Donnerstag November 29, 2007

Fast growing ODF ISV support
I know I repeat myself, but I'm amazed that I can report about new ISVs support either ODF, OpenOffice.org or both almost every day now. As usual I refer to OpenOffice.org Solutions wiki page for a list of products. The three new products I found out about today are DEVONthink and DEVONnote as well as EMS SQL Manager for SQL Server. DEVONthink seems to be a note taking software with ODF support for the Mac platform and EMS SQL Manager for SQL Server allows importing and exporting ODF data into or from databases. I used to use SQL Manager a lot in on of my previous jobs and liked the tool a lot. Therefore, I'm very happy to see that they added ODF support to the tool!
( Nov 29 2007, 10:48:09 PM CET ) Permalink

Zonbu, yet another Openoffice.org distribution channel
"Unfazed by the failure of earlier subscription-based PCs from vendors like PeoplePC, Zonbu Wednesday launched an inexpensive subscription notebook that the company claims will free users from the hassle of computer maintenance.
...
The notebook, which runs a customized version of the open-source Linux OS, comes preloaded with 20 software applications, including free applications already available on the Internet, like the Firefox Web browser and OpenOffice.org office suite. It's targeted as a second computer for those tired of updating PCs, Zonbu said. The notebook is currently in "beta," according to Zonbu. The final version of the notebook with updated software will ship globally early next year."
Found here.
( Nov 29 2007, 10:39:51 PM CET ) Permalink

Mittwoch November 28, 2007

Shrinking ODF Files
If your ODF presentations typically end up too big for being distributed via email, you should check out Constantin Gonzalez shrink script. Also keep your eyes open for the soon-to-be-released Presentation Minimizer extension for OpenOffice.org and StarOffice. The extension will make compressing presentations even simpler and more intuitive.
( Nov 28 2007, 12:16:10 PM CET ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

OpenOffice.org Solutions Page Updated
I just updated the OpenOffice.org Solutions wiki page with the information I found in different articles and press releases (this one, this one, and this one). It's nice to see that this list is growing steadily! If ISV's wonder why they should support OpenOffice.org or ODF, they should take a look at the OpenOffice.org Market Share Analysis wiki page.
( Nov 28 2007, 12:10:33 PM CET ) Permalink

OpenOffice.org got new user forums
OpenOffice.org got new user forums. You can find them here. The announcement of the forums was sent to the announce@openoffice.org mailing list this morning. You can subscribe to the mailing list or get access to the archives of the announcement mailing list from this web page.
( Nov 28 2007, 12:04:57 PM CET ) Permalink

Donnerstag November 22, 2007

German Federal Court of Auditors ("Bundesrechnungshof") criticizes IT purchasing behavior
In the remarks to its latest report (German PDF file), the German Federal Court of Auditors ("Bundesrechnungshof") criticizes the IT purchasing behavior of the federal government agencies in Germany. According to the document many federal government agencies frequently upgraded to the latest versions of the operating system and the office suite of the market leader that has 90% market share without seriously evaluating alternatives, even though alternatives are available. I became aware of the news through this German article on heise.
( Nov 22 2007, 11:01:58 PM CET ) Permalink

Increasing ISV support for OpenOffice.org and ODF
More and more software vendors are adding OpenOffice.org and ODF support to their solutions. I just became aware of this German medical solution called "fd-klinika". BTW, in case you still don't know, a list of software products complementary to OpenOffice.org can be found here. If you or your company has a solution as well, feel free to add it to the wiki page!
( Nov 22 2007, 10:47:28 PM CET ) Permalink

Dienstag November 20, 2007

"Obama Voices Support for ODF"
Interesting how open standards and open file formats become more and more of a political topic. Check out the following eWeek article: "Obama Voices Support for ODF". In this context, the statement by the German Federal Foreign Minister Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier also fits in:
"Modern information technology has turned the world into a village with amazing speed. It links people and builds bridges in a way which even quite recently we would have believed impossible.
An open, unhindered exchange of information in all areas of life is of fundamental importance for today's knowledge-based society. It is an important foundation for our shared objective: a peaceful, democratic, pluralistic society. The Open Document Format, as a completely open and ISO-standardized format, is an excellent vehicle for the free exchange of knowledge and information in the globalized age."
The full quote can be found here.
( Nov 20 2007, 10:55:44 AM CET ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

More details about Karstadt's migration to StarOffice (German)
More details about Karstadt's migration to StarOffice can be found in this German article. Karstadt is one of the largest German retailers (maybe THE largest?!) and probably can be compared to US stores like Target or Sears. Karstadt uses 2,500 copies of StarOffice.
( Nov 20 2007, 10:50:39 AM CET ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

Montag November 19, 2007

OpenOffice.org home user and SMB support in French and German
Home users as well as small and medium businesses looking for OpenOffice.org should check out this new offering. It's now possible to buy support incident packs for OpenOffice.org for German and French. More languages might get added going forward.
( Nov 19 2007, 09:39:49 AM CET ) Permalink

Server-side PDF conversion with the StarOffice 8 Server
The StarOffice 8 Server has just been released. The StarOffice 8 Server is a flavor of the StarOffice software that has been optimized for server-side usage to do document conversion. Check out the features list yourself!
( Nov 19 2007, 09:37:04 AM CET ) Permalink

More money for the government employees due to open source
According to this German article, the labor union of the police in Berlin is unhappy with Windows and thus considers a switch to Linux. It's not 100% clear to me if the issues are on the desktop side or the server side, but apparently the labor union members are experiencing stability problems. From my point of view the most interesting part of the news is that the switch to open source is also considered to be a chance to pay the government employees a Christmas bonus again based on open source related savings.
( Nov 19 2007, 09:33:35 AM CET ) Permalink

Ubuntu for 160,000 students in Macedonia
According to this German article, about 160,000 students in Macedonia will get to use Ubuntu via PC's and thin clients. Actually, the software being used will be a localized version of the education flavor of Ubuntu called Edubuntu. Since Ubuntu includes OpenOffice.org, I guess these are also good news for OpenOffice.org and ODF.
( Nov 19 2007, 09:26:24 AM CET ) Permalink

Business Intelligence with OpenOffice.org
I just found the following news:
<"Christian Schieder of the Chemnitz University of Technology introduced the PalOOCa project. This acronym stands for the far-advanced integration of Palo in OpenOffice.org Calc. As an example for the good interaction between open and non-open source software served the Palo integration in Abacus, a successful ERP software with over 30,000 medium-sized customers.">
The full article can be found here.
( Nov 19 2007, 09:22:03 AM CET ) Permalink

Mittwoch November 14, 2007

Sun's open source strategy paying off
Pretty cool news about Dell offering Solaris! Here is an interesting quote from an eWeek article:
"There are three main reasons we are doing this," Rick Becker, vice president of solutions in the Dell Product Group, told eWEEK. "No. 1 is Sun's new and strong commitment to x86 systems; secondly, a lot of people are already using the Solaris operating systems; and three, our existing customers are asking for this option."
First IBM started shipping Solaris due to customer demand, and now Dell is offering Solaris due to customer demand. Based on discussions with customers and open source supporters I'm convinced that open sourcing Solaris definitely reinvigorated the customer interest in Solaris.
From my point of view the coolest part of the news are that it's customer demand making vendors like IBM and Dell interested in Solaris! I'm definitely not the typical / target Solaris user, but I'm running Solaris on my laptop for my day-to-day work and I'm very happy with it!
( Nov 14 2007, 06:10:45 PM CET ) Permalink