Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: IBM is alive ;)

donald_harbison@us.ibm.com wrote:
> Pedro,
>
> My mistake then. I didn't read deeply enough into the thread.
>
> I still submit that none of these open source projects and their products 
> compete in the sense of meaningful market share. With MS-Office dominating 
> so thoroughly the only thing that makes sense is to build a shared sense 
> of opportunity, rather than bickering incessantly. 
>
> IBM Docs will be a component of the IBM Connections offering later this 
> year. I don't know how that looks like a competitor to LibreOffice.  Lotus 
> Symphony was primarily offered to Lotus Notes customers in large 
> enterprise as a no charge entitlement. Integrated in this fashion, it 
> offers customers an alternative to MS-Office if they choose.  We have no 
> evidence that these customers consider LibreOffice, so I don't think it's 
> fair to say we are in a sort of competition.
>
> What matters most is to help end users understand the benefits of ODF as 
> their file format, and improve interoperability with the dominance of 
> MS-Office formats. 
>
> I hope you can at least agree on this last point, if not the others.
>   
My take is that LibreOffice like OpenOffice is an office suite chosen 
primarily by home users, novelists and other self employed writers, 
academics, very small businesses, and general fans of open source. 


Big corporations never even consider using such products because of a 
lack of certain kinds of refinements.  The lack of integration with MS 
email products is an absolute deal breaker in many cases, as is the lack 
on an adequate spell check dictionary, a good presentation program, and 
a few other items.  To most large businesses the price of MS-Office 
products is insignificant compared to the inconvenience to them of doing 
without some of its features. 


I used OpenOffice, and now use LibreOffice (Writer only, I have no need 
whatsoever for a spreadsheet etc.) because I just don't like Word.  
There are a few things I would really like to see improved and/or 
changed about Writer, but it still is the best word processor around, at 
least for the needs of someone like me.

--
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+help@documentfoundation.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted