What can IBM do for OpenOffice.org?
OpenOffice.org, the free and open source office suite that looks to compete with Microsoft Office, has gladly greeted IBM as a community member. IBM has pledged to support the free office suit by offering its services and technology.
IBM has announced that it will immediately start to contribute code and engineering support to the OpenOffice.org community; in exchange, IBM looks to use the existing OpenOffice.org technology within its own products.
The code that will be contributed is part of IBM’s own Lotus Notes product, and integrated desktop client option for accessing business e-mail, calendars and applications.
IBM’s Lotus Notes currently offers an e-mail client, instant messaging client, browser, notebook, calendar client, RSS aggregators, blog client, and a wiki, all of which are possible candidates to be brought to the OpenOffice table.
OpenOffice.org currently includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database capabilities, along with other minor modules.
In addition, IBM will be making ongoing code contributions to increase the amount of features and overall quality and richness of the OpenOffice.org project.
Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, a leading Linux distribution which comes packaged with OpenOffice.org, said:
“We are excited about IBM joining Sun and other contributors to the OpenOffice.org community in pushing development of OpenOffice.org and the OpenDocument Format. The OpenOffice.org community is showing that it is possible for large, competing companies to collaborate and deliver extraordinary value to all of their users.”
Mark added that Ubuntu, as with OpenOffice.org, is committed to free all users from their dependency on proprietary software purchased through single vendors.
Mark’s statement holds true though all types of software; though, it could be easily understood to represent Microsoft (single vendor) and its squeaky-clean Office suite (proprietary software).
As a past and current user of Microsoft Office and a current user of OpenOffice, I come across many mimicked features in OpenOffice that are just not of the quality carried by Microsoft Office; though, OpenOffice’s $0 price tag is certainly enough to attract any user, regardless of its minor quirks.
IBM’s contribution will hopefully fine tune the OpenOffice.org project; Mike Rhodin, General Manager of IBM’s Lotus division, believes it will.
“IBM is very pleased to be joining the OpenOffice.org community. We are very optimistic that IBM’s contribution of technology and engineering resources will provide tangible benefits to the community membership and to users of OpenOffice.org technology around the world.”
Nearly 100 million people and business have downloaded the free OpenOffice.org project since it was created by Sun Microsystems in 2000, making it the leading open-source productivity suite available for Microsoft Windows (including Vista), GNU/Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS X.
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