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OpenOffice.org Newsletter
#########################################################################
OPENOFFICE.ORG NEWSLETTER
Volume 01 - Issue 10 - 04/2004
Please send news clippings to:
newsletter@marketing.openoffice.org
#########################################################################
Highlights in this Newsletter
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* OpenOffice.org Conference 2004 - Call for Papers
(Announcements)
* NEW!!! Native-Lang News
(Updates from the Native-Lang Project)
* OpenOffice.org at OpenOffice.org at Ministry of Health in Brazil
(Success Stories)
* 310,000 copies of Catalan version distributed
(Success Stories)
* French OpenOffice.org Add-ons
(Solutions)
* Comprehensive comparison between Office 2003 and OpenOffice.org 1.1.1,
the trilogy. - by eWeek
(Resources)
* Best Open Source Project: OpenOffice.org
(Awards & Reviews)
* Chapter 9 of book "OpenOffice.org XML Essentials" available for review
(Developer and Administrator News)
Announcements
#########################################################################
OpenOffice.org Conference 2004 - Call for Papers
------------------------------------------------
The Call for Papers went out to announce@openoffice.org:
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=200
Related is the "Call for Runners": OOoCon 2004 + Berlin Marathon
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=201
OOo 1.1.1 News Roundup
----------------------
Link list:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/53/36648.html
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20040330S0009
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=120195
(French)
http://www.newdimension-fr.net/news/1069.html
Announcement Archive
--------------------
All new and past annoucements can be found in the announcement list
mailing list archive at
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=announce
Updates from the Native-Lang Project
#########################################################################
New Native-Lang Projects to be created
--------------------------------------
Two new Native-Lang Projects are on their way to be created: The Azeri
Project led by Emin Huseynov is at this moment in his pre-set up phase.
Emin wanted to start the Localization effort first, but insisted on
providing his community a meeting place here on OpenOffice.org.
The domain name hasn't been set up yet (no JCA nor ssh keys submitted).
However Charles-H. Schulz has spent some times helping out Emin off list
and asked Rail Aliev and Görkem Cetin from the Russian and Turkish
Project to bring Emin and his community on the right track.
Ukrainian Native-Lang Project proposal accepted: Led by Mr Vad V.
Mashckoff (Adiel), backed by the Alt Linux Community and OSDN Ukraine,
the project will soon start. The Localization effort however is being
undertaken by Sergyi Kudryk and will remain a separate initiative on
SourceForge.
Talk-shows & Politics
---------------------
After two months of off list work involving discussions with many
native-lang leads, Charles-H. Schulz comes up with what he believes
will be the "Next Big Thing" © for the Native-Lang Confederation.
Proposal for the Directorates for the Native-Lang Confederation posted
and voted on; despite a big majority in favor of the reform Charles-H.
Schulz halted the process in order to propose a set of ideas to be
implemented that would acknowledge and prevent possible risks of failure.
Software Patents not welcomed at all: the Homepage of OpenOffice.org
and many native-lang projects as well have displayed their solidarity
agains the Software Patents in the European Union. Simon Brouwer, lead
of the Dutch (nl) native-lang community launched the momentum and got
many followers.
Native-Lang Confederation Guidelines revised and augmented by Charles-H.
Schulz: new policies on projects'setup and creation processes and dispute
settlement policies inside the native-lang projects.
Localizations
-------------
Ainu Localization effort started: Despite some cultural issues making the
translation of technical terms difficult, the Ainu people will get
OpenOffice.org in their own language; Hirano Kazunari, a member of
the Japanese Native-lang Project works on it with several other volunteers.
Louis proposed to interview the Ainu localization team and sent them
questions to the team. The team has answered them so the final interview
will soon be published as an article linked from the homepage.
Pavel Janik has extracted the Readme files of the upcoming 1.1.2 in
order to allow the native-lang projects to translate them and hence
provide 100% translated builds in every available language.
Many localized 1.1.1 builds released: Prague gets multilingual: French,
German, Danish, Turkish, Japanese, Italian and many more available for
download.
Development & Software
----------------------
OOVirg, FontOO, OOConv get translated in several languages: after having
included OOVirg in the OOo software suite, the add-ons family from the
Native-Lang projects are getting a widespread use thanks to their
translations in several languages. Last to date but not least, OOConv has
been translated in Hungarian. Congratulations to their authors and
translators!
Marketing & Communication
-------------------------
Several leads, such as Marko Gronroos (fi) and Davide Dozza (it)
expressed the idea to have another web site for marketing and users'
support purposes. Albeit the discussion got stopped somewhere, the idea
is already implemented in some sense through the many different sites
and portals about OOo in specific languages and countries. CollabNet is
not that easy to use, after all....
German Poster Contest for OpenOffice.org: congratulations to the winners!
The OpenOffice.org Schools Project Mascot Competition was won by
Andrea Maggioni of Italy. Thanks to Ian Lynch for this contest that
was made possible by the OOoEdu initiative
(http://marketing.openoffice.org/education/schools/).
Live from Japan: The OpenOffice.org's Official Users Guide will be
available on the 23rd of April in the bookstores of Japan, thanks to
the members of the Japanese Native-Lang Project.
Other News Items
----------------
Native-Lang Homepage re-drafted: Charles-H. Schulz collected all the ideas
and suggestions to refresh the aging native-lang homepage and draft a new
one; minor modifications remain to be done in order to upload it.
Source: The Native-Lang Newsletter by Charles Schulz with help from
with the help of Sophie Gautier and Jacqueline McNally.
Success Stories and References
#########################################################################
USA
===
Wal-Mart teams with Sun on Linux PCs
------------------------------------
"Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has begun selling PCs manufactured by Microtel
Computer Systems Inc. this week featuring Sun Microsystems Inc.'s
alternative operating system based on Linux and its StarOffice
productivity software, according to Wal-Mart's Web site.
Sun's Java Desktop System (JDS) is available in Microtel PCs with
processors from both Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The
systems are being sold on Walmart.com at prices ranging from $298 to
$798, depending on configuration."
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,91813,00.html
Brazil
======
OpenOffice.org at Ministry of Health
------------------------------------
By using OpenOffice.org, the Congress of Brazil could save 5 million
reals, i.e. 15% of the IT budget. In addition, the Ministry of Health
will migrate this year 30% of their computers to free software. Another
very interesting initiative: thousand government employees will get
training about free software in April so that they can share their
knowledge with their colleagues, once the migration has been completed.
French Article:
http://linuxfr.org/2004/04/08/15959.html
One of the Spanish source articles explicitly mentions OpenOffice.org
and Linux. According to that article Argentina is also not renewing
their contracts with Microsoft.
Spanish Article:
http://softwarelibre.cl/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=311&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Netherlands
===========
NedTrain
--------
According to the Dutch email below the company NedTrain
(3500 employees in total according to their website) is
piloting StarOffice/OpenOffice.org. Their first impression
is good.
Source:
http://nl.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=discussie&msgId=1157397
Spain
=====
310,000 copies of Catalan version distributed
---------------------------------------------
"Next Sunday 25 of April, one of the biggest newspapers in Spain,
el Periodico de Catalunya[1] is going to give away for free a copy
of a CD-ROM that we at Softcatalà put together with software localised
into Catalan. The Catalan government is paying the cost of producing
the copies of the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM includes OpenOffice.org 1.1,
Abiword, Mozilla, FireFox, and other free software tools and documents
localised into Catalan by the people arround the Softcatalà community.
Windows and GNU/Linux versions are included.
You can see how the CD-ROM looks like at:
http://www.softcatala.org/~jmas/cd.jpg
The newspaper has produced 310.000 copies of the CD-ROM This is the
large action never done in Catalonia to distribute free software to
end-users. It's so cool to put some many hours of efforts in translation
and software developers in the end-users hands!.
Regards,
Jesús.
[1] http://www.elperiodico.es/"
Source: Jesús Corrius (jesus@softcatala.org)
10,000 Seats in Finance
-----------------------
"... i am in the middle of a huge OO implementation on a Spanish bank.
We are done with the pilot which calls to implement 10.000 OOo suites
in a major bank in Spain. Hopefully, within a month I will forward the
business case which will be translated into 3 different languages to
be used in other countries as an example of OO TCO."
Source: aromeo@lared.es (found on the OpenOffice.org marketing list)
Israel
======
The Israeli finance ministry plans to distribute 150,000 copies
of OpenOffice
---------------------------------------------------------------
"According to the site, the goal of this step, is to encourage free
choice, and to lessen the digital gap. It note the need for support of
organizations that can help the distribution to the general population
using Internet sites, advertising in newspapers and internal
distribution within the organizations themselves. There is also a need,
according to the site, for training using the Internet and telephone
support."
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/9576/
India
=====
Gati Limited (India) uses OpenOffice.org
----------------------------------------
"Gati Limited A leader in the express cargo industry in India is
reaping remarkable benefits from its gargantuan 200 man year effort spent
in designing its own customized ERP solution, called GEMS (Gati Enterprise
Management Solution).
[...]
Describing how Gati has taken the Open Source trend forward, Ravikumar
explained, We have 1000 desktops out of which hardly 10 users are on
MS Office. The remaining have migrated to OpenOffice. We are also using
iPlanet for our mail server, instead of MS Exchange."
http://www.cxotoday.com/cxo/...
Solutions
#########################################################################
Latest Proposal Kit Ideal For SEOs - Product Review
---------------------------------------------------
"In case youre not already familiar with the software, Proposal Kit
takes the guesswork out of drafting a proposal or contract. It
automates the chore of putting together a complex business proposal.
Basically, Proposal Kit provides a comprehensive range of templates to
suit any business requirement and helps you build a framework for your
proposal to match virtually any product or service offering. You then
flesh out the templates with your own data and contact details.
Templates are particularly suited to online businesses and include
documents for the initial sales pitch, the planning stage, estimating,
contracting, project timelines, analysis and even invoicing."
http://www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/seo/wpn-4-20040423LatestProposalKitIdealForSEOsProductReview.html
"The cost effective, immediately downloadable and easy to use solution
with versions supporting Windows, Macintosh and Linux and multiple
office suites such as Microsoft Word & Office, OpenOffice, StarOffice,
Word Perfect and Appleworks."
http://www.proposalkit.com/
French OpenOffice.org Add-ons
-----------------------------
"Some new tools are also available in french :
- Cart'OOo : a fabulous tutorial assorted with map libraries for the
Gallery which allow you to create maps with Draw
- PincOOo : will allow you to reproduce the style in the same that the
brush do it in Microsoft Office
- Multisave : in only one clic, save your documents in the file format
of you choice SXW/SXC - PDF - DOC/XLS
- SHOOo : a PHP class which allow to create a HTML Table and a Calc
document from the result of a SQL query or from the content of a PHP
table,
illustrating the XML file format of OpenOffice.org and how it could be
processed out of the suite."
Different web pages with screen shots:
http://www.framasoft.net/rubrique90.html
http://home.t-online.de/home/gfriege/dmaths/
http://soshg.free.fr/cartooo/demo1.htm
http://oootools.free.fr/fooox/
http://www.jdisoftware.co.uk/pages/epdf-home.php
Source: Sophie Gautier (sgauti@firstnet1.com)
Microsoft Office gets a boost from China
----------------------------------------
"Microsoft and a Chinese software company signed an agreement today
that will help distribute Microsoft Office in Chinese schools. The
Chinese software company, Tengtu International, is the largest
educational software provider in China and will develop an "Education
Resource Kit for Office"."
http://www.overclockersclub.com/?read=8077143
Customer/User Feedback
########################################################################
The Rookery: OpenOffice.org Off the Wall: Fonts of Wisdom
---------------------------------------------------------
"Advice for installing and choosing fonts in OpenOffice.org.
The selection of fonts is central to document design. Knowing how to
choose fonts not only affects legibility, but it also reinforces a
document's tone and content. Yet, until recently, few Linux users gave
font selection much thought. Font installation was esoteric, and the
user-base consisted mainly of developers, who generally preferred the
markup language approach of delivering content that leaves layout to
style sheets and XSLTs."
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7535&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Real World Linux 2004, Day 1: A real world experience
-----------------------------------------------------
"PDFs save costly Windows upgrade
At a business in the area, he told us, a company was refusing to move
to Linux out of habit. Eventually, he showed the president of the
company OpenOffice.org's ability to save a file directly as a PDF, and
pretty soon the whole company was using Linux instead of making a
costly upgrade to a new version of Windows. Such is the power of
OpenOffice.org."
http://trends.newsforge.com/trends/04/04/14/0034223.shtml?tid=18&tid=85
New Books, Documents and Collateral
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Japan: "OpenOffice.org Official User's Guide"
---------------------------------------------
"OpenOffice.org Official User's Guide" will be published on this Friday,
April 23rd, in Japan.
http://book.mycom.co.jp/book/4-8399-1141-X/4-8399-1141-X.shtml
"Official" means all of the authors are the members of ja.OpenOffice.org
project. This book is a comprehensive guidebook on OpenOffice.org 1.1,
and with 2 CD-ROMs, one is OpenOffice.org installables, and the other
includes templates and tools for Japanese language. The team has been
working on this for about two years, and finally got out.
We have a plan to release this also in HTML in public, and continue
to update its contents according to upcoming 1.1.1, 1.1.2 and 2.0.
regards,
Takaaki Higuchi"
Available Studies & Reports
#########################################################################
TCO Related Data
================
English
=======
English Translation of French "Labbe Report" (see below)
http://www.innercite.com/~pmiller/Labbe/LabbeReport.sxw
"The IDA Open Source Migration Guidelines"
November 2003
http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/export/files/en/1618.pdf
"Migration Guide"
July 2003
http://www.kbst.bund.de/Anlage303777/pdf_datei.pdf
"StarOffice Migration StarOffice Migration
- within the scope of TCO and ROI - within the scope of TCO and ROI -"
March 2003
http://www.riess.de/veranstaltungen/StarOffice-Migration_Hamburg.pdf
"A strategic comparison of Windows vs. Unix"
October 18, 2001
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/32850.htm
Linux desktop will capture 20%
------------------------------
"McNutt went on to say that Ximian's suite -- consisting of a
Gnome-based Linux desktop, Evolution mail and calendar app, a tweaked
OpenOffice suite, and Red Carpet admin tools -- can be deployed in
very large enterprises at lower cost and with no greater disruption
than a Windows upgrade, and with significant savings going forward.
McNutt says that Linux will save 20% to 30% in administration costs,
50% in hardware costs, and 80% in licensing fees."
http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/08/13/1424212
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/17/1459202&mode=nested&tid=126&tid=163
http://www.ximian.com/about_us/press_center/press_releases/?pr=xd2_announce
Evaluating the ROI of Open Source on the Desktop
------------------------------------------------
"When people hear that open source software is often free and overall
cheaper than proprietary solutions, they're intrigued. But how much
cheaper is another question. What other costs are involved? This
article examines the budgetary impact of migrating corporate desktops
to open source solutions. This is one of many areas where open source
can positively impact IT budgets."
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/43720.htm?DE=1
German
======
"Client Studie der Landeshauptstadt München"
June 20, 2003
http://www.udslinux.de/pdf/doku/stadt_munchen_clientstudie_kurz.pdf
"Studien zu den Einsatzmöglichkeiten von OpenOffice"
May 2003
http://www.competence-site.de/ebusiness.nsf/...
Study: Save up to 25% with open source technologies
---------------------------------------------------
According to the German study by Soreon mentioned in the article
below, companies can save up to 25% from a TCO perspective if they
use open source alternatives.
The Sun Java Desktop System (SJDS) is the winner for larger
enterprises, closely followed by non-integrated OpenOffice.org
solutions. For medium businesses SJDS and OpenOffice.org both
can save about 14% compared to Microsoft technologies. For small
businesses it does not really matter, because costs for support
and training are higher than the licensing costs.
http://de.internet.com/?id=2025258§ion=Marketing-Statistics
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/05/08/HNbigopensource_1.html
French
======
Memoire Ingenieur CNAM (121 pages)
June 24, 2003
http://oootools.free.fr/memoire_cnam/memoire_cnam.pdf
Usability
=========
"relevantive - user experience architecture"
Linux Usability Study - August 13, 2003
http://www.linux-usability.de/download/linux_usability_report_en.pdf
"StarOffice Calc v. MS Excel: Improving the Usability of an Open Source
Spreadsheet Application"
StarOffice Calc 6.0 vs. Microsoft Excel 2000 - 12 December 2001
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is271/f01/projects/StarCalc/Final_Report.pdf
"Making a pitch for OpenOffice"
July 17, 2003
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci915065,00.html?Exclusive=True
"MOXIE: Microsoft Office-Linux Interoperability Experiment"
July/August 2003
http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=55
MS Office vs. OOo/SO
--------------------
http://www.taming-openoffice-org.com/writer/wcompare.htm
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/hillview/OOo/MSofficeToOOo_PreDraft.sxw
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/pdfs/ooo-msword-table.pdf
http://208.186.181.26/OOoCompare.html
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1571626,00.asp
Misc Reports
============
"DESKTOP LINUX TECHNOLOGY & MARKET OVERVIEW"
July 10, 2003
http://www.osafoundation.org/desktop-linux-overview.pdf
"Desktop Architecture Selection Guide"
December 31, 2003
http://www.informit.com/isapi/product_id~%7BAC5FB923-5EDD-495D-BC1F-300318D464AE%7D/content/index.asp
infoDev / Worldbank Report on Open Source
http://www.infodev.org/symp2003/publications/OpenSourceSoftware.pdf
Resources
#########################################################################
Office Comparison Document (Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice.org vs. ...)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew D. Bennett created and maintains a great office suite comparison
document on his website. The document will eventually move to the
OpenOffice.org website. Therefore, the URL will change in the future!
http://208.186.181.26/OOoCompare.html
Comprehensive comparison between Office 2003
and OpenOffice.org 1.1.1, the trilogy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Office 2003 vs. OpenOffice.Org
[Jason Brooks, eWeek, 26 April 2004]
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1571626,00.asp
"In recent years, open-source alternatives to Office have matured
to the point where IT managers are beginning to investigate the
viability of moving from the Microsoft Corp. suite to a license-free
alternative. So when eWEEK Corporate Partner Ed Benincasa shared his
desire to perform a user-based comparison between the OpenOffice.org
project's OpenOffice.org suite and Microsoft's Office 2003, we saw a
perfect opportunity to compare the suites under real-world conditions."
Office Suites: How We Tested
[Anne Chen, eWeek, 26 April 26 2004]
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1571966,00.asp
"The intent of eWEEK Labs' office productivity suite eValuation
was to determine what types of training issues and costs
organizations will likely face as their users make the transition
from older versions of Microsoft Corp.'s Office to Office 2003 or
to an open-source alternative (namely, OpenOffice.org's
OpenOffice.org 1.1.1)."
Open Source a Better Fit in Small Shops
[Anne Chen, eWeek, 26 April 2004]
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1571989,00.asp
"eWEEK Labs often hears IT managers express a desire to loosen
Microsoft Corp.'s grip on the office productivity market by
deploying alternative office suites. The continuing maturation
of open-source office applications, along with the fact that
these applications have no licensing fees, makes such a move
increasingly attractivebut not for all companies."
OpenOffice.org Resources - Tutorials, Icons and CD/DVD-Cover
------------------------------------------------------------
[from dev@ list - source Christian Zwahlen]
Marketing-material
- Tutorial for Mac OS X (german)
- Icons for Mac OS X
- CD/DVD-Cover for all system. (german)
Download:
http://www.zwahlendesign.ch/23ooo_downloads.html
Tutorial:
http://www.zwahlendesign.ch/2openoffice.html
http://www.zwahlendesign.ch/21openoffice.html
All
http://www.zwahlendesign.ch/downloads/openoffice.dmg
Icons
http://www.zwahlendesign.ch/downloads/openoffice_icons.zip
CD/DVD-Cover
http://www.zwahlendesign.ch/downloads/openoffice_cover.zip
Tutorial
http://www.zwahlendesign.ch/downloads/openoffice_install.pdf
Awards & Reviews
#########################################################################
Linux User & Developer Awards - Best Open Source Project:
OpenOffice.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Linux User & Developer magazine last night announced the winners of
this year's prestigious Linux User & Developer Awards at a gala event
held in London's Royal Lancaster Hotel. Hosted by comedian and renowned
comedy scriptwriter, Barry Cryer, the night was a spectacular success -
the biggest and best awards show in the Linux industry. There were 12
panel-nominated award categories, with best Open Source Project going
to Sun Microsystems for OpenOffice.org."
http://www.btnsn.com/btnsn/pr_view.asp?id=5276&dt=&cid=8652
Developer and Administrator News
#########################################################################
Unicode Consortium Hosts the Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) Project
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"An LDML specification has been produced by the Free
Standards Group's LADE Workgroup, with support from
workgroup founding members IBM, Sun and OpenOffice.org;
the project was chartered "to devise a general XML format
for the exchange of linguistically and culturally sensitive
(locale) information for use in application and system
development, and to gather, store, and make available data."
<http://www.xmlmania.com/news_article_1106...>
Chapter 9 of book "OpenOffice.org XML Essentials" is available for review
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 9, talking about import and export filters, is now online;
the book (all as one HTML file) is at
http://books.evc-cit.info/book_onepart_9_apr.tgz
Read the book online at:
http://books.evc-cit.info/
Tips, Tricks & How-Tos
#########################################################################
The Rookery: OpenOffice.org Off the Wall: Fonts of Wisdom
---------------------------------------------------------
"Advice for installing and choosing fonts in OpenOffice.org.
The selection of fonts is central to document design. Knowing how to
choose fonts not only affects legibility, but it also reinforces a
document's tone and content. Yet, until recently, few Linux users gave
font selection much thought. Font installation was esoteric, and the
user-base consisted mainly of developers, who generally preferred the
markup language approach of delivering content that leaves layout to
style sheets and XSLTs."
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7535&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
OpenOffice.org Off-the-Wall: Style Is Everything, Right?
--------------------------------------------------------
"A guide for when and how to use styles instead of manual overrides in
OpenOffice.org documents.
Styles are the chief feature that make office suites more than
electronic typewriters. In OpenOffice.org, however, they are even more
important than usual. Most word processors offer character and
paragraph styles, but OpenOffice.org also includes frame, page and
numbering styles. Even more importantly, OpenOffice.org extends the
concept of styles to other applications. Impress, for example, has a
system of styles, whereas PowerPoint, its MS Office equivalent, has
none. The same is true of OOo's Calc and MS Excel. Once you understand
why you should use styles and when, you'll find OpenOffice.org's tools
for managing and applying styles second to none. You'll also start to
unleash the full power of OpenOffice.org."
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7488&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Competitive/Market Info
#########################################################################
Mobile player takes aim at Office
---------------------------------
"Germany's SoftMaker hopes that users of its productivity applications
for handheld computers will be lured to the PC versions as well"
"SoftMaker enters an increasingly crowded market. In addition to
Microsoft's market-leading Office, Corel's WordPerfect, Sun
Microsystems' StarOffice and its open-source sibling OpenOffice are all
competing for space on PC desktops. Specialty software makers such as
Britain's Ability Plus also hope to take a chunk out of Microsoft's
dominance."
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,39020381,39152829,00.htm
Walmart starts selling Sun's Java PCs
-------------------------------------
"With a little help from Microtel, Sun Microsystems today announced its
first steps in the consumer market: Walmart has begun selling PCs with
the Java Desktop Environment. Sun's ambitious goal: Conquer 20 percent
market share of the office PC segment"
"The entry level machine houses a 1.6 GHz AMD Duron processor, a 40
GByte harddrive, 128 Mbyte RAM, an Ethernet card as well as a CD-Drive.
Floppy and monitor go extra. Trade up to a $400 system and you'll get
the floppy and a Celeron 2.6 GHz processor. The top-of the line system
offers a 3 GHz P4 HT processor, 256 MByte RAM, a 80 GByte harddrive,
and a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive. All systems come with StarOffice."
http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20040422_151130.html
Star Office an alternative to MS Office?
----------------------------------------
"Is Sun Star Office catching up with enterprises as an alternative to
MS Office? Market estimates show that during the last financial year,
Sun Microsystems has sold over 20,000 copies of Star Office to
enterprises. On the other hand, Microsoft sold around 1,20,000 copies
of MS Office in the last fiscal."
"One of the reasons that Star Office is picking up is that banks and
call centres are looking at Star Office as a major cost saver for their
business. For instance, ICICI call centre uses Star Office for log
reports."
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=57456
Sun's office suite rises to challenge
-------------------------------------
"If ever there were a bargain for a box of software, it is this Fortune
500 caliber collection of word processor, spreadsheet, database,
presentation manager and drawing software from Sun Microsystems.
At a fraction of the $600-plus cost for Microsoft Office 2003, Sun's
StarOffice 7 delivers the functionality of Microsoft's cornerstone
business suite."
" A big plus for StarOffice 7 is a feature that lets one create complex
documents and directly save them as the Adobe PDF files widely used in
business and on the Internet.
At these prices you won't be burned even if you decide you prefer
proper Microsoft stuff after all."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0404170168apr17,1,5465706.column?coll=chi-technology-nav
Aust IT decision-makers don't understand open source: report
------------------------------------------------------------
"While Linux and OpenOffice/StarOffice scored high recognition levels
and Apache was frequently named as "a mature open source product in
widespread use," the knowledge base did not extend much further. "Open
source databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL were named by several
respondents unprompted, but awareness among information technology
decision-makers was generally very low," the report said. "Awareness
levels for all other products was close to nil"."
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/0,2000061733,39144786,00.htm
Microsoft Office 2004 To Ship Next Month
----------------------------------------
"The latest version of Microsoft's Office software for the Mac will hit
store shelves the third week of May, Microsoft's Mac Business Unit
announced Tuesday. As previously reported, Office 2004 adds a number of
new features, including a project center for improved collaboration and
a new note-taking mode within Word."
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/04/06.5.shtml
Staroffice opens up the desktop
-------------------------------
"Open source productivity suite provides alternative to MS" [ - Q&A on
StarOffice]
http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/...
Microsoft Office gets a boost from China
----------------------------------------
"Microsoft and a Chinese software company signed an agreement today
that will help distribute Microsoft Office in Chinese schools. The
Chinese software company, Tengtu International, is the largest
educational software provider in China and will develop an "Education
Resource Kit for Office"."
http://www.overclockersclub.com/?read=8077143
NZ misses out on bundle
-------------------------
"The New Zealand subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard says demand for PCs
running the Linux operating system is not sufficiently consistent
for the company to pre-load the open source operating system here."
"HP is selling desktop PCs pre-loaded with the Turbolinux version
of Linux in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia,
Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and
Vietnam.
The computers are also pre-loaded with the free open source
productivity software suite OpenOffice.org, which competes with
Microsoft Office."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2858215a28,00.html
OpenOffice.org/StarOffice/Linux Migration
#########################################################################
Proving Linux in the Enterprise
-------------------------------
"Ximian Desktop and OpenOffice.org are easy to use, provide all needed
functions and can save files in Microsoft-, Sun- and
Macintosh-compatible formats, so users can work seamlessly with
customers and partners. Users must climb a short learning curve before
achieving full productivity, but these growing pains are minor,
considering that Novell will save nearly US$900,000 per year in
Microsoft licensing fees. Again, a no-brainer."
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/clevel/33392.html
It's possible to ditch Microsoft Office
---------------------------------------
"Is today's OpenOffice good enough for the enterprise? For most jobsword
processing, presentations or spreadsheetsthe answer is yes. Compatibility
with Microsoft Office isn't a problem unless sophisticated macros are
involved. Interoperability, the greatest hurdle to conquer on the way to
adoption, is almost a nonissue. OpenOffice even offers features missing
in Microsoft Office, like PDF or Flash data exports."
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/0,10801,92195,00.html
Statistics
#########################################################################
OpenOffice.org
==============
Highlights
----------
* More that 27,350,000 have downloaded OpenOffice.org
so far (as of April 10, 2004).
* The OpenOffice.org project has more than 23,200
unique people subscribed to the mailing lists
(as of April 10, 2004).
* 411 people and companies have signed a JCA and are thus
either already contributing or considering to do so
(as of April 26, 2004).
* 1435 people have participated in the OOo developer
survey so far (as of April 26, 2004).
* OpenOffice.org User Survey Data
(Provided by Cristian Driga)
Total number of responses: 499378
Jan 2004 - 32368
Feb 2004 - 32493
March 2004 - 33199
April 2004 - 28157 - untill april 26th
===========
Operating systems among OpenOffice.org users:
Windows2000: 127925 - 15.15%
WindowsNT4.0: 23005 - 2.73%
WindowsXP: 253276 - 30%
Windows98(SE/ME): 128496 - 15.22%
Windows95: 13532 - 1.6%
Linux(Intel x86): 194189 - 23%
Linux(PowerPC): 18084 - 2.14%
Linux (ARM): 6189 - 0.73%
Linux(Alpha): 3679 - 0.44%
FreeBSD: 10747 - 1.27%
NetBSD: 1452 - 0.17%
OpenBSD: 3703 - 0.44%
Mac OS X: 28660 - 3.4%
Solaris: 13519 - 1.6%
BeOS: 2841 - 0.34%
IRIX: 1991 - 0.24%
Tru64: 1211 - 0.14%
Other: 11655 - 1.38%
===========
This month's new users by country:
(Top 20 countries)
United States 6463
Germany 3633
France 1958
United Kingdom 1117
Italy 973
Canada 889
Brazil 786
Netherlands 709
Spain 606
Australia 566
Poland 482
Switzerland 471
Belgium 412
Japan 397
Denmark 362
Czech Republic 277
Finland 270
Austria 265
China 246
Russia 227
================
What do you think about the way OpenOffice.org handles
document import/export ?
Poor 1.51%
Fair 3.64%
Good 22.54%
Very Good 26.22%
Excellent 10.71%
NoAnswer 35.39%
============
OOo users by language:
nat_lang Percents
en 37.53%
de 14.31%
fr 7.57%
es 4.63%
it 3.87%
nl 3.45%
br 2.79%
pl 2.53%
ja 2.24%
ru 1.42%
da 1.26%
fi 1.2%
zh-cn 1.11%
sv 1.02%
hu 0.9%
zh-tw 0.78%
pt 0.77%
ca 0.5%
tr 0.47%
el 0.41%
et 0.41%
sl 0.35%
ar 0.16%
ko 0.16%
th 0.04%
other 3.21%
No answer 6.89%
Total 499429
Events
#########################################################################
Upcoming
========
ebusinsess forum
----------------
Athens, Greece
2004/04/26-27
http://www.ellak.gr/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=205&mode=thread&order=0
FISL
----
Porto Alegre, Brazil
2004/06/3-5
http://captacao.softwarelivre.org/english/captacao2004-en-1.5.html
Guadec
------
Kristiansand, Norway
2004/06/28-30
http://2004.guadec.org/
OpenOffice.org Conference 2004
------------------------------
Berlin, Germany
2004/09/23-24
http://marketing.openoffice.org/conference
Invex
-----
Brno, Czech Republic
2004/10/11-15
http://www.invex.cz/
Newsletter Archive
#########################################################################
Past issues of the OpenOffice.org Newsletter can be found in the archive
of the announce mailing list:
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=announce
Contact Information (regarding this newsletter)
#########################################################################
newsletter@marketing.openoffice.org, erwin.tenhumberg@sun.com or
deepankar_datta@hotpop.com.
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