cost of Office would be the deciding factor if they only knew that a good free alternative existed. - villenummi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Noone was complaining about StarOffice but when it was made open source and OpenOffice.org arrived everyone went crazy and started writing how bad OpenOffice.org is. It just shows how much people are ***** in the ass by companies like Microsoft.
- spyres, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Wrong, It never "entirely runs on Java".
Java is needed for the Base module, but other than that, it's just used for some wizards and that's about it. - DougTanner, on 10/12/2007, -7/+9The only difference being: Firefox is better than IE, while Open Office is much much worse than Word.
Good luck with that. - bhorst, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1OpenOffice doesn't bundle an email/PIM tool, because there are several great FOSS options already available. Thunderbird (sibling to Firefox) is the first one most people think of, and the combination of OOo + Firefox + Thunderbird is quite effective.
Otherwise, you can also use Evolution on Linux (and it is being ported to Windows), or Apple Mail on Mac OS X.
Finally, the original founder of Lotus has launched a non-profit developing FOSS PIM software. Their desktop email/calendar/to-do application is called Chandler and will be approaching a version 1.0 in the next year or so (the development process has been long but is very thorough). http://chandler.osafoundation.org/ - Kosterfield, on 10/12/2007, -9/+10If OO is lopping of the end of the file then Excel will be burning a hole in the CPU...
- einfeldt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hi NeoRicen,
"Ugh, Open Office is TERRIBLE, why does everyone automatically LOVE anything that's open source? It can be just as crap as regular software."
One of the things that I love about open source software is that I can install it on as many computers as I want, and not have to track licenses. Also, the free tech support that you get from the community of users and developers is often better than the paid support with proprietary software. Finally, and perhaps most important, I like the fact that I can actually help others by sharing open source software legally. I am opposed to illegal copying of software, and so I have never done so. Which means that I *can't* share the software with ANYONE. I find that limitation annoying.
For example, I helped build two computer labs in a public middle school in San Francisco. They couldn't afford the computers or the software. But we got donations of Dell Optiplex GX110 boxes from a law firm in town, and we were able to install Mepis Linux on those boxes. Now, we have actually started GIVING AWAY computers TO THE STUDENTS who otherwise never would have been able to afford a computer at home. I personally find that kind of volunteering to be lots of fun. You should see how eagerly kids take to those computers. It's great to see their faces light up.
"Sharing" is the most important functionality of software, IMHO.
Christian Einfeldt - JustAGamer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't really use Open Office.org that much but this is still cool, i guess.
- Create, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i do my part to spread OO.o daily, when people buy computers they wonder why there is no office, they naturally assume that the software is free and it is just there, and when i tell them how much a copy of microsoft office 2003 goes for their prompt reaction is usually that they can or will borrow a bootleg copy of office rather than but it, and when i tell them that there is OO.o which is free they are usually very willing to try it out, and i even offer to install it for them for free
hell... now that i am not in school, for the few things i actually type, OO.o is great, and for the little bit that i use it, i could care less if it loads a little slow
the only thing OO.o is missing is something similar to outlook, i still use office at work (although OO.o is installed) partially because since i used it in school i am more familiar with some of the controls for making fancier documents, and partially because i really like outlook
if thry can come up with a good outlook replacement (and maybe tweak loading times a little) it could be a much bigger ms office rival - Create, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1wow, very good information
i personally love evolution on linux, however, because of my work, it is basically a windows world :-/
but that chandler looks very, very promising, and i will be watching this, and waiting for 1.0 - D4r7h3v1l, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3xymor, well, not the features so much as ease of use. E.G. On Openoffice, it was difficult just to do an outline or numbering (I forgot which it was when I came across this.)
I agree that it is great for the money, but I don't want to fool myself and say that it is better.
edit:
also:
"( it's free and doen't require you to retrain everyone in your company just because every new release they dramaticaly change the hole interface(ok, a little exageration))."
Please make up your mind, MS bashers. First you say that they never change their interface and just change colors and make things rounder. Then, you complain that they are changing everything with each release? -
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