January 23rd, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Lotus Symphony, IBM’s new derivative of OpenOffice built on Eclipse technology and first released as a beta in September, has been updated with support for 24 languages.
The press release announces: “Downloaded for use in English by more than 400,000 individuals at work and at home, IBM’s Lotus Symphony suite (www.ibm.com/software/lotus/symphony) of desktop office software is now available in 24 languages serving major markets worldwide.”
For a beta that’s only 4 months old, these are impressive download numbers. I expect that Symphony, with its native use of ODF, will help to grow the overall market of ODF-capable applications more than it will cannibalize OOo’s marketshare. (I believe Symphony is not open source, so many users will want to stick with OOo. But Symphony is free of cost, and has a very attractive UI, which will entice many others to adopt it.)
Not only is Symphony designed for a global market, but it’s also engineered as a global product: “IBM has employed innovative development techniques in the development and translation of Lotus Symphony. Lotus Symphony was developed by a global network of IBM laboratories led by a core team in Beijing, China using agile development techniques that allow work to continue seamlessly and in parallel on components of the product at all times.”
If I were IBM, my strategy to spread Symphony now would be to leverage OEM bundling. Clearly there’s a lot of interest from end users who are downloading it, but to really impact the market, IBM should enlist their old friends at Lenovo to install Symphony on every computer they ship. Leverage that to encourage other PC makers to follow suit, and then marketshare will climb extremely fast! IBM, and all users of ODF, will benefit.
Posted in ODF, OpenOffice.org, Uncategorized | Comments Off on More News on Lotus Symphony
January 22nd, 2008 Benjamin Horst
To help keep track of marketing project activities, Florian has recently launched the new OpenOffice.org Marketing Blog. I’m looking forward to seeing it grow into a central space for OOo marketing news; I think it will be a valuable resource. And you just might see the occasional post from me appear there, as well!
Posted in OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice.org Marketing Blog
January 21st, 2008 Benjamin Horst
A formal press release should be coming soon to announce that OpenProj has surpassed 200,000 downloads.
The preview I’ve seen announces, “Projity Hits 200,000 Download Milestone with OpenProj”.
This “Open Source replacement of Microsoft Project has been downloaded over 200,000 times and is now being used in over 132 countries. OpenProj is rapidly becoming a standard on Linux, Unix, Mac and Windows environments.”
OpenProj is the most mature open source project management tool I’ve seen on the market, and makes a good complement to OpenOffice.org for individuals and offices that are starting to realize the wisdom of open source programs on the desktop.
Projity CEO Marc O’Brien has begun to measure the influence OpenProj has already had on the market’s incumbent players: “The 200,000+ downloads are just part of the story, many organizations are deploying hundreds and even thousands of OpenProj copies from their initial downloads. Projity is having a highly disruptive effect on Microsoft and other proprietary vendors while benefiting worldwide users.”
Posted in Open Source | Comments Off on OpenProj Surpasses 200,000 Downloads
January 18th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Today at the Googleplex in Silicon Valley is the largest day of presentations and meetings for the KDE 4.0 Release Party.
We flew in from New York to participate in the conference sessions, invited to help cement the collaboration efforts between many projects around the ODF standard. (Used by OpenOffice and KOffice, among many others, ODF provides a shared meeting ground for many open source communities, as well as corporate entities.)
Aaron Seigo’s presentation gave us an overview of the new additions to KDE. One of the features that I was most interested in learning about is the cross-platform capability of KDE 4.0 applications. With 4.0, Mac and Windows users will be able to run KDE applications natively on their platforms. Demos of Marble, KStar and a few other apps really impressed me–and I’m very much looking forward to using KOffice on my MacBook in the near future.
Memory footprint is also much more efficient in KDE 4.0. The Eee PC, with 512 MB of RAM and a 1 Ghz processor, can run KDE 4.0 with all the visual extras turned on. Aaron said many applications will run with 30-40% less RAM using KDE 4 than they did with KDE 3.
KDE 4.0 is targeted primarily at early adopters, distributions, testers and developers. KDE 4.1, scheduled for the middle of this year, will focus on end users and is clearly going to be a watershed in the global move to open source.
Posted in Announcements, Free Culture, ODF, Open Source | Comments Off on KDE 4.0 Release Party at Google
January 16th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
The BBC reports on the OLPC’s plan to launch in the USA.
“The OLPC has set up a US office and has begun talking to state governments about ways to get the laptop into the hands of the poorest American children.
“The organisation said it would formally launch its XO programme in America later in 2008.”
I can’t wait to see it happen! There are good reasons to offer XOs in the US. It will benefit the students who receive them, the schools that will be able to supply computers to more students, and the OLPC itself, as it increases overall production volumes, and reduces costs. Finally, it will result in a larger ecosystem that will draw in more users and developers to further improve the platform. This is a wise move, and I wish the project much success.
Posted in OLPC, Open Source | Comments Off on OLPC Planning US Launch
January 15th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
LinuxWorld Australia writes, “Hard cash, cold logic: Linux,” covering Elcot (Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu)’s migration of 30,000 desktops to SUSE Linux.
First, the managing director of Elcot installed Linux on a new laptop for testing purposes. Then, “within weeks, the Rs 750-crore Elcot was undergoing a enterprise-wide migration to Suse Linux. A year later, Umashankar and his team had moved 30,000 computers and 1,880 severs belonging to some of the state’s schools to Linux — creating possibly the largest Linux rollout in India.”
While Elcot’s 30,000 computers represent a huge migration, it is only a fraction of the state government’s total complement of desktop computers. Following Elcot’s success, the rest of the government is observing and possibly planning to migrate to Linux as well.
“Umashankar expects the entire operations of the government to gradually switch over to Linux/OpenOffice.org over the next 12 or 18 months. “Give it two or three virus attacks and you’ll see a faster migration,” he says tongue-in-cheek.”
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on “Hard cash, cold logic: Linux”
January 14th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization responsible for the Wikipedia, has announced plans to support ODF export from the MediaWiki wiki engine.
From the press release:
“This technology is of key strategic importance to the cause of free education world-wide,” said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “It will make it possible to use and remix wiki content for a variety of purposes, both in the developing and the developed world, in areas with connectivity and without.”
In this multi-stage project, the last will bring support for ODF.
“The third stage, planned for mid-2008, will be the addition of the OpenDocument format for word processors to the list of export formats. “Imagine that you want to use a set of wiki articles in the classroom. By supporting the OpenDocument format, we will make it easy for educators to customize and remix content before printing and distributing it from any desktop computer,” Sue Gardner explained. This work is funded through a US$40,000 grant by the Open Society Institute.
“The technology developed through this cooperation will be available under an open source license, free for anyone to use for any purpose. It ties into the MediaWiki platform, the open source technology that runs Wikipedia. As a result, thousands of wiki platforms around the world will have the option of providing the same services to their users.”
Posted in Free Culture, ODF, Open Source, Wiki | Comments Off on Wikipedia to Support ODF
January 11th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Mary Lou Jepsen, the founding CTO of OLPC, recently left the project to help commercialize some of its innovative hardware in a new company she founded, Pixel Qi. One of its goals is to produce a laptop for $50 to $75!
Groklaw runs an interview with Jepsen about her plans.
Jepsen explains her plan: “I’m starting a company called Pixel Qi. Pixel Qi is currently pursuing the $75 laptop, while also aiming to bring sunlight readable, low-cost and low-power screens into mainstream laptops, cellphones and digital cameras. Spinning out from OLPC enables the development of a new machine, beyond the XO, while leveraging a larger market for new technologies, beyond just OLPC: prices for next-generation hardware can be brought down by allowing multiple uses of the key technology advances. Pixel Qi will give OLPC products at cost, while also selling the sub-systems and devices at a profit for commercial use.”
A great article, a fascinating person, and a world-changing idea!
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, OLPC, Open Source | 2 Comments »
January 10th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Another low-cost, open source based mini-laptop has arrived: the Everex CloudBook. Featuring the gOS, just like its desktop sibling gPC, the CloudBook is a tiny but very functional looking $399 laptop.
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | 1 Comment »
January 9th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Computerworld UK reports “OpenDocument Format making ‘amazing progress’ claim supporters.”
“Twelve countries and six regional governments have adopted “pro-ODF policies,” according to the group, composed of companies and organisations that advocate for the format.
“The latest countries are the Netherlands and South Africa, which require government agencies to use the format. Also, more than 40 applications now support ODF and the Alliance’s membership ranks are set to rise above 500, according to the report.”
ODF supporters can be found everywhere online and around the world as additional governments and applications adopt the format. The news of its continued success will bring even more supporters as it strengthens the resolve of its longtime proponents.
“Another ODF advocate, Andy Updegrove, also expressed pleasure over ODF’s adoption to date and optimism about its future. “The tipping point has been passed. I don’t think it will lead to a deluge, but progress will continue,” said Updegrove, an attorney with Gesmer Updegrove LLP in Boston.”
Posted in ODF | Comments Off on OpenDocument Format Making “Amazing Progress”