LibreOfice makes its case as open source alter

native to MS Ofice
After a headline lull, LibreOfice on Wednesday renewed its drive to r
eplace Microsoft Ofice with the newest version of its open source suit
e of applications.
The latest update comes as the organiation behind LibreOfice says t
hat its products are now being used by some !" million users around t
he world. #n contrast, only $" million users had downloaded the softw
are by %ept. &"$$.
LibreOfice came about as part of a grass roots response to tech indus
try consolidation. #n &"$", Oracle ac'uired %un Microsystems, which
was then responsible for an open(source software suite called OpenOf
ice. )owever, developers who became unhappy with Oracle*s steward
ship of the pro+ect, subse'uently for,ed the code to create a new ofic
e suite called LibreOfice. The OpenOfice pro+ect has since been ta,e
n up by the Apache -oundation while LibreOfice wound up under the
auspices of The .ocument -oundation.
/0ecutives from The .ocument -oundation e0pressed con1dence abo
ut getting &"" million active users worldwide before the end of the de
cade. #talo 2ignoli, one of the founders of The .ocument -oundation,
also e0pressed hope that a decision governing the use of open source
software by the 34 government will prove to be a harbinger of more r
apid adoption.
/arlier this wee,, the 3nited 4ingdom 1nally put in practice a directiv
e that all oficial ofice suites must support an open format for docume
nts called O.-. 5overnment oficials say the move to standardie arou
nd open formats will reduce costs associated with the Ofice suite and
brea, what they describe as the *oligopoly* of #T suppliers. 6Or at least
one supplier in particular. Win,, win,.7
The thrust of the 34 announcement will be to let users choose open(s
ource ofice suites, should they wish. 2ignoli is hoping that will help th
e organiation build on earlier successes winning over other /uropean
governments. -or instance, the -rench government has already deplo
yed LibreOfice on about a half million computers while %pain*s 2alenc
ia region has installed the program on $&",""" des,tops.
8Our compatibility with legacy Microsoft Ofice documents and actuall
y Microsoft Ofice docs is now e0tremely good,8 2ignoli said. )e adde
d that developers have cleaned up the code base from the 1rst four rel
eases of the product and that only $9" of the $",""" documents used i
n compatability testing of the latest incarnation of the product with M
% Ofice bro,e.
The 'uestion is whether that will be enough to reel in M% Ofice users
of long standing. /ven though the competition with Microsoft Ofice r
eaches bac, several years, Ofice continues to have a strong hold with
businesses as the competition has moved to the cloud. :art of the chal
lenge is the message (( on in this case, ma,ing that message resonate.
8The Open %ource community has always had a problem with mar,eti
ng,8 2ignoli said. 8# thin, it was a fundamental mista,e because if you
tal, to developers, they*ll tell you that if the product is good, then you
don*t need mar,eting. ;ut that*s the most absurd thing you can say. <o
u need mar,eting for every product. /ven if you don*t use mar,eting,
you need a strategy on how to bring the product to mar,et....you must
ma,e the user aware that you*re product is there.8
#t wasn*t simply inattention to mar,eting. A lot of the debate centered
around the adoption of open standards. At the time, the Open .ocume
nt -ormat 6O.-7 was the only one available. Microsoft subse'uently g
ot the standards bodies to bless its OficeOpen=ML while also agreein
g to let O.- documents get read and saved in Ofice.
;ut out of sight is not out of mind. -or LibreOfice supporters, a reva
mped product with a cleaned up code base is a winning hand.
8%o many people in 3% corporations say they want to brea, free from
the shac,les of Microsoft Oficebut it*s hard to brea, free from the sha
c,les because !"" billion documents sit in Microsoft docs,8 said >ay ?a
veri, the product vice president at @loudOn and Open Libre evangelist.
8We believe the wor, we*ve done has signi1cantly narrowed the comp
atibility gap
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