IBM's coming to the OpenOffice.org party

Information Week puts it very nicely.

IBM's participation could make OpenOffice.org a more serious threat to Microsoft's stranglehold on the productivity software market.

Here's what I think. Benefits:
- Money
- Connections to a zillion enterprises across the world
- Money
- Name recognition among end users, which Sun doesn't have
- Money
- It's entirely possible they'll be throwing some marketing dollars behind OpenOffice.org

But here's something else. People who hear of OpenOffice.org think "Why is it free?" "What's open source?" "What's up with this craaaaazy communist kind of software development?" My point is, there's  nervousness surrounding something that's free and open source and not Controlled. (Anyone with experience with normal controlled software projects knows that's no guarantee of success, a good product, releasing on time, releasing at all, etc., but that's a separate issue.)

IBM has such a buttoned-down, conservative, reliable, "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" image that that might be the single biggest advantage about IBM's participation.

As the old Klingon saying goes, "Only Nixon could go to China." Perhaps only IBM could get OpenOffice.org on 51% of desktops.

Read more:

Desktop Linux

Information Week

Comments

[Don Harbison]

Solveig, thanks for the post. We're excited to endorse OpenOffice similar to our endorsement of Linux in 2000. Your insight is on the mark.

[Roy Jacobsen]

Solveig,
That's a Vulcan proverb, not Klingon.

IBM may have had the "nobody every got fired for buying IBM" reputation 10 years ago, but I'm not sure now much of that still stands. I think the other benefits you list are probably more important.

Nevertheless, IBM's participation is a cool thing; it would be double-plus-good if they could bring some of their Human/Computer interaction expertise to bear on the OOo interface.

And don't forget the Money.

[DPeach]

I am excited about this for one thing particularly. I am really hoping it will mean that I will finally get an import filter for my Lotus WordPro documents. It may not happen, but I am really holding out hope.

I have not used LWP since OOo came into my life. That also happened right at a job change. I have had little reason to go back to my old LWP files, but there are a few that I have needed to convert manually. Several years of writing can be reclaimed, if only for my own personal enjoyment.

[Don Harbison]

IBM plans to contribute the SmartSuite filters to OpenOffice.org... so yes, you will have support for WordPro to ODF. :)) I just cannot forecast when. We will work on that in Barcelona.

/don

[Solveig]

An old Vulcan saying? Dangit. ;> Well, close. It's true that the No One Ever Got Fired proverb was truer longer ago than it is now, but still, IBM's general rep and image is one of Establishment more than Crazy Startup.

[Solveig]

Don, thanks for coming by! Looking forward to much goodness from IBM and OOo.

Solveig