OpenOffice.org Still Kicking

by Joe Brockmeier - May. 12, 2010Comments (7)

Reports to contrary, the launch of Microsoft Office 2010 doesn't mean that OpenOffice.org is dead — or even wounded.

ZDNet's Christopher Dawson says that users are going to choose the lumbering monstrosity that is Microsoft Office, or opt for Google Docs or another online suite. According to Dawson:

If someone needs a desktop office suite (and I mean they don't just think they need one, but actually need to do things that can't be done with Google Apps), then they aren't going to be satisfied with OpenOffice. I don't blame them, actually. Given my choice of Office 2007/2010 or OpenOffice, I'd pick Office. It's polished, it's easy, and it's powerful.

I'll give Dawson powerful, and I suppose polished, but I'm unwilling to cede "easy," though I don't claim OpenOffice.org is easier than Office. Aside from that, you'll find a fairly large gulf in features between Google Docs and OpenOffice.org. Google Docs isn't quite ready to assume the mantle just yet. Some people simply prefer a desktop suite. Many users will think twice, or three times, before depending solely on applications "in the cloud" with their data. And some users actually do care about open source, though admittedly not a huge number.

Also, there's the little matter of cost. This might be less visible in the educational environment with special pricing, but Microsoft Office isn't cheap — and free often beats cheap anyway.

One thing that Dawson's post does point out, though, is that OpenOffice.org does need to distinguish itself in some way. If Dawson's view of OpenOffice.org is widely held, it means that many just see it as a not-quite-as-good Microsoft Office substitute, and with nothing to really recommend it on its own. It would be good to see OpenOffice.org recommended in its own right rather than just as an Office substitute.

But OpenOffice.org isn't going anywhere. If anything, I suspect it's going to be getting some extra attention from Oracle and may be getting closer to Microsoft Office. It's going to be a few more years before Web office suites take over entirely, anyway. Applications rarely just up and "die," it takes a while for users to change habits.

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by Martin Spasovski on May. 12, 2010

I hope that Oracle will put time, money and people in OpenOffice.org. It will be a shame if they don't!

1 Votes

by an anonymous user on May. 14, 2010

We have Microsoft Office 2007 and work. It's very confusing to find things if you were using Microsoft Office 2003 before. Microsoft wanted developers to use the menu interface where you have File, Edit, Help etc. Now, they've moved away from the interface model they've been pushing for years. It's hard to locate things like undo and old key mappings to do certain commands no longer function. Sometimes, I think the Microsoft Office suite is trying to be too smart. When I cut and paste a table, sometimes all I want is the data, not the graphics for a table. Same for information that's part of a link. Whenever I want to do something fast that a word processor is best for, I find myself using Open Office. Most of the time I can get the same job done more quickly with it than I can trying to figure where Office 2007 moved a feature or how to turn off some functionality like Smart Quotes or double spacing on paragraphing.

1 Votes

by Paul Joseph on May. 16, 2010

OpenOffice is free and savings is something everyone must look at especially in this economy.

Joe, I completely agree with you that OpenOffice.org is not dead — or for that matter even wounded. Here are some facts:

OpenOffice.org 3.2 was announced on 11th Feb 2010 and is the current stable version.

= 25,660,536

Thats more than a million downloads every 5 days!

This counter shows all downloads from the OpenOffice.org website between the launch of OpenOffice.org 3.1 on 7th May 2009 and the launch of OpenOffice.org 3.2 on 11th Feb 2010.

= More than 64 Million

This counter shows all downloads from the OpenOffice.org website between the launch of OpenOffice.org 3.0 on 13th October 2008 and the launch of OpenOffice.org 3.1 on 7th May 2009.

= More than 59 Million

I don't see Microsoft Office 2010 upsetting this trend.

0 Votes

by Paul Joseph on May. 16, 2010

P.S. Didn't mean to double post, sorry. Could remove the second post.

Here is the weblink for the no.s I stated:

http://marketing.openoffice.org/marketing_bouncer.html

0 Votes

by Daryl Kulak on May. 16, 2010

I think Oracle will find a way to mess OpenOffice up. They will focus too much on the paid version and let the open source piece drift. Then we'll have to fork OOo and begin again. I'm not looking forward to this.

I agree with the post that OOo needs to be something more than "almost as good as MS-Office." It is worth brainstorming what that could be.

1 Votes

by stainely johnson on May. 25, 2010

yes i am agree with that open office is not dead ....it has a huge market as it is open source office solution as compared to Microsoft office ..i am also completely agree with Paul Joseph .....it has very good support for office requirements ...

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Ezine

1 Votes

by DarkWyrm on May. 25, 2010

I'm a high school computer teacher in a school that is very much a M$ shop teaching Office 2007. The curriculum goes into advanced features like mail merges and pivot tables. I can safely say that for 95% of the desktop population and a fair portion of business users, OOo goes far beyond what they would need. The biggest disparity is between Access and Base and PowerPoint and Impress. Calc and Writer easily give Word and Excel a run for their money. I only wish that there were an open source DTP app that had Publisher's ease-of-use for nonprofessionals. Scribus doesn't cut it in that respect, great app that it is.

4 Votes