CeBIT: OpenOffice + Linux = Mac

National ICT Australia's Professor Gernot Heiser had some blunt words for the OpenOffice community -- the product isn't ready to compete with the big boys.

"If you want to be successful in open source it can't just be a 'me too' product. Anything that's not the best technology will not work ... enterprise is willing to pay for the best. OpenOffice is not the best ... it's the first thing that made me move from Linux to Mac," Heiser, NICTA program leader of Embedded, Real Time and Operating Systems, said.

"Open source is creating the most pure Darwinist environment possible. It's brutal survival of the fittest," he said, surprising the crowd at CeBIT's Open Source Business session today.

"Only the best software will be able to survive. Regardless of how free it is, enterprise will not use it unless it is better," Heiser, who is also the founder of Open Kernel Labs, added.

Heiser predicted that it was inevitable for the infrastructure of computing, in particular operating systems, to become commoditised. "You can't make money making operating systems ... [soon] proprietary operating systems will just go away."

In the audience waiting for his turn to speak was Sun Microsystems chief open source officer, Simon Phipps. The OpenOffice.org community was founded by Sun in 2000.

Upon taking the podium, Phipps said: "You have to start somewhere.

"OpenOffice is the reason that Linux users can now write letters. It's high time people jumped on the program and helped develop it."

Riding the wave of community excitement about the "open sourcing" of Java, he was equally bullish about the future of OpenOffice.org. "OpenOffice will become a market leader if we all just contribute what we want to see in it," Phipps claimed.

• Related stories

• Alerts

Add your opinion

The current wordprocessing metaphor is flawedAnonymous -- 04/05/07

In a sense I agree with him, but.. I only use OOo for MS compatibility, e.g. to write my columns for an MS only shop or to examine the odd Powerpoint file.

Wordprocessing is flawed in itself. When I started with Linux I used Wordperfect: too buggy; Star Office: too awkward. I finally settled with LyX, a nice middle of the road program between LateX and OOo. I don't have to care about my layout anymore. The program takes care of that. Intelligent TOC, images and tables. Spreadsheets are flawed in itself, mixing representation and logic. PDF is my format of choice. If you distribute a program to end users, do you want to distribute the source or the executable? So whether document or presentation, it always boils down to PDF.

Once the industry gets its paradigms clear and clean I'm convicted to Open Source. Only there things are happening. The industry has set the bad standards and is incapable of changing it, because of the existing user base.

• Reply to comment
• Reply to story
• Report offensive content

I don't believe that's trueAnonymous -- 04/05/07

Company's don't necessarily go with what is the best. They go with what is the safest. I had one of my managers say that he was going with a MS product, not because it was the best, but because it was good enough.

• Reply to comment
• Reply to story
• Report offensive content

Office Suite GemEarl Violet -- 04/05/07

As far as I am concerned, the greatest office suite ever written was Lotus 97. Apparently I'm not in the majority with this opinion. Can IBM release the source code so something can be done with this program?

• Reply to comment
• Reply to story
• Report offensive content

I agreeAnonymous -- 04/05/07 (in reply to #320078836)

I also liked Wordpro 97. I wish OOo could be more like that.

• Reply to comment
• Report offensive content

Ditto as wellDanny Strickland -- 04/05/07 (in reply to #320078838)

I concur as well. Wordpro was originally AmiPro before being bought by Lotus and then Lotus by IBM. I used AmiPro in grad school in the early to mid 90's. Wonderful program, one of the first to truly bridge the DTP and wordprocessor gap. Also Lotus's/IBM's suite also had, in my opinion, the best PIM ever. It was the first and in some respects the only one to look like an actual Dayplanner. You would think IBM would open source this code since it is no longer on the market.

• Reply to comment
• Report offensive content

The right approachTom Russell -- 04/05/07 (in reply to #320078836)

Lotus included Approach which was one of the easiest relational database tools on the market. Made Access look like a tech head tool. Just for this bit I'd love IBM to Open Source the suite.

• Reply to comment
• Report offensive content

I think so too!Anonymous -- 04/05/07 (in reply to #320078836)

OOo have a lot to learn from this 10 years old Lotus SmartSuite 97 (Wordpro, 1-2-3, and so) I still using.

Lotus SmartSuite is very user friendly, simple, logical, well organized, efficient, mostly object oriented, and so on. Unfortunely, it don't integrate very well hyperlinks (Internet, URL, and so on), but it do very well his main job: word processing (Worpro) and calculation (123).

Lotus Smarsuite still great after all these years!
Me too wish OOo to be more like that.

• Reply to comment
• Report offensive content

perceptionJohn -- 04/05/07

I may be wrong but the single biggest issue I forsee in this space is the fact that open source applications are often built and developed in a silo without integration considerations to the larger community. What I mean is that if you consider any workstation application is a users interface to the world, then what ever the applications available must be able to interface to all backend application providers ie ERP, CRM, Web, Office automation etc etc.

If it then requires every backend application vendor to release its own copy of an office suite tailored to its application interfaces the user community will be in total chaos. The communities of relevance actually need to sit down and not just look at what the competitors are doing but actually plan what they need to achieve to first differentiate themselves against the others but ensure the application is actually value to a user by providing the application integration that is actiually needed especially when you consider the information type worker (those who do more than word process and basic spreadsheets).

Until this general industry integration starts to occur the product sets whilst individually good cannot be enterprise ready because they don;t address enterprise requirements. You cannot focus on the user when your business is at state from poor tools.

• Reply to comment
• Reply to story
• Report offensive content

Integration is keyTom -- 04/05/07

Integration and Quality are the key to any new application’s success. Businesses are already used to being rorted by Microsoft so cost is obviously no the issue, even if it is ‘free as in beer’. There’s too much of a silo mentality with Open Source products. I’m free to use any office product I wish at my work. I tried OpenOffice, but the critical business applications I use depend on require Word and Excel for important complimentary functions, as do many applications these days. OO Writer and Calc could not just drop-in and replace the MS Office equivalents. So I couldn’t use OOo for that. I’m not going to use two Office applications just for the sake of staying true to some cause. I have work to do and little time to fuss about. I doubt anyone OOo project managers have actually sat with a real business user and properly analysed a broad set of essential requirements, as if they had, they would clearly see the gaping holes in these products. Lack of Integration and Quality.

• Reply to comment
• Reply to story
• Report offensive content

Critical business applications??Anonymous -- 05/05/07 (in reply to #320078845)

Just two comments:

[1] Critical business applications? And they are dependant on OFFICE applications?! I don't know what business you are running, but in my perception the (IT) maturity of any company is the inverse of its dependence on office products.

[2] No, no, no! The problem with integration is its interdependency. At one moment on another it becomes a Gordian knot. So, the usability of any application does not depend on its integration, but its ability to communicate with other applications by well-defined, abstract interfaces.

I may agree that is not the case with OOo, but MS overall integration gets no points either.

• Reply to comment
• Report offensive content

No Dopeyjohn -- 05/05/07 (in reply to #320078896)

He said office was the user interface for his applications that run his business...he did not say office was his LOB.

For example if you have a very large data warehouse (in any flavour of database) and require cubes to manipulate the data interface to produce reports, the interface to the database and cubing etc will drive the client application, hence you are required to use the tools that fit the business, not based on who wrote them or if they are free or not

• Reply to comment
• Report offensive content

TomTom Jones -- 07/05/07 (in reply to #320078896)

Replying to Mr Anonymous, yes – ideally your comments on "the usability of any application does not depend on its integration, but its ability to communicate with other applications by well-defined, abstract interfaces" is all very well in a textbook but in practice it hardly ever happens. Our management through ignorance and marketing hype selected our applications. Some were there before I started. So that’s just what I’m lumped with supporting. The staff are used to them and these luddites don’t like change. Even if it is something better. In fact, it seems some ISV’s deliberately go out of their way not to integrate their app’s just to ensure their slice of the pie is not affected. I don’t like it but there’s little I can do right now.

• Reply to comment
• Report offensive content

My comments about Open OfficeGernot Heiser -- 04/05/07

Immediately after the talk I realised that my comments could be very easily misunderstood. I should have emphasised more what I did *not* mean to say.

The message was that if you want to build a business on open source, the it isn't good enough for your product to be second best. Corporations will go for the real thing, even if it's more expensive. And I mentioned that LAMP stack as something that is leading technology, and OpenOffice for something that isn't.

I did not mean to deny that a lot of good work is going into OpenOffice, or imply that those efforts are not worthwhile. In fact, I believe that OpenOffice is a cornerstone in the community's fight against dangerous monopolies, and needs to be supported. All I was saying that you cannot build a business on a product that is constantly playing catchup.

I understand that Sun is coming to the same conclusions. I was told that they have given up on the idea of making money with StarOffice, and are concentrating in improving OpenOffice instead. I believe that this is the right way to go, and it is totally consistent with what I said at Open CeBIT.

• Reply to comment
• Reply to story
• Report offensive content

Quantum leap requiredAnonymous -- 04/05/07 (in reply to #320078846)

Playing catchup with MS Office (regardless of how many innovations are included in these clones) just indicates to potential users that MS Office is the 'real thing'.

Unfortunatley, OpenOffice just replicates the clunky separate apps in MS Office. These apps are remnants from a time when they were sold separately (at about the same price each that Office is now!).

As a user of Ms Office apps to create 'applications' (with some VBA), I have often wished that tables in Word had the full functionality of spreadsheets and that displayed values anywhere could be a formula, being able to reference named bookmarks or cell ranges. And then select a view that provides a presentation based upon selection criteria (styles, etc) and transformation patterns. Where is the hierarchical presentation package, where you can drill down if an audience is interested in that toopic or roll up and go to the next if the audience if familiar with the material? Powerpoint is still a linear show (I still don't know what justifies this being any more than a Word add-in).

Until there is a valid reason to use an alternative in its own right (adds enough value to use it regardless of whether MS Office is available in house), those alternatives will remain just that, the 'tyre-kickers' office apps.

Advocating using apps as a political statement is not a substitute for making them really worthwhile.

• Reply to comment
• Report offensive content

Why is OOo holding back?Jonathon Coombes -- 06/05/07 (in reply to #320078856)

The issue that many people mention in looking at OpenOffice.org is that it is trying to play catchup with MS Office and will always be behind. It should be remembered that initially there was much innovation with OOo, but as more users started giving feedback the request was for more features like MS Office.

The trouble now is that many users come on to the lists and want features added, or existing features altered, to match what was in their favourite packages from the 80's and 90's. Many of the features that are requested are already implemented using new methods that add further capabilities to the old methods. However, when it is not exactly as the user as the user is familiar with, there is protest.

There are many new features coming into OOo that will be of benefit not only to the software itself, but also to enable better integration with other products/projects. This includes areas such as xforms support, data sources, scripting frameworks, plugins, JFreeReports integration etc.

The OOo project is currently trying to sustain a balanced approach to development based on pleasing a base of existing user application features and implementing newer technologies to advance the capabilities. This is a delicate path forward, but one that seems to be working as more business consider the advantages of using OOo, not just because of licensing savings, but also because of abiding with open standards for future management of archives.

• Reply to comment
• Report offensive content

What is saidStomfi -- 04/05/07

Presumably he is using MS Office on his MAC. But what he is saying is that the OS will be irrelevant as all the normal desktop services and storage will be supplied by the Internet, where the dominant applications will succeed.

This may be true for those connected to the web and can afford to pay for online applications and storage, but the other 5 billion, whose monthly wage is insufficient to pay for such sophisticated services, will still rely on some form of general purpose application desktop connected by community wifi to sponsor nodes.

For those who can afford a high speed web connection, the rise of virtual spaces like Second Life, the interface will rapidly become aural and visual negating the need for typed text, replaced either by spoken words translated into the required format, or scanned content.

As sophisticated super hardware that can support speech and 3D recognition, and can grid at the hardware level, like the PS3 or other Cell based platforms, becomes widespread, the need to client server will also disappear, replaced by global redundant storage peer to peer systems.

So what he is saying is quite true. people who develop for Linux and its older brother Unix, which will obviously be the universal web OS as it runs on any hardware platform including phones, robots and machinery controllers, should be putting their efforts into developing new applications to suit the interface revolution, tailoring their offerings to all users, whether they be on expensive high speed cable Internet or inexpensive community wifi.

Copying the MS user experience is counter productive.

• Reply to comment
• Reply to story
• Report offensive content

• Just In

• Most Popular

• Most Discussed

Reader Services

Popular Topics

Essentials