Microsoft Office is an office suite from Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. Along with core office applications, it includes associated servers and web-based services.... More
Keir Thomas, author of Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference--a free online book--has an interesting post up called How Open Source Can Beat the Status Quo. In it, he looks at some of the current challenges to the computing status quo, and how they define opportunities for open source. I agree with some of the opportunities he points to, and there are a few more worth mentioning.
KnowledgeTree, which provides commercial open source document management software, has announced the release of version 3.61 of its flagship solution, and also version 1.0 of its new Microsoft Office add-in. Companies that use document management platforms, such as legal firms, depend on them to help them with compliance, such as tracking how long they must retain key documents, contracts and the like.
KnowledgeTree's new release includes new enhancements focused on compliance, and is more interoperable with other productivity applications. For example, KnowledgeTree's new Microsoft Office add-in means that Microsoft applications users can open, edit, save and e-mail documents that reside in the KnowledgeTree repository from within Office applications, as they would if the documents resided on a shared drive.
IBM announced today that its free office productivity software suite Lotus Symphony will be finalized in a version for the Macintosh later this month. The move will bring more competition for Microsoft Office on the Mac, and it will also represent strong competition for OpenOffice 3.0, which, as we covered here, was a big boost for Mac users of OpenOffice because version 3.0 is a true Aqua application. In addition to being optimized for Aqua in its Mac version, Symphony shares code and history with OpenOffice. Here are the details.