From: Adam Flinton 

Dave Ings wrote:

> Office is a fact of life, and it will take a serious
"disruptive" technology
> to displace it. Open source folks had better just get over this.
>

I'm not so sure. MS can't really go down to "free" all that
easily. I reckon that 3 things will drive OpenOffice:

A) The XML/open file formats. I know it sounds odd & I can't go into to
many details but the uk gov is now out of love with office (esp word)
following certain word files released with a "hidden history".
Also a number of comps are moving to XML based data stds & OO goes well
with this where binary doc & xls files don't.

B) Sales of non Windows desktops. w/o any doubt as a suite OO is the best
out there. gnumeric might be better than OO calc but...as a suite..

C) Penny pinching by large PC vendors. Comes down to "good
enough". Sony are already bundling OO & I can see a bunch more
doing likewise.

D) Lack of compelling new features in office that do not require a
"larger framework". I.e. new features for office alone not
needing some Win2k3 or new exchange server etc.

> At this point Microsoft's biggest Office problem seems to be competing with
> itself - everything I read suggests most customers are perfectly happy with
> Office 2K and Office XP.
>

Most I know have no idea that Office 2k3 is out. Of those that know I know
none which care.

> The comment below is beyond silly, if the quote is accurate. When IBM
> acquired Lotus, it acquired for Notes and SmartSuite was already on life
> support. The spokesperson must be an industry newbie with no memory.


Smartsuite was still going strong when IBM got it. For instance it had the
sort of market % which if OO had people would be asking "is this the
end for office?". Why IBM can't kick some of the usefull stuff over
into Open Office is beyond me.

I told you ages back that IBM should do some xslt/java lump for
websphere/db2 which works with / off the OO XML fileformats wrt document
management. Someone will.

Adam

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