Erwin's StarOffice Tango

Erwin's StarOffice Tango
Erwin Tenhumberg's Insights into Open Source and Dancing
... or why Open Competition matters

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Dienstag Oktober 04, 2005

Microsoft Office 12 following OpenOffice.org/StarOffice
I guess most of you have already read or heard the news that Microsoft will add PDF support to the upcoming Office 12. I'm wondering what changed Microsoft's minds!? Is this a response to user feedback, as I read somewhere, or is this a reaction to Massachusett's recent endorsement of the OASIS OpenDocument format and PDF?

StarOffice and OpenOffice.org have PDF support since version 7 or 1.1 respectively, which were released in October 2003. Given that Office 12 is due out next year, OpenOffice.org and StarOffice were ahead of Microsoft by three years with respect to PDF support. Thus, Microsoft Office 12 is following OpenOffice.org and StarOffice.

It is interesting to see that this huge dinosaur of a company (i.e. Microsoft) can and does actually change the product strategy based on customer pressure. WordPerfect already supports PDF and will soon add support for the OASIS OpenDocument format. OpenOffice.org and StarOffice already support both formats, OpenDocument and PDF. Now Microsoft is adding PDF support. I'm wondering when customer pressure will make them support the OASIS OpenDocument format as well.

PDF is a great read-only format, but I strongly believe that OpenDocument will become the standard file format for editable documents.
( Okt 04 2005, 03:55:23 PM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [2]

OpenOffice.org & Google's SOC
I think I had not mentioned in my blog yet, where people can find more information about OpenOffice.org's participation in Google's recent "Summer of Code" (SOC). Details about the experiences can be found here.
( Okt 04 2005, 03:49:28 PM CEST ) Permalink

eWeek: 1xExcellent plus 3xGood for StarOffice 8
Here is a good StarOffice 8 review from eWeek:

"KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
CAPABILITY - Excellent
INTEROPERABILITY - Good
SCALABILITY - Good
MANAGEMENT - Good"
( Okt 04 2005, 12:01:10 PM CEST ) Permalink

CRN: Five Stars for StarOffice 8
StarOffice 8 gets four and five stars in this CRN review:

"The verdict is in: StarOffice 8 is slowly, but surely, gaining steam on Microsoft Office 2003 as it climbs toward an 80 percent functionality equivalent. StarOffice’s new macro converter tool is finally solving the huge migration hurdle that customers need to transition from Office."
( Okt 04 2005, 11:58:08 AM CEST ) Permalink

OOoCon Pictures by Cristian Driga
Here are OpenOffice.org Conference pictures taken by our survey expert Cristian Driga.
( Okt 04 2005, 11:56:34 AM CEST ) Permalink