Posts Tagged 'office'

The Australian: OpenOffice shakes Microsoft

Published December 1, 2008 Uncategorized Closed
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The Australian released an excellent opinion article, covering the latest version of OpenOffice, 3.0, launched under a month ago around the world. The 3.0 release also introduced Mac support to the open source software.

Here at Doubleclick we’ve been using OpenOffice 3.0 for some weeks and we must say it’s getting harder and harder to see why average users would want to shell out several hundred dollars for MS Office.

Microsoft has been working hard over the past year or so (around the time Ray Ozzie sat in the captain’s chair) to release a lighter, web-based version of Microsoft Office. The license issue hasn’t been officially announced, yet. With OpenOffice 3.0‘s staggering 12 million downloads – which means Microsoft is down $2.5 billion on ‘lost’ Office suites so far – you can understand why Microsoft is working hard and fast.

The next release of Lotus Symphony will be based on OO 3.0, which will improve Sympohny’s ratings considerably.

Links:
The Australian – OpenOffice shakes Microsoft
OpenOffice.org
ComputerWorld – Office web will be available from Mac, Linux, iPhone
IBM commits to the future of ODF and presents Lotus Symphony roadmap
Ed Brill visits Australia and New Zealand

Free your desktop

Published August 8, 2008 Uncategorized Closed
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IBM’s participation at LinuxWorld last week marked its 10th appearance, and we certainly made an impression, with some major announcements, including this one, which ZDnet dubbed ‘IBM, Ubuntu, Novell and Red Hat Gang Up on Vista‘.

The slow adoption of Vista among businesses and budget-conscious CIOs, coupled with the proven success of a new type of Microsoft-free PC in every region, provides an extraordinary window of opportunity for Linux. We’ll work to unlock the desktop to save our customers money and give freedom of choice by offering this industry-leading solution [Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president for IBM’s Lotus Software].

In plain English (and Hebrew to our customers), IBM will offer Windows-free PCs, coupled with Linux as the OS and Lotus Notes and Lotus Symphony as the pre-installed messaging and office productivity suite platforms. Nice 🙂

As Larry Dignan is saying at ZDnet, Microsoft market share won’t decrease significantly, but the move itself, and the ‘teaming’ with open source vendors (Red Hat, Ubuntu and Novell), will be interesting to follow.

Couple of videos for you to watch:
Lotus Notes 8.0 on Linux
Review by Ron Sebastian – IBM Lotus Symphony
Tired of feeding the machine?
Clean your desktop

Links:
ZDnet.com – IBM, Ubuntu, Red Hat and Novell gang up on Vista
Cnet.com – IBM, open source and the ‘Microsoft-free’ desktop
InformationWeek.com – Lenovo is talks to join IBM’s ‘Microsoft-free’ program

Symphony to my ears

Published September 18, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
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IBM announced today (Tue) a new desktop productivity software, Lotus Symphony, free of charge.
The new software, announced at Collaboration Summit in NYC this morning, includes a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation tool, and is available for download for all users: business, professional, academic and customers.

Lotus Symphony runs of both Windows and Linux machines, and support Open Document Format (ODF), Microsoft Office and exporting to Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF).
The software is build on Eclipse and Lotus Expeditor, and can also handle Lotus SmartSuite files.
Lotus Symphony is a stand-alone version of the Productivity Tools available in Lotus Notes 8 client, and provides the end-user with the flexibility to work on a productivity software of his/her choice, saving as ODF and exporting to PDF.

More coverage is available here:
IBM takes on Microsoft again, with Lotus Symphony (C/Net)
IBM giving aways social networking (ZDnet)
IBM releases IBM Lotus Symphony free software suite (CNN Money)
IBM Symphony pushes Microsoft buttons (InternetNews)
IBM launches free, online Office applications (PC Magazine)
IBM sets an alternative for Microsoft Office (TheMarker IT – Hebrew)
IBM Lotus Symphony – supports multilingual languages, including Hebrew (DailyMaily – Hebrew)

Lotus Symphony: ibm.com/lotus/symphony



Mobile & Media Consultant. I help startup companies launch products to the consumer market. Reach out: dvir.reznik [at] gmail.com
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This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.