MS attacks Open Office.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/microsoft-launches-attack-on-openoffice/9954

 

MS set the video to private, so it can't be viewed by the public anymore.

 

For MS to produce such information means that Open Office is considered a real threat.

Arstechnica has found the sources of informtion - arstechnica.com/microsoft /microsoft posts video of customers criticizing openoffice

The only BIG advantages to the average user that Open Office has over MS Office is the cost and Licencing.

Seems a coincidence that this is released not long after Libre Office has been announced - suddenly theres an extra competitor MS has to worry about. May not be an issue in terms of user numbers, but in terms of mind share will increase awareness of both OpenOffice and LibreOffice as MS Office alternatives.

Cheers, Nick

 

In that regard, we can start forking openoffice indefinitely. Each new iteration will create yet another competitor. Recursive obliteration of competition by fractal forking of open-source projects

Imagine if there were four million openoffice ports. With as little as 10 users per port, you'd have a lot of users! And the search pages would be overwhelmed.

Just a wicked thought.

Mrk

 

I hope that the introduction of LibreOffice brings something new into scene. OpenOffice, IMO, was stagnated a long time ago. Let's see what LibreOffice has to real offer, that OpenOffice doesn't already.

The way I see it, LibreOffice is a competitor for OpenOffice, not Microsoft Office. Nor is OpenOffice a competitor for Microsoft Office, for that matter.

Even for most home users, who actually would only need OpenOffice, its user interface just feels "wrong". Why would a lot people just install pirated version of Microsoft Office, when they have free suites?

I'm hoping that's one of the things LibreOffice will bring: A total redesign.

And, I hope no more forks appear. It will be bad. If more forks exist, then the more distributed will be the user base between the different forks. If that happens, then we won't see much improvements in the current fork LibreOffice, for example, because there wouldn't be a big user base suggesting improvements, etc, etc.

Anyway, just my opinion.

-Edit-

By the way, why is this an "all things UNIX" topic? OpenOffice is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

After all, it wouldn't make much sense Microsoft attacking a suite that would only install in Linux, etc, would it?

 

Yup, like how the large amount of Linux distros are killing Windows.

 

I was joking ...
Mrk

 

http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Is-Microsoft-running-out-of-steam-1102654.html

 

THIS. IS. FUD.
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzdykNa2IBU&feature=player_embedded-

 

Me too

I wouldn't be so harsh, because about 50% of it or so is accurate.

 

What 50%? MS Office support is better than OO? Or you also think MS Office improves productivity?

 

But mighty MS is not making the Linux ghost go away and in server world, large amount of Linux distros are killing MS.

 

From el reg (comment):

^^ this, here's hope something good will come of the recent developments in the O camp.

 

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/microsoft-trashing-openoffice-is-a-good-thing/7551

 

Here's a potential reason (based on something I read on Slashdot) why I think Microsoft may have produced that video.

They are under pressure to improve their shares.
There is are small emerging markets such as Eastern Europe which they could sell a lot of licences to. Microsoft wants to sell licences to these areas of the market before they adopt alternatives such as Open Office or Google Docs.

Cheers, Nick

 

I have OO on my computer. I've also got MS Word. I occasionally use OO for their Presentation and that's about all I use of OO any more.

Between OO Writer and Word, there is no comparison. I'm still using Word 2002 and it's still far superior to Writer, my opinion only as somebody who uses word processing at least 3 hrs daily. I've tried OO Writer but Word, even my older version is just better in many ways.

I also have MS Office Ultimate, from a couple of years ago, but haven't bothered installing it yet. Maybe some day.

 

I have been writing blogs, journals and all my university work on OO writer since 2000, I gave up on MS Office when I got infected with a word virus, never looked back, OO just keeps getting better and better, it handles all and everything and the interface is just about the best, so are the various useful plugins.

 

It's rather difficult for me to state how much I despise OOo.

I'm not sure what possessed me to analyze some problems via numerical integration using OOo Calc instead of FreeMat (or Excel in Windows) this afternoon, but after half an hour and only ~500 cells in the current spreadsheet, trying to copy/paste a 160-cell column somehow resulted in Calc using up 100% of BOTH my CPU cores, gobbling up nearly 1.5GB RAM, and essentially freezing my entire Ubuntu session so hard that I couldn't even open the system monitor to kill the Calc process. Neither REISUB nor trying to terminate the X session worked as well, in the end I had to go for a hard reboot.

Needless to say, I lost quite a bit of my work as well.

Seriously, if it weren't for the price, Office vs OOo would be a foregone conclusion in favor of Office, but even in Linux where Office isn't an option, I'd rather use even Google Docs over OOo. Actually, I think I will...

 

Open Office is on my lappy as well don't want to spend 200 bucks on a program.

 

Same here. Been using it since version 2.4. The forum offers very good support:
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum

It is definitely not as good as MS Office in terms of appearance and may lack some "functionality" needed by specialists.

 

Some Open Office myths and FUD debunked nicely.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/5-myths-about-openofficeorg-libreoffice

 

Hm - strange. Never happened to me. Perhaps there is something wrong with your system? BTW: Have you ever tried Gnumeric? Might be an alternative that fits your needs better than OO.

 

I use OpenOffice latest dev build, which serves me well. I just need to remember to save works on a Microsoft Office compatible format, and then everything I make on OpenOffice can be viewed/edited on Microsoft Office as well.

I definitely don't want to pay $100 or more to use Microsoft Office, specially because I'm not an advanced user, I just do basic things.

 

I'm still on 3.2 and really don't see any need to upgrade. As you said, basic users (and even pretty advanced ones) will manage just fine. Of course, it is always possible to contrive a situation to try to convince the gullible that they really need this and not that. But that job is best left to evangelists and marketeers.