| From: |
| Erwin Tenhumberg <erwin.tenhumberg-AT-Sun.COM> |
| To: |
| announce-AT-openoffice.org |
| Subject: |
| [ooo-announce] OpenOffice.org Newsletter - Volume 01 - Issue 6 - 12/2003 |
| Date: |
| Thu, 11 Dec 2003 17:53:20 -0800 |
#########################################################################
OPENOFFICE.ORG NEWSLETTER
Volume 01 - Issue 6 - 12/2003
#########################################################################
Highlights in this Newsletter
#########################################################################
* French Ministry of the Interior adopts OpenOffice.org
* Sun Microsystems launches enterprise support for OpenOffice.org
* Russian Native-Lang Project announced
* AOL ships PCs with OpenOffice.org based office suite
* Israeli employment agency switches to OpenOffice.org
* Sun lands 500,000 desktop Linux deal
* PDF update to Solveig Haugland's OpenOffice.org book available
* Study: 25% savings with open source technologies
Events
#########################################################################
Upcoming
========
Tilburg OpenOffice.org Day
--------------------------
Tilburg, Netherlands
2003/12/13
http://nl.openoffice.org/gebruikersdag.html
Idlelo
------
Cape Town, South Africa
2004/01/12-16
http://idlelo.uwc.ac.za/
LinuxWorld Expo New York
------------------------
New York, USA
2004/01/21-23
http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/linuxworldny/V40/index.cvn
NordU2004
---------
Copenhagen, Denmark
2004/01/28-02/1
http://www.nordu.org/NordU2004/
Reports
=======
COMDEX Report from Benjamin Horst
---------------------------------
"Hello All,
Here are some notes I took while on the show floor at Comdex. I would
categorize our presence there as a great success; not only did we give
away over 2500 OpenOffice install CDs (including those provided by Sun
and additional CDs from David and Amber), but we introduced new people
to OOo and reinvigorated the interest of many who had heard of it or
used it in the past.
-- Educational Users --
University of Oregon - Corvallis. Provides OOo on CD to all incoming
students, sells OOo CDs in campus bookstore for about $7.
University of Southern Mississippi. Complete switch to FLOSS in
progress, including Linux and OOo. 20,000 people on campus.
Eastern Idaho Tech College. We provided them with several CDs.
Family History Library in or near Salt Lake City. 800 users.
Considering switch to OOo.
Willamette University. Spoke with Assistant Dean Dan Mahoney. Requires
all students to own laptops; plans to install OOo on them all.
San Bernardino Valley College. Spoke with Richard Collette.
University of Nevada Las Vegas. Spoke with student who is considering
distributing OOo CDs to fellow students for a profit.
Unnamed school in Midwest with 2,000 students distributed across the
state wants to upgrade to OOo. Problem: most computers it loans to its
students are Mac OS 9! (Upgrade to OSX is likely soon.)
Apache Junction, Arizona (near Phoenix) School District. 2500 machines
across the district, all have StarOffice 6.0, 10% also have MSO.
University of California, Irvine. OOo CDs given to students.
Smith College, Massachusetts. Spoke with IT manager, recommended
giving OOo CDs to incoming students. He was very interested in the
idea.
-- Other Notes --
Las Vegas Municipal Police Department wants to upgrade 2500 computers
to OOo. Our local people offered their help to manage the migration
(David, Jason and Amber).
Several "white box" systems builders indicated that they are bundling
OOo with their systems or wanted to verify that it was legally
permissible to do so. We encouraged them strongly.
John Weathersby of the Open Source Software Institute, whose goal is
to get FLOSS into government bureaucracies, discussed their project,
visible at leopard.sourceforge.net. Main project site at ogip.org.
Big supporters of OOo.
Questions about Korean, Japanese and Spanish localizations were common.
Big OOo action in Brazil. Sao Paulo Metro (public transit company)
has 2-3,000 OOo users already. I asked if they'd join some of our
mailing lists and possibly contribute a case study. I promised to
email a PDF copy of my Tuesday presentation. Federal government of
Brazil representatives told me of their current project: 2,000 desktops
switched to OOo last year, 2,000 more switching next year.
New slogan invented: "OpenOffice.org - Proud Sponsor of the Steve
Ballmer Frequent Flyer Program"
Interest from "Universidad Marista Guadalajara" in a Spanish
translation of Solveig's OOo 1.0 Resource Kit. 70-computer lab
running OOo already.
IT Specialist from Department of the Army asking about OOo.
University student told us how he installed OOo onto a USB thumb drive
and runs it on any computer he wishes.
KUAC Alaska (Fairbanks) wants to interview Solveig and Ben for their
computing info show. See website at www.gpfault.org
Dale Dougherty at O'Reilly needs info on docbook and XML-out from OOo
for 25 page technical documents. Niche specialty use, to take word
processing docs and put into FrameMaker for book publishing.
Washington County, Utah. Cool young techs came by to discuss their
ongoing project of moving county's systems to OOo. Possibly 1/4 of
their systems already switched over (my estimate).
-- B. Horst's Talk on Tuesday --
An enthusiastic audience of about 80-90 people attended "OpenOffice.org:
The Benefits of an Open XML File Format Office Suite" on Tuesday. Heavy
applause at the conclusion of Ben's talk! Many people came to our booth
for more info afterward. Download the presentation in SXI or in PDF
format from my website: www.solidoffice.com/comdex
-- Conclusion --
Meeting with other OOo volunteers in person really worked to solidify
our connections to the project. Christian and Paul conducted interviews
for their film, which we're all excited about. Some connections were
made that could result in good future business relationships for people
making a part of their living from OOo activities.
Please send this email on to the discuss list if I don't remember to in
the next hour or so!
Thanks,
Ben"
Announcements
#########################################################################
OpenOffice.org
==============
OpenOffice.org got a new "face"
-------------------------------
The OpenOffice.org website has changed its look and is now easier to use
and navigate. We would like to thank the volunteer website team for their
work, in particular, Project Co-Lead Kay Schenk and chief designer Cristian
Driga; and, in no particular order, Ed Buck, John McCreesh, Akshay Dayal,
G. Roderick Singleton, Jacqueline McNally, and Louis Suarez-Potts. If
things
are bad, join the website project and help fix it. ;-)
http://www.openoffice.org
Russian Native-Lang Project Announced
-------------------------------------
"The Native-Lang family has the pleasure to welcome its latest newcomer,
the Russian Native-Lang Project. Led by Anatoly A. Yakushin and Rail
Aliev, this project was also created by the people of AltLinux in Russia.
The Russian Project is very important to OOo not only because of its
symbolic meaning but also because of the number of Russian speaking
people worldwide who already use OpenOffice.org or are potential users
of the suite."
Sun Microsystems launches enterprise support for OpenOffice.org
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), founder and
primary sponsor of the open-source project OpenOffice.org, today
announced it will offer Sun(SM) Software Support services to
OpenOffice.org customers. Ranked as a leading provider of online
support services by Summit Strategies, Inc., Boston, Mass., Sun
Services delivers proven solutions with presence in more than 126
countries. This move enhances Sun's current support for the
StarOffice(TM) productivity suite, provides customers additional
choice and opportunity to reduce costs, and underscores Sun's deep
commitment to open-source and standards-based software."
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=SVBIZINK6.story&STORY=/www/story/12-03-2003/0002068366&EDATE=WED+Dec+03+2003,+02:38+AM
Developer Announcements
=======================
Scripting Framework is Available
--------------------------------
"The Scripting Framework is available for evaluation from the latest
OpenOffice.org Developer build at
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/680
The main highlights are
* Scripting Framework available in build ( no need for separate install )
* Support for JavaScript, Beanshell,Java, OpenOffice.org BASIC
* Sample scripts in for supported languages.
* Ability to assign macros/scripts written in these languages from
Tools/Config dialogs.
* Ability to assign events to the scripts/macros written in above
languages from dialogs, forms, hyperlinks, objects graphics etc
( ala existing functionality from Office Basic )."
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=190
Other
=====
Interview with Joerg Heilig (Director Software Engineering at Sun)
------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.openoffice.org/editorial/interview_joerg_heilig.html
Statistics
#########################################################################
OpenOffice.org
==============
Highlights
----------
* More that 23,800,000 have downloaded OpenOffice.org
so far (as of November 29, 2003).
* The OpenOffice.org project has more than 14,900
unique people subscribed to the mailing lists
(as of November 29, 2003). This is about 4.9 more
than in the previous month.
* 355 people and companies have signed a JCA and are thus
either already contributing or considering to do so
(as of December 8, 2003). Compared to the previous month
this is a 4.7 percent growth rate.
* 1166 people have participated in the OOo developer
survey so far (as of December 8, 2003). This is about
7 percent more than last month.
* OpenOffice.org User Survey Data:
Total number of respondents since oct 31st 2002 (13 months): 340953
Users that answered the survey in the last 6 months : 177578.
Users by month:
June: 20754
July: 23085
Aug: 24006
Sept: 28088
Oct: 42780
Nov: 38865
Operating systems among OOo users (6 months responses):
Windows2000 - 15.22%
WindowsNT - 2.55%
WindowsXP - 30.49%
Windows98me - 14.45%
Windows95 - 1.43%
Linux Intel - 23.30%
Linux PPC - 2.10%
Linux ARM - 0.76%
Linux Alpha - 0.43%
Freebsd - 1.31%
Netbsd - 0.16%
Openbsd - 0.44%
MacOS - 3.62%
Solaris - 1.60%
Beos - 0.31%
Irix - 0.23%
Tru64 - 0.13%
Other - 1.37%
Languages spoken by OOo users:
TOTAL Responses: 177578
Arabic (ar) 279 - 0.01%
Catalan (ca) 649 - 0.36%
Chinese (zh-cn) 1898 - 1.06%
Chinese (zh-tw) 1306 - 0.73%
Danish (da) 2102 - 1.18%
Dutch (nl) 6294 - 3.54%
English (en) 69037 - 38.87%
Estonian (et) 664 - 0.37%
Finnish (fi) 1980 - 1.11%
French (fr) 12746 - 7.17%
German (de) 25519 - 14.37%
Greek (el) 855 - 0.48%
Hungarian (hu) 1425 - 0.80%
Italian (it) 6599 - 3.71%
Japanese (ja) 4209 - 2.37%
Korean (ko) 323 - 0.18%
Polish (pl) 3366 - 1.89%
Portuguese (pt) 1336 - 0.75%
Português do Brasil (br) 5208 - 2.93%
Russian (ru) 2362 - 1.33%
Slovenian (sl) 566 - 0.31%
Spanish (es) 8499 - 4.78%
Swedish (sv) 1749 - 0.98%
Thai (th) 90 - 0.05%
Turkish (tr) 785 - 0.44%
Other 5479 - 3.08%
No answer: 12253 - 6.90%
TOP20 countries in the past 6 months:
United States 41576
Germany 20872
France 9465
United Kingdom 7719
Italy 6119
Canada 5697
Brazil 5394
Netherlands 4686
Japan 4156
Spain 3824
Australia 3784
Poland 3166
Switzerland 2598
Belgium 2328
Denmark 2059
Finland 1836
Sweden 1622
Czech Republic 1588
Mexico 1546
China 1546
From where the users heared about OOo:
Press Article 37194 - 20.94%
TV/Radio 3245 - 1.82%
Website 62295 - 35.08%
A friend 38889 - 21.89%
Search engine 12955 - 7.29%
No answer 23000 - 12.95%
Please note that the high "No answer" percentage is due to
the fact that there are many other sources from where someone
can hear about OOo but these are not mentioned in the survey.
Where are you using OOo ?
Home: 70.13%
Work: 34.54%
School: 6.75%
Note: The above percentages include people that use OOo in
more than one place (ie. home and work).
Success Stories and References
#########################################################################
OpenOffice.org Global Usage Map
===============================
The OpenOffice.org Global Usage Map created by Kris Nackaerts illustrates
how OpenOffice.org is spreading out over the globe.
http://perswww.kuleuven.ac.be/~u0027178/OO/ooo.php
USA
===
AOL ships PCs with OpenOffice.org based office suite
----------------------------------------------------
"The AOL PC comes with Microsoft Windows XP Home, but the first screen
users see is an AOL-designed interface called the AOL Desktop. The PC
also comes with an office productivity software package called AOL
Office Powered by Sun, which is the StarOffice software suite developed
by Sun Microsystems."
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113771,00.asp
France
======
OpenOffice.org reduces the invoice of the police officers
---------------------------------------------------------
The Ministry of the Interior gathers approximately 100000 working
stations dispersed on all the territory and in very diverse structures
from police stations to prefectures.
It is into 2000 that the Ministry began an evaluation of the software.
Its absence of licence and especially its exemption from payment revealed
it like a true opportunity for a deployment on a large scale.
In 2002, 15000 stations were deployed, primarily in the police stations.
The suite is available on Cds and also in free remote loading on the
Intranet. Christophe Cazin, engineer with the mission strategy and
systems of control, announce besides that the remote loadings do not stop!
The technical support is ensured by internal forums, an Intranet, the
OpenOffice.org site and its mailings lists. Christophe Cazin considers
a deployment on 30000 stations within one year.
French Article: http://www.01net.com/article/222242.html
Retirement Pension Tool for Excel AND OpenOffice.org
----------------------------------------------------
"...
About a month ago, a council worker asked for some help on our mailing
list about an online tool to calculate retirement pension. This tool is
distributed by our Ministry of civil services only on excel format and
he needs it in OOo file format because he has migrated on OOo.
Half an hour later, the community has helped him to convert the tool.
[...]
This thread has been reported to ADAE (Agency in charge with electronic
usage in ministry)(thanks to Christophe Cazin but hush!) and a month
later :
http://www.fonction-publique.retraites.gouv.fr/retraites/Public/simulateur_de_calcul/10560356143521
the tool is proposed in OOo file format and a link to download OOo
..."
[Source: Sophie Gautier]
United Kingdom
==============
UKs Office of Government Commerce evaluating Sun Java Desktop System
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"The five-year purchasing deal with the UKs Office of Government
Commerce will begin with compatibility trials for Java Desktop which,
if successful, would mean up to 500,000 UK civil servants gradually
being shifted away from Windows software to Suns low-cost open-source
alternative."
http://www.business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1341432003
More money for patients through OpenOffice.org and Linux
--------------------------------------------------------
"NHS director general of IT Richard Granger, said in a statement: "Our
evaluation of the Java Desktop System holds the promise of allowing a
greater share of NHS funding to flow directly towards improved levels of
Patient Service. If this solution were to prove effective we could save
the NHS and the Taxpayer many millions of pounds whilst at the same time
using rich and innovative software technology.""
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,39118351,00.htm
Uganda
======
Schoolweb Targets 40 Institutions
---------------------------------
"The project is a collaborative effort by Uconnect, the Ministry of
Education and Sports, MTN and One2Net, and international partners
Hewlett Packard, Advanced Interactive and Sun Microsystems. Advanced
Interactive of Canada designed the SchoolWeb system for Canadian
schools and modified it for Uganda.
[...]
Once installed and running, SchoolWeb becomes a fast and interactive
learning resource centre. The SchoolWeb server comes with:
Open source software OpenOffice, programmes for website design,
graphics, video streaming, a dictionary and database programmes."
http://allafrica.com/stories/200312030247.html
South Africa
============
New Linux distribution "Impi" including OpenOffice.org
------------------------------------------------------
""Most developers in the "first world" countries have no idea of the
conditions on our continent. Waiting around for a foreign developer or
company to give us something that we need, merely echoes the legacy of
colonialism. We need to dispose of that mindset," said Ross Addis in
an e-mail interview.
[...]
Another unique feature of Impi Linux is that it will eventually have
translations of South Africa's 11 official languages. But Ugandans and
other Africans should not lose hope. Impi Linux is about choice. Get a
free download from www.impi.org.za and modify it to suit you. So, is
there hope for a version in Luganda or Swahili? "Of course. We will
also be looking at adding the various African languages," he said."
http://mathaba.net/x.htm?http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=29276
Israel
======
Israeli employment agency switches to OpenOffice.org
---------------------------------------------------
"First out of the door is the Israeli employment agency, which will
replace 550 out of 700 users with OpenOffice. The contract represents
a hardware win for IBM. Some 150 staff will stay on Microsoft Office.
For now, all the switchers will remain on Windows, running the Win32
version of the software libre equivalent of Microsoft Office."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34154.html
China
=====
Sun lands 500,000 desktop Linux deal
------------------------------------
"Signed in conjunction with the newly established China Standard
Software Company, a consortium of Chinese government-supported firms,
the deal could eventually stretch to 500 million desktops, which
McNealy said was the Chinese government's aim.
[...]
McNealy said Sun would be pushing to win more governments over to its
StarOffice range. "We're calling on every IT ministry on the planet.
Stay tuned," he added."
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1149212
http://www.idg.com.hk/cw/readstory.asp?aid=20031119007
Hong Kong Linux Player Group
----------------------------
Our marketing department head is also a member in Hong Kong Linux
Player Group (www.hklpg.org). On 4th November 2003 to 5th November
2003, we shared the same space with HKLPG.org at Linux Expo in Hong
Kong. We, together with HKLPG created CDs that contains:
a) zh-tw, zh-cn, and en OpenOffice.org (both Windows and Linux version)
b) some oooextra utilities
c) 2 Chinese input methods/program. One is invented by our marketing
head, and another one is Cantonese Pinyin with Cantonese Pinyin
references from Hong Kong Chinese University.
We freely distributed these CDs at Linux Expo (at our area, of
course), and our marketing head and some HKLPG members also did some
demonstration with OOo.
The HKLPG is also forming a training centre, and OOo will be part of
the training programs offered by the group. They will be using the OOo
tutorials that the zh native lang project made.
edu.slat.org (Taiwan)
---------------------
In Taiwan, our main partner is edu.slat.org. SLAT is Software Liberty
Association Taiwan, which is funded by Republic of China government
and SLAT's members. edu.slat.org is one of their subproject. Their
purpose is to provide a centre for promoting open source software in
primary school and secondary school in Taiwan. They do this by
providing information on their website and invite famous "open source
people/teacher" around Taiwan to do speeches around Taiwan. We are
co-operating with them to create a standard set of OOo Tutorials. "
China gov't invests in open source
----------------------------------
""Linux is an opportunity for us to make a breakthrough in developing
software," Goh Zhongwen, a vice minister at the Influential Ministry
of Information Industry was quoted by Reuters as saying on the
ministry's Web site."
http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/applications/0,39001094,39156916,00.htm
Vietnam
=======
Government plans to distribute computers to 5,000 schools nationwide
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"We are trying step by step to eliminate Microsoft," said Nguyen Trung
Quynh of Vietnam's Ministry of Science and Technology. Quynh and other
government tech officials want Vietnam to be on the cutting edge of an
international movement to embrace open-source software -- products that
can be downloaded from the Internet for free and perform the same tasks
as Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows or Office.
[...]
"We can't totally sweep out Microsoft," Quynh said. "But we hope that
new users will start using open source."
Before Vietnamese versions of OpenOffice and Linux were developed, open
source was just an abstraction here, said Carrasco-Munoz. "Now you dump
this CD on your computer, you install it, you reboot. Bye-bye Microsoft!"
http://www.linuxinsider.com/perl/story/32330.html
Thailand
========
Microsoft Loses to Linux in Thailand Struggle
---------------------------------------------
"In the second quarter of 2003, just 40 percent of all desktop
PCs shipped in Thailand had a licensed copy of Windows installed,
an all-time low that likely will dip even further.
[...]
While some buyers still will install pirated copies of Microsoft's
software, Gartner estimates that 70 percent of Thai consumers will
stick with Linux, citing freely available software, lower prices
and lack of knowledge among first-time PC owners."
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/32110.html
Philippines
===========
New Philippine Linux distribution
---------------------------------
"Bayanihan Linux is a complete open source-based desktop solution for
office and school use. It is a package that includes an operating
system, a word processor, spreadsheet program, presentation software,
email facility, an internet browser, and a graphics editor. This
complete system is packaged in a single easy-to-install CD."
http://www.bayanihan.gov.ph/
Indonesia
=========
OpenOffice.org becoming popular - OpenOffice.org bundled with magazines
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A quote from the OpenOffice.org marketing mailing list:
">One suggestion might be for you to approach your local government or
>> your employer, or a local civic group of which you are a member, and
>> give a presentation about OOo to that group. Just a thought, and I'm
>> sure that you could apply one of the many suggestions that you have
>> made to your situation in Indonesia!!!
>>
Yes, now OOo start popular in here.
Many magazine which giving CD as bonus already put OOo on the CD. One
which I still not yet know is Chip Indonesia. The other already include
OOo in their CD
Many course and seminar now about OOo, but mostly with Linux.
About 2 books about OOo, and this week the other will be launched here.
I believe the user number will be grown soon.
I will try to make OOo more popular here."
Australia
=========
Sewing machine giant Janome adopts OpenOffice.org
-------------------------------------------------
"Janome has migrated some of its PCs away from Microsoft Office in
favour of the free OpenOffice.org office suite saving the company around
$8000 in licence fees, according to IT administrator Scott Langford.
After hearing about OpenOffice.org from a colleague, Langford downloaded
version 1.0.2 of the office suite and installed it on 10 of the 30 PCs
running Microsoft Windows.
[...]
Although Janomes Australian operations are small, it has some 60 per
cent of the domestic sewing machine market. Internationally, the company
has offices in eight countries and more than 3000 employees."
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?id=281553222&fp=16&fpid=0
Victorian government evaluates OpenOffice.org and StarOffice
------------------------------------------------------------
Victorian Government spokeswoman Michelle Crawley says the state will
"investigate interesting alternatives to Microsoft Office" such as
OpenOffice and Sun Microsystems' close cousin, StarOffice.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/24/1069522526315.html
Melbourne University is trialling OpenOffice.org
------------------------------------------------
"IT Services (InfoDiv) at Melbourne University are trialling
OpenOffice.org until April 2004.
Their website includes where to obtain CDs, download, obtain help,
poster, and a survey to complete that offers prizes.
http://www.studentit.unimelb.edu.au/openoffice/
Customer/User Feedback
########################################################################
Jessops Develops New Point Of Sale and Desktop Infrastructure
-------------------------------------------------------------
"We want to reduce our costs and IT complexity, but still be able to
take advantage of the most innovative technology today," said Gerald
Walton, head of Business Systems Development, Jessops Ltd. "By
centralizing our POS management and moving to StarOffice, we will not
only save money, we will have a centralized view of each and every
Jessops store across the UK. Understanding our employees' core skill
sets and identifying skills gaps, then plugging those gaps with
just-in-time training, will offer our customers an even better
experience in-store. The efficiencies we gain with the new Sun
technology are not just at the IT level, this impacts every Jessops
employee and will radically change the way we think about our staff
and customer interaction."
http://www.stockworld.de/msg/576413.html
New Books, Documents and Collateral
#########################################################################
PDF update to Solveig Haugland's OpenOffice.org book
----------------------------------------------------
"This Special 50-page PDF Supplement to the OpenOffice.org Resource Kit
offers extensive documentation on OpenOffice.org 1.1 changes, including
Print to PDF, Export to Flash, and Macro recorder."
http://www.informit.com//promotions/promotions.asp?st=%7B92519E35-ACD9-4079-88A2-0049AA661C67%7D#
Resources
#########################################################################
OpenOffice.org Support
----------------------
Details about the community support can be found at:
http://support.openoffice.org/index.html
For information about Sun's new OpenOffice.org support
offerings go to:
http://www.sun.com/service/support/software/openoffice/
http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/openoffice/faq.html
http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/openoffice/
Awards & Reviews
#########################################################################
NewsForge: "StarOffice 7 -- innovation in action"
-------------------------------------------------
"These features are built on a dependable core. Although it is possible
to crash StarOffice, the breaking point is higher than with most office
suites. When a document exceeds 30 megabytes in Microsoft Office, a crash
and, often, file corruption, is imminent. By contrast, in my experience,
StarOffice remains stable to the limits of a computer's virtual memory
and RAM -- and then rarely corrupts files. On the rare occasions when
files are corrupted, the fact that the native format for documents is
zipped XML files means that the content, at least, can often be
retrieved."
http://www.newsforge.com/software/03/12/08/1738212.shtml?tid=130&tid=82&tid=93
eWeek: "Sun's JDS Rivals Windows, Office"
-----------------------------------------
"Sun's Java Desktop System is a capable and easy-to-use desktop
competitor to Microsoft Windows and Office that's based on free-software
components. Selling a Linux desktop system is new territory for Sun,
but the software pieces it has chosen are solid, and Sun's done a good
job assembling them."
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1399984,00.asp
OSNews reviews the Sun Java Desktop System
------------------------------------------
" It is important to remember that this desktop system is meant for the
enterprise and corporate desktops and not for home desktops. JDS and its
accompanied applications are certainly very stable once up and running
and it has good support options plus its price is at very good levels and
includes the whole Star Office 7 deal. It is certainly a good alternative
to MS Windows for corporate usage, ..."
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5286&page=1
Open for Business reviews XD2
-----------------------------
"Another smart change - again, a little thing - is that the default file
format is already set to Microsoft Office formats. While a large scale
deployment of OpenOffice.org might allow for internal use of its own
XML-based format, Microsoft Office formats remain necessary for most
people and defaulting to that format will likely be an added convenience
for most users. We were quite pleased overall with the snapshot release
of OpenOffice.org Ximian Edition 1.1.0, which seemed suitable for release
(this article was actually written using the suite). "
http://www.ofb.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=273
Developer and Administrator News
#########################################################################
Thoughts on the Office XML Reference Schemas
--------------------------------------------
"Finally -- and most troubling to me -- is this whole business of the
license only granting you permission to "read and writes files that are
fully compliant" with the specification, and not being able to create
modifications or derivatives. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the
X in XML stand for "Extensible" (we'll talk about the inability of
developers to spell another day)? It seems like you have to implement
the whole schema and nothing but the schema to avoid falling afoul of
the license. That sure doesn't seem extensible to me."
http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=8550
New migration tools from SCAI
-----------------------------
"SCAI MAS is a suite of analysis and migration tools, which
are indispensable for the migration from Microsoft Office to
Sun StarOffice / OpenOffice.org."
http://www.scaimas.de/index.html
Competitive/Market Info
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EDS to support Sun Desktop products
-----------------------------------
"Sun Microsystems has signed a deal with IT services giant EDS to support
its desktop products, further establishing StarOffice as a viable
enterprise alternative to Microsoft."
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1151213
Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) Picks Up Desktop Linux Charter
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"The Open Source Development Lab (OSDL), which has so far limited itself
to high-end carrier-grade and data center Linux server initiatives, is
preparing for a desktop jihad the scope of which is difficult to gauge
at this point. OSDL's new 10-man desktop task force is supposed to
define it and the task force it hasn't even met yet.
[...]
OSDL's desktop initiative comes at the behest of its secret end-user
advisory council, composed of 20 US-based companies, 15 of them Fortune
500s, that don't want their names known to avoid being labeled Microsoft
haters, according to OSDL marketing director Nelson Pratt."
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/37873.htm
Microsoft To Phase Out Several Products including Windows 98
------------------------------------------------------------
"Microsoft said that because of the settlement, the company will phase
out software that includes Windows 98, Office 2000, Office XP Developer
and SQL Server 7, which will no longer be available via the Microsoft
Developer Network (MSDN) beginning December 15th."
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/32337.html
Novell sets up 40 engineers team to expand Linux projects
---------------------------------------------------------
"The team would work with the Open Source community on GNOME, Open Office,
Ximian Desktop, Evolution and Mono, making the Ximian Desktop more
suitable for global and local needs, a company statement said."
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_478757,00030001.htm
IBM is using Linux (and OpenOffice.org) internally
--------------------------------------------------
"He says IBM expects to increase its number of Linux desktop users to
between 40,000 and 50,000 in a year, a big increase from 14,000 technical
users today."
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,7942379%5E24170%5E%5Enbv%5E24169-24169,00.html
OpenOffice.org/StarOffice/Linux Migration
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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.soreon.de/images/titelgrafik_office_software_gross.gif
Security
#########################################################################
Worm hits Windows-based cash machines
-------------------------------------
"'HORRENDOUS SECURITY MISTAKE'
John Pescatore, an analyst at Gartner, agreed.
"It's a horrendous security mistake," he said, of specific-purpose
machines like ATMs running Windows, written for general purpose computers
and for which Microsoft releases security fixes on a regular basis.
"I'm a lot more worried about my money than I was before this.""
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=3959103§ion=news
Taking Cues from Mother Nature to Foil Cyber Attacks
----------------------------------------------------
"Taking their cues from Mother Nature and biodiversity, computer
scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of New
Mexico are collaborating on a National Science Foundation
(NSF)-supported project to study "cyber-diversity" for computer systems
as a way to fend off malicious viruses, worms and other cyber attacks."
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/03/pr03130.htm
Solutions
#########################################################################
StarOffice 7.0 Calc Application Add-in for Hyperion Essbase.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Applied OLAP, Inc., a software development company that caters
exclusively to users of industry-leading Hyperion Essbase part of
Hyperion's business intelligence platform, today announced that it is
actively seeking Beta Program participants for the StarOffice(TM) 7.0
Calc Application Add-in for Hyperion Essbase. The Calc Application is
the Sun Microsystems, Inc. spreadsheet component to the StarOffice(TM)
7.0 Suite."
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20031210005190&newsLang=en
OCR Software with StarOffice file format support
------------------------------------------------
"Automatically send the recognized information into your favorite
application (Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft
Internet Explorer, Netscape, Corel WordPerfect, Sun StarOffice) or save
it as an external file."
http://www.irislink.com/opt/uk/products/readiris/pc/features/index.html
UPU Promotes Electronic Postmark
--------------------------------
"The UPU, based in Bern, Switzerland, recently developed a global
standard for PostMark and is working with major software manufacturers
to incorporate this standard into applications such as Microsoft Office,
Adobe Acrobat and Sun StarOffice."
http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=25879
3D Desktop Environment
----------------------
"What if windows were translucent so you could see the multiple windows
you're working on at the same time? What if you could tack a note to
yourself right on the Web page you're viewing? What if your CD or movie
database became a 3D jukebox, where titles were joined with images to
make finding what you want easier than ever?"
http://wwws.sun.com/software/looking_glass/
Pricing
#########################################################################
India: More than 75% savings
----------------------------
"When launched in India in December, the Java desktop system is expected
to be priced at around Rs. 4,600 per user. Compare this with the price at
which Microsoft retails its MS-Office 2003 suite at around Rs. 19,000 and
it does not come bundled with the operating system."
http://www.zdnetindia.com/techzone/enterprise/stories/93035.html
Vietnam: Office productivity software vs. food
----------------------------------------------
"Microsoft Windows and Office cost at least $140 in Vietnam -- way
out of reach for most people, where the per capita annual income is
roughly $420."
http://www.linuxinsider.com/perl/story/32330.html
Contact Information (regarding this newsletter)
#########################################################################
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or
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