RSSIBM to Develop OpenOffice.org with Sun
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published September 10, 2007, 6:24 PM
After a few years of flirting with the idea of developing its own suite of applications, perhaps under the Lotus banner, that support the OASIS OpenDocument format, IBM has decided to join Sun Microsystems in the development of OpenOffice.org, the principal open source ODF applications suite.
In announcing its move today, IBM acknowledged that it had been developing some ODF components for use with Lotus Notes, but will now roll them into its contributions to the open source community. Sun currently produces the commercial ODF-supporting suite StarOffice; and since late 2005, when Sun and IBM openly courted development groups to meet at IBM's Armonk headquarters to plan the future of ODF together, observers speculated IBM could be working on an "Office killer" to go up against Microsoft.
Based on what IBM stated today, there's two possible interpretations: One is that the company may have given up on its dream of resurrecting SmartSuite, to pursue a joint development course with Sun in which ODF applications would play an independent, though still contributing, role in Lotus networking apps. This is indicated by its statement that not only will IBM's contributions appear in OpenOffice.org, but also OpenOffice innovations will appear in IBM products. That would make sense if those products include Lotus Notes and Domino.
The other interpretation is the exact opposite, assuming the self-maintained products IBM referred to consist of an applications suite to go up against StarOffice. This, however, would assume that IBM is willing to release its suite under the GPL or a similar license, as Sun has done with StarOffice since 2000.
Linux Foundation attorney and board member Andrew Updegrove saw IBM's move today not only as express support for OpenOffice but tacit support for StarOffice as well. "With OpenOffice available for free, and StarOffice at a very significant discount from [Microsoft] Office, OpenOffice clearly offers the most credible and formidable ODF-compliant competitor to Office," Updegrove wrote today.
He then asked the question, but left the answer open, as to why the long-partnered Sun and IBM waited until now to join forces on the development of the program, not just the format. One possible answer, he feels, is that IBM sees now as its best opportunity to do something heroic: "The reality is that a chance to break an industry monopoly that generates $15 billion in revenues a year comes only once in a generation - when it comes at all."
Does it make me a dork to admit I like Smartsuite? My first windows word processor was Lotus Ami Pro. It was a great product. It was compact, efficient, and many advanced DTP features, and absolutely blew "Word for Windows" away. The first iteration of WordPro (the successor to AmiPro) was a disappointment, but it eventually got better. Since they renamed it, I still think they should have gone with A-B-C to complement their 1-2-3 product.
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|I second you with WordPro and Smartsuite. It's still my only word processor. I love the tab division within the document. It's sad that after IBM purchase Lotus, they didn't maintained it.
Now IBM should collaborate to create a filter in OO to import the WordPro files.
My wish : That IBM release the source code of Smartsuite as open source.
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|Wow. I could name about 6 people off the top of my head that would welcome that day greatly, which, considering how long it's been since it's been used/updated, is actually pretty amazing.
Yeah, SmartSuite was definitely a good one. That was a hard one to leave.
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|For all the speculation.. I think you all need to go and read up on Lotus Notes 8.
It answers many of these questions.
The reason IBM held out so long... might have something to do with the opening up of Java recently under an OSS license.
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|There seems to be a vast underestimation of IBM's muscle. They hold more patents than anyone and their cash flow situation isn't all that bad. What this joint venture will lead to is anyone's guess, but I can't imagine that Microsoft is thrilled to here about it.
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|If I had to guess, I would say they're thinking that they could fold Lotus into OpenOffice and create an ecosystem that they could sell and support.
I think they're looking for an MS Office, Exchange, SharePoint competitor to get fat service contracts off of.
If that happens, I'd say it's long over due for a major player to take a swipe at MS's Office empire.
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|My MS Office 2003 disk went into a dusty CD case three years ago. I switched to OpenOffice and have never considered going back. It does everything I want or need it to do and for the right price. I've never had OpenOffice fail to handle any MS Office generated email attachments I've received.
While there may be some incompatibility with complex documents (I've never experienced one, personally), for the average person OpenOffice works fine. And, I have the option of creating and saving documents in either open document or MS Office document format...as well as being able to open MS Office documents created in older MS Office formats.
As more people become aware there is an alternative to MS Office, OpenOffice will see bigger gains is usage.
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|sofa...
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|Well the defacto standard which is microsoft's office will take an entire industry standing against them to even scratch it. openoffice is a descent office suite and its free. Google, ibm and sun are all backing it now so if they can put enough marketing in and get the oem's on board I see no reason this can't at least get it out there that there is a free, reasonable alternative. It may not be as polished and flashy as microsoft, but there isn't billions of dollars a year in revenue capability either.
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|I doubt the OEM will move to provide OO or even StarOffice, why would they? No profit from GIVING away free software when they could SELL 30/60/80/crippled MS Office trial.
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|IBM needs to stick with what they do well, and it is not software. This is obviously just a last ditch effort to try and ward off OOXML.
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|IBM has never been good with software but everything takes time and may be this time IBM will do it right. We cannot forget that IBM used to pretty much monopolize the computer industry and may be it will the software industry as well and if it does I would be one happy user!
www.worknplay.net
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|This is huge. Expect to see a really, really, really good version of OpenOffice on the Mac within a year or two, and this will truly crimp Apple's apps for usability and ODF over MS Office and the failed MS-OOXML format debacle.
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|Yes, it's going to huge. Huge like the crap that is Lotus. IBM has never been a good software house. All of the software they have touched just gets worse. Lotus and Rational is two good examples of this.
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|Agree, if OO turns into the abomination that is Lotus, its going to be a big problem.
I still don't see huge corporations ever jumping on this software, but who knows.
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|"IBM was never good at software??"
OS/2 was MUCH better than Windows. They just shot themselves in the foot marketing it, and didn't respond to Microsoft's writing articles for PC Mag writers which said MS's product was the one to buy. I'll never forget one article which compared the two and said OS/2 was better, but buy MS Win because it will get more marketshare. Talk about good marketing on MS's part!
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|Thing is, Lotus ain't never gonna be freeware, folks.
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