#########################################################################
OPENOFFICE.ORG NEWSLETTER
Volume 03 - Issue 1 - 7/2005
Please send news clippings to:
newsletter@marketing.openoffice.org
#########################################################################
Highlights in this Newsletter
#########################################################################
* OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 Release Candidate Is Here (Announcements)
* New Community Contributor Representative (Announcements)
* OpenOffice.org at city of about 100,000 (Success Stories)
* Vienna starts desktop Linux migration (Success Stories)
* Summary LinuxTag Karlsruhe - Germany (Conference summaries)
* Sharing files between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office
(Tips, Tricks and How-Tos)
* OOo Off the Wall: What New Users Need to Know About OpenOffice.org
(Tips, Tricks and How-Tos)
#########################################################################
Want to help OpenOffice.org? Find out hot to contribute or see our
To Do List!!
http://www.openoffice.org/contributing.html
http://development.openoffice.org/todo.html
#########################################################################
Announcements
#########################################################################
OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 Release Candidate Is Here
----------------------------------------------
"OpenOffice.org 1.1.5rc is ready for you to download now. It's a
release candidate, meaning that it has bugs, and we would like for
you to work with us in finding them and reporting them. It's easy
and even fun. :-)
What's important about 1.1.5rc? It includes numerous bug fixes but
just as important includes a filter for OpenDocument files, which is
the type that OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the 1.9.x releases create. To
download and file bug reports, follow the links below:
* OpenOffice.org 1.1.5rc:
<http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.5rc/index.html>
* QA Project: <http://qa.openoffice.org/>
This release candidate arrives simultaneously in 11 languages. More
languages will be available as the community creates them. Check
with your Native Language Project for more information. It is also
available for Linux, Solaris, and Windows.
* <http://projects.openoffice.org/native-lang.html>
The OpenOffice.org Team"
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=250
BharateeyaOO.o with Linux For You Magazine
------------------------------------------
[Courtesy of RKVS Raman]
The July 2005 issue of Linux For You magazine (India) will be
distributed with
the Hindi version of OpenOffice.org that was recently released.
http://www.linuxforu.com/
New Community Contributor Representative
----------------------------------------
Laurent Godard is the new Community Contributor Represenative (CCR) winning
with 53% of the total votes. The CCR represents the OpenOffice.org
community
of endusers, among others. To learn more of the Community Council, visit
the
Council site.
Congratulations Laurent, and thanks again to all nominees and participants!
http://council.openoffice.org/
OpenOffice.org's third international conference announced
---------------------------------------------------------
"The conference is being organised by the Slovenian and Italian OOo
project teams. The first part of the program will cover topics such as
development and OpenOffice.org in education, for those interested in
the community and the project itself, whereas the last part of the
conference will be focused on the end-users and the use of
OpenOffice.org in public administration and enterprises."
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/wlg/7321
Conference page:
http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2005/index.html
Announcement Archive
--------------------
All new and past annoucements can be found in the announcement list
mailing list archive at
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=announce
#################################ADVERT##################################
The Mozilla Links newsletter
---------------------------
"The Mozilla Links Newsletter is a publication covering topics about
the Mozilla open source project, the Mozilla Foundation, other Mozilla
independent projects, marketing, and mostly anything related to the
Mozilla project."
To subscribe visit:
http://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/newsletter/
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News from the Native-Language Confederation
#########################################################################
Marketing news 07/05 from germanophone project
----------------------------------------------
"What happened in the de-project in may/june?
Events:
Again we had a local community-meeting, this time in munich with 11
attendees. It was again a nice meeting of the project members without an
agenda but with many interesting talks.
You find a short summary (only german) here:
http://de.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=19644
Some photos (thanks to Florian):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/floeff/sets/420785/
The next community-meeting will be end of july in Hamburg.
The biggest and surely most interesting event in June was the LinuxTag
in Karlsruhe. Because some people asked for more information, I post it
in a separate mail.
What else?
Marketingmaterial:
For the LinuxTag we organised some project-T-Shirts in the style of the
new splashscreen motif. We have black ones for the community members and
white ones for selling on our fairs. We are talking about some
all-purpose T-Shirts without our german slogan or with an international
slogan.
If you want to have a look at the t-shirts we made, send me an email and
I'll give you a link where you can find some photos.
Furthermore we try to design some pins and coffee cups. If other
NL-projects are interested in these things, we can talk about a
centralized buying and organize it for the OOoCon. As soon as possible I
send you more information (prices, etc.) and some design drafts.
Whats going on in july?
I think the most of us need a little rest because of the LinuxTag and
some of us will surely go on holidays. :-) So july will be a quiet month
regarding our marketing activities except our plannings for the
conference in Koper.
Regards,
Jacqueline Rahemipour"
http://native-lang.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=com&msgNo=928
Next events for FR community
----------------------------
"This is the next events the FR project will participate too :
- JDLL 14/15 October http://www.aldil.org/agenda/journees/2005/, we will
have a booth and will organize confs and workshop.
- Educatec 23/25 November http://www.educatec.com/, we will share the
booth with other opensource project. This is an event dedicated to
Education so we will make animation around this area.
- JLM 8/10 December (2005 site is not up for the moment but 2004 is here
http://www.all.asso.fr/Realisations/jlm04/).
May be we will participate to the first international event for
equitable trade (? not sure of the translation !) for 1st to 4th of
October, just have to check how political it is.
Their will be also the RALL (African Libre software meeting) in
Libreville (Gabon).
Kind regards
Sophie"
http://native-lang.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=com&msgNo=933
Success Stories
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USA
===
OpenOffice.org at city of about 100,000
---------------------------------------
"Schall says there were no major issues with the migration to Linux
on either the server or the desktop. The city never used Microsoft
Latest News about Microsoft on the desktop and so is in the process
of transitioning from WordPerfect to OpenOffice.
advertisement "For the most part, everybody is happy," says Schall,
who adds that OpenOffice integrates smoothly with Microsoft Word
and Excel documents.
A key benefit of using open source applications such as OpenOffice
and the Firefox Latest News about Firefox Web browser is that they
are platform independent, says Tig Kerkman, Kenosha's network
administrator.
"So my users can download OpenOffice for free and use it at home on
whatever hardware they have," he says."
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=13000002WK6K
United Kingdom
==============
OpenOffice.org, FOSS, and the preservation of Gaelic
----------------------------------------------------
"By itself, the release of OpenOffice.org for Scots Gaelic is a small
event within the communities of free and open source software (FOSS).
It is only one of the more than 50 localizations available for
OpenOffice.org 1.x. However, the release shows a potential for FOSS
that is often overlooked, particularly by those for whom English is
their native language. Specifically, FOSS has the potential to help
resuscitate a declining language and thereby aid in revitalizing a
disintegrating culture."
http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/06/28/2040202.shtml?tid=93&tid=130&tid=132
Austria
=======
Vienna starts desktop Linux migration
-------------------------------------
"The city is currently running Microsoft Windows 2000 and Office 2000
on its 16,000 desktop PCs, but has identified 7,500 that could be
migrated to the open source productivity application OpenOffice.org. Of
these, 4,800 could also be migrated to the open source operating system
Linux."
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39207461,00.htm
Australia
=========
OpenOffice.org at Australian community center
---------------------------------------------
"With 65 user accounts and counting, The Hut's network now includes
10 Ubuntu workstations running GNOME, OpenOffice.org, Evolution, and
Firefox, an application server, a gateway box, and a backup server.
There is also a dual-boot workstation and two strictly Windows boxes
that sit on the network but don't rely on the file server."
http://business.newsforge.com/business/05/07/14/1942237.shtml?tid=37
New Zealand
===========
Schools ink deal for open source
--------------------------------
"The Education Ministry has signed an 18-month software licensing deal
with Novell New Zealand, the ministry's first deal to provide open
source software to schools.
It includes Novell's SUSE distribution of the Linux desktop operating
system."
...
"The SUSE Linux operating system is packaged with open source Internet
browser Firefox and Microsoft Office rival OpenOffice."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3348057a28,00.html
Conference summaries
#########################################################################
Summary LinuxTag Karlsruhe - Germany
------------------------------------
"as some of you have interest in our german marketing activities and
espacially our fairs I would like to give a short summary from the
LinuxTag in Karlsruhe (22.06.-25.06.), where the germanophone project
presented OOo.
The LinuxTag is one of the biggest Open Source events in germany. We had
a small booth, where we answered many user questions and talked to
people from companies, which think about a migration to OOo or already
use it. Additionally we had several lectures and two workshops.
Have a look at our summary (german):
http://de.openoffice.org/veranstaltungen/linuxtag2005/index.html
English version:
http://de.openoffice.org/veranstaltungen/linuxtag2005/index_en.html
Several photos from the event:
http://de.openoffice.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=495
Linux is very popular at the moment, so many radio and tv stations were
interested in reporting from the event. We gave several interviews and
in one broadcast you can get a visual impression from the LinuxTag. OOo
is mentioned and you can see our booth (only short) and some Screenshots
from OOo, too.
Have a look at the archive (3sat "neues", 25.06.2005, "LinuxTag 2005"):
http://www.3sat.de/3sat.php?http://www.3sat.de/neues/service/80122/index.html
For some more german marketing news, see [EMAIL PROTECTED] (sorry, I
can't post the link, because the archive is not updated yet).
Regards,
Jacqueline Rahemipour"
http://native-lang.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=com&msgNo=931
Summary of Libre Software Meeting in Dijon - France
---------------------------------------------------
"Here is a short summary of the week we spend in Dijon for the LSM2005
http://2005.rencontresmondiales.org/sections (English link)
About 1500 persons were subscibe to assist to that meeting and a lot of
confs were scheduled
http://2005.rencontresmondiales.org/sections/conference (English link)
Lot of very interesting talks, and a final standing ovation for F.
Pellegrini during the plenary session about software patents directives :)
OOo has participated to several confs about I18n, Education and
Methodology themes.
The OOo booth in the Village have had a lot of visitors, more and more
of them are users or already know about OOo. The local TV has made a
short picture of our booth :)
Some photos (very few for the moment) are here :
http://helene.petit2.free.fr/
http://acissi.net/images/rmll2005/ooffice2.jpg (you can see Cedric (left
side) who his participating to the Google summer of code for OOo ;)
We (several projects like KDE, OOo, etc) have decided to share our tools
and methodology about French translations with the Traduc.org
association which will become the central repository of our glossaries
to help new commers and keep more consistancy between the translations
of our products.
I had a meeting with MutualInfo (http://www.mutualibre.org/ which is
participating to the Free Resources for Education in Europe program)
about open source developments needed by the educational sector in
France which could be funded by local authorities. The first
developement could concern the enhancement of a Calc fonctionnality.
I'll keep you update of the state of the project.
Kind regards
Sophie"
Studies & Reports
#########################################################################
On The Move
-----------
"The company has already made the open source OpenOffice.org
productivity suite its default office suite ahead of schedule and by
March had 83% of employees actively using it on a daily basis. A
voluntary migration also saw the company beat its goal to get 50% of
users onto Linux by the end of October 2004."
http://www.cbronline.com/content/comp/magazine/Articles/Features/OnTheMove.asp
How schools can get free software
---------------------------------
"The UK government's school computing agency, Becta, has said schools
could save costs by switching to what is known as open source software.
In open source software (OSS), the underlying computer code is freely
available so users can alter it and publish new versions, to benefit
the community."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4642461.stm
Europe: Financial Services Companies Lead the Charge to Linux
-------------------------------------------------------------
""In the infrastructure," he says, "it's hidden away. Ninety percent of
the users won't even see it." Practical considerations often make it
tough for corporations to consider enterprisewide Linux deployments.
For instance, Banca Popolare di Milano is rolling out 4,500 SUSE Linux
desktops with a Mozilla Web browser, a Web client for Lotus Notes,
Sun's StarOffice suite and a Java-based custom suite of banking
applications to its 500 branch offices."
http://www.computerworld.com/industrytopics/financial/story/0,10801,103198,00.html
Is It Time to Switch to Open-Source Software?
---------------------------------------------
"Should you or your business consider open source? Bernard Golden
thinks so. He's the author of the recent book Succeeding With Open
Source, published by Addison-Wesley. The book is a how-to guide for
organizations who want to move away from high-cost commercial
software."
...
"OpenOffice is a much larger program but is still easy enough to
experiment with. It includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, a drawing
program and a presentation program. Versions exist for Windows, the Mac
and Linux in English as well as other languages."
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/44643.html
Resources
#########################################################################
'The future is open source'
---------------------------
"In the next five to 10 years, the open source movement will transform
the software business, according to several top industry executives
speaking at the AO 2005 Innovation Summit at Stanford University.
"We're building a whole new world in the software industry," said Ray
Lane, a partner at venture capitalist Kleiner Perkins Caufield &Byers,
who was moderating the open source panel."
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39020384,39210271,00.htm
Making Money from Free Software
-------------------------------
"There's the dual-license model, where businesses offer an open-source
version, usually for free, but charge a fee for a commercial license.
MySQL and Sun, with Openoffice.org, follow this model.
To pull this one off, you need a very compelling value proposition. The
MySQL database and the Openoffice.org office suites are arguably the
best of breed in their fields. People are willing to pay for their
commercial versions."
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1836385,00.asp
New USB Flash Drive Sports Bootable OS, Office Apps
---------------------------------------------------
"The $149 Computer-On-a-Stick is a USB flash drive with a bootable
onboard Linux operating system and open source office suite."
...
"The office suite, developed by OpenOffice.org, is compatible with the
most common Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, and Outlook."
http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=166401966
Press Release:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050722005199&newsLang=en
Additional reporting:
http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-45-20050723ComputerOnAStickWhatsNext.html
Novell showcases OES
--------------------
"The desktop OS includes a number of office productivity tools and
applications. The Novell edition of OpenOffice provides tools like word
processor, spreadsheet and presentation package that handles native
Microsoft Office file formats and can export files to Adobe PDF."
http://computerworld.com.sg/ShowPage.aspx?pagetype=2&articleid=1902&pubid=3&issueid=56
Review: OpenLX 11
-----------------
"OpenLX 11 claims to be the first enterprise-ready Linux distribution
for India. Based on Fedora Core, the free distro is nurtured by a
global alliance of almost a dozen companies. After testing it myself, I
found OpenLX to be a more usable distribution out of the box than
Fedora Core."
...
"OpenLX is customized for India in a couple of ways. It provides local
language fonts and desktop translations for six Indian languages, and
includes a six-month eval version of Kalculate, a Linux-based
accounting package custom-built for the subcontinent. You can also
install the phonetic Susha Hindi keyboard and Tamil software tools
developed by CDAC, including Tamil Firefox, OpenOffice.org, OCR
software, spell checkers, dictionary, and fonts."
http://os.newsforge.com/os/05/06/23/1759257.shtml?tid=2
Erwin Tenhumberg's Weblog
-------------------------
Includes news and tips on the upcoming OpenOffice.org 2.0
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer
Customer & User Feedback
#########################################################################
OpenOffice.org instead of Works
-------------------------------
"Corine has MS Works, but says it is not compatible with the more
widely used Microsoft Word. She wants to know if there is a viable
alternative that won't irritate her limited budget?
In the past I've suggested Open Office, at www.openoffice.org, as
a reasonably compatible suite of programs that in many cases works
as well as the hugely popular Microsoft product, though it is a little
lean on extras.
There are converters available for MS Works, but users of Open Office
do rave about its level of compatibility. Being free open-source
software, it is a continuing development project based initially on
the Sun Microsystems commercial product StarOffice."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10338051
[Beta Review] Openoffice.org 2
------------------------------
"With that in mind, there's no doubt version 2 is more than powerful
enough for most home and business users and can certainly give
Microsoft a run for its money, especially since it's free.
And for corporate users who need proper technical support (which isn't
available with the free version), there's a retail version of the suite
called Star Office. This costs $50 (£26.26 approx) and is supplied and
supported by Sun Microsystems."
http://www.vnunet.com/personal-computer-world/software/2140229/openoffice-org
OpenOffice 2.0 Beta Review
--------------------------
"I have been exploring the use of free Open Source software as an
alternative to Microsoft Software for quite some time now. I have been
using Open Office for about 8 months now for my word processing needs.
In a nutshell I am satisfied. Last week a new beta was released, I
downloaded it as soon as it was made available, on first view, even
though the key functionality in version 2.0 Beta remains largely
intact, it promises dozens, possibly hundreds, of changes."
http://www.osjournal.com/content/119/Reviews/OpenOffice_2_0_Beta_Review/
Open Source Wins Victories Large and Small
------------------------------------------
"Smaller steps came in the form of the release of the OpenOffice
software in Scots Gaelic. This is the first major software package
written for Gaelic.
While your initial reaction may be "Who cares?", the fact is that aside
from 1.2 percent of the population of Scotland, we all should be
cheered by this. This edition of OpenOffice shows how free and open
source software (FOSS) can serve niche communities that might otherwise
be ignored by commercial firms."
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/44652.html
Consider alternatives to Microsoft software for school computers
----------------------------------------------------------------
"An excellent alternative to Microsoft's Office (list price $499 per
computer) is OpenOffice (list price: Free). A superb alternative to
Adobe's PhotoShop (list price: $560 per computer) is the GNU Image
Manipulation Program (GIMP, list price: free).
The examples of free and open source alternatives to expensive software
are nearly boundless.
Consider how much money schools and government would save if we
switched away from software costing hundreds of dollars per computer to
free software."
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050717/OPINION02/50716042/-1/STYLE
Four Fast Tips: Save mega bucks
-------------------------------
"Surf for software: Free music downloads may have gone the way of the
Commodore 64, but you can still get something for nothing -- legally --
on the Web: software. Sure, if you want the Microsoft Office suite
(Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook), you'll pay for it -- to the tune
of $399. OpenOffice (openoffice.org), on the other hand, costs a total
of ... $0. It has all the essentials of Microsoft Office, minus an
e-mail client, and the programs are MS compatible. Round things out
with Thunderbird, Mozilla's free e-mail manager (mozilla.org)."
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050707/FEATURES08/507070340/1010
Developer and Administrator News
#########################################################################
FOSS Guide to Localization Published
------------------------------------
"Free/Open Source Software, Guide to Localization assists people in
localizing FOSS applications. It covers all the steps involved in the
localization process starting from fundamental topics like Locale,
Character Encoding and Fonts (including Font Creation) to advanced
topics such as Input Methods and Gettext Framework to Translation
Guidelines. The guide also takes some FOSS applications like KDE,
GNOME, OpenOffice and Mozilla(Firefox) as case-studies. In addition,
the guide includes a list of tools useful for the various tasks in
localisation."
http://newsvac.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/07/08/155259
KDE Plugin in the Official OpenOffice.org Packages
--------------------------------------------------
"A year and a half after launching the KDE.OpenOffice.org Integration
Project, the KDE plugin with the Native Widget Framework has become
part of the official OpenOffice.org development packages. Developer
snapshot m118 is the first of the towards-2.0 milestones that contains
it."
http://dot.kde.org/1122037183/
EU Rejects Controversial Software Patents Proposal
--------------------------------------------------
"The European Parliament on Wednesday morning put the final nail in
the coffin of the European Union's controversial IT patenting proposal,
voting overwhelmingly to reject the proposed directive.
The Parliament voted 648 to 14 with 18 abstentions to reject the
directive, which would have become EU law if approved in its current
form. The European Commission, which originated the proposal, said it
respected the Parliament's decision and said it would stand by its
earlier promise not to put forward another proposal on the issue."
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,,1834392,00.asp
Tips, Tricks & How-Tos
#########################################################################
Sharing files between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office
---------------------------------------------------------
"Even if you're the most dedicated OpenOffice.org (OOo) user in the
world, sooner or later you'll be asked to share files with someone
using Microsoft Office. Some free software advocates refuse outright,
or suggest outputting to HTML, PDF, or RTF formats, but these aren't
always options -- especially if your boss is the one doing the asking.
However, with a few preparations and a sense of what works and what
doesn't, you can usually share files with Microsoft Office users with
a minimum of headaches on both sides. Here's how."
http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/07/21/1834257.shtml?tid=152&tid=93
Hooking OOo to MySQL
--------------------
"Did you know that you can connect the OpenOffice.org office suite to a
MySQL database? By combining the power of these two open source
applications you can do things like generating personalized sales
letters from the customer data stored on your servers. Let's walk
through the process using OOo's database wizard."
http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/07/12/1544207.shtml?tid=93&tid=72
OOo Off the Wall: What New Users Need to Know About OpenOffice.org
------------------------------------------------------------------
"What do new users need to know about OpenOffice.org?"
...
"To orient themselves to OpenOffice.org, new users need to know its
interface shortcomings and the limits of its on-line help. They also
need to know the logic of its interface design and the importance of
styles and templates in an efficient work flow. The more they know
beforehand, the better the chance is that their first encounters with
OpenOffice.org will go smoothly."
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8443
Spice up your presentations with OpenOffice.org Impress
-------------------------------------------------------
"The next time you give a presentation with your laptop, don't use
bullet points, long-running paragraphs, or templates. Oh, and don't be
so organized either. Exercise some freedom, as in free and open source,
and talk to your audience, as opposed to reading from slides. Let
OpenOffice.org Impress, a tool for creating multimedia presentations,
add richness to your story.
This article will show you how to implement some advanced features of
Impress. While all the minute particulars have been covered thoroughly
in Impress tutorials, my purpose here is to encourage you to star in
your own show, while your slide show serves a supporting role."
http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/07/08/1913220
Competitive/Market Info
#########################################################################
Xandros Business Desktop & StarOffice
-------------------------------------
"Over 1,000 businesses have taken up Xandros Inc's Enterprise Linux
Challenge to try out its Business Desktop Linux operating system,
according to the company, indicating strong potential demand for the
new product. ... The product includes Sun Microsystems Inc's StarOffice,
Xandros Anti-Virus and Xandros Firewall security features, and a bundle
is available with the xDMS Xandros Desktop Management Server for mass
deployment."
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=64D13B18-A4ED-44C5-8CD4-EA126A9DA1F2
Sun Microsystems Completes Tarantella Acquisition
-------------------------------------------------
"This investment focus reflects the strong demand we see for desktop
infrastructure software that leverages the network to reduce the cost of
management and security," said Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief
operating officer, Sun Microsystems. "We will continue to invest
aggressively in the desktop space including our Java Desktop System
-- available on Linux or Solaris, the OpenSolaris community, Firefox,
Gnome and OpenOffice."
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050713/sfw091.html?.v=11
Sun Adds Glamour to Thin Clients
--------------------------------
"Thin-client networks have shown to be a lot cheaper to support than
PC-based solutions—at least in situations in which network lag doesn't
drag down user productivity, the users don't need the mobility of
laptops, and the users are willing to forgo the all-in-one
functionality of a PC.
There's also a potential upside from reduced software licensing costs.
The configuration I tested included Java Desktop System Release 2 for
Linux, which is $100 per desktop per year, including maintenance—and
includes the StarOffice suite of office applications, an e-mail and
calendaring client compatible with Microsoft Exchange, and most of
the other applications needed for daily office use. And if you're a
solution provider, you've got any number of open-source desktop
environments that you can assemble a solution from with no licensing
costs whatsoever—especially if you're planning to provide direct
support to your customers.
On the other hand, supporting JDS on Sun Ray is dirt simple. The
administrative tools for adding and managing users provided in JDS
are as simple and intuitive as those in a basic Windows
environment—and much simpler than those for a Windows network."
http://www.thechannelinsider.com/article2/0,1895,1836593,00.asp
Valuable Data Requires Open Formats
-----------------------------------
"So I unzipped the OOo archive and checked the styles.xml file using
xmlwf (checking to see if the XML was 'well-formed', which is step one
of two on the road to correctness; the second hurdle is validity
according to the schema). Sure enough, there was a duplicate element
attribute at the line and column indicated in the cryptic OOo error
message.
Edit it out, zip it back up, try again, and ... same error, different
location. But after a couple of iterations the problem was fixed.
Sure, it was a pain, and sure, it should never have happened. But in
an imperfect world, I'd much rather have my data in an accessible
format that can be manipulated by many different tools than locked
up in an undocumented, proprietary format."
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/wlg/7432
Sun's Vass resurrects the ultra-thin network computer
-----------------------------------------------------
"An important driver for IT managers to look at the ultra-thin client is
the “collapsing” budget, he says. His own annual budget for the worldwide
Sun IT network has come down from US$600 million (NZ$890 million) to a
mere US$300 million in the four years he has been CIO. Sun CEO Scott
McNealy “wants me to reduce costs and complexity”, says Vass, and this is
a common experience of many IT managers."
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/0/7918021A7AE7E023CC25704A0013EFB8?OpenDocument&pub=Computerworld
Mozilla staff quadrupled
------------------------
"Mozilla's Firefox has now been downloaded 75 million times, and
Thunderbird, the open-source e-mail reader also from Mozilla, has
reached its 10 millionth download. To mark the occasion, the Mozilla
Foundation said it was expanding in several directions. The Mozilla
staff itself has quadrupled during the past six months, to
40 employees, making this a good time for the Foundation."
http://www.techspot.com/news/18166-Mozillas-Firefox-has-been-downloaded-75-million-times.html
How Microsoft will try to get more money from Office users
----------------------------------------------------------
"But likely to prove controversial is Microsoft intention to charge
users an additional "premium" client access licenses (CAL) to use these
higher-end versions of Office and Windows. Ballmer and other executives
were light on specifics today, although in the Office market at least
Microsoft seems to be going beyond its current high-end edition of
Office Professional Edition, which is priced at $388.49 per copy.
...
"We will... introduce higher-value versions of existing products that
really help us drive new growth and new value. We did that with the
Professional edition of our Windows product, and it drove literally
billions of dollars of revenue growth versus the home version,"
Ballmer said.
...
Microsoft's decision to introduce more SKUs and charge higher prices,
though, will expose the company to more accusations from competitors
that is gouging customers while IT budgets are tight. Sun Microsystems
has been pushing StarOffice as a low-priced, subscription-based a
lternative to Office to help customers overcome the pricing issue."
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/07/28/microsoft_skus/
Taking the Lead in Security and Performance; New version of the TYPO3
Content Management System Released
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"The powerful search engine now produces statistics about the terms
entered. Editors can use this information to tailor their site to their
visitors. The search engine also indexes new types of data, such as
Microsoft Excel tables, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and
OpenOffice.org documents."
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/7/emw262183.htm
MCI Helps Sun Microsystems Improve Online Software Distribution
---------------------------------------------------------------
"By introducing the MCI/Akamai solution, Sun customers visiting the
SDLC Web portal will now be able to more quickly and reliably download
software supporting a broad range of Sun applications for enterprises,
including its StarOffice Productivity suite, Solaris operating system
and Java-based programs, some of which take up the storage capacity of
an entire CD."
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-mci-helps-sun-microsystems-improve-online-software-distribution-/2005/jul/1163961.htm
Norway says yes to Open Source
------------------------------
"The Norwegian minister for modernisation (nice job title) says the
government
will no longer accept the use of proprietary formats.
Without mentioning Microsoft, or anyone else, directly, Morten Andreas
Meyer
said: ÒProprietary formats will no longer be acceptable in communication
between citizens and government.Ó"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/28/norway_wants_os/
[Opinion] Microsoft Office 2007Éfor Linux?
------------------------------------------
"An article yesterday on ZDNet argued that Microsoft might soften its
stance towards open source, and may even write applications for its
famous open source competitor, Linux."
http://blogs.zdnet.com/carroll/index.php?p=1470
At The G8 Summit Sun Microsystems Profiles Technology's Role in
Sustainability
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Delegates and media attending the G8 meetings will have the
opportunity to use Sun Ray(TM) systems running the latest version of
Sun's StarOffice(TM) Suite and Sun Java(TM) Desktop Systems Release 3.
The ultra-thin client server architecture of the Sun Ray technology
provides users with the functionality of a personal computer and the
power of the server."
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050706/sfw037.html?.v=17
Microsoft looks to partners to force Office upgrades
----------------------------------------------------
Microsoft is investing $300m in Office marketing for fiscal 2006 and
expanding the number of field sales people from 450 to more than 1,000 -
Chris Capossela corporate vice president for the information worker
product management group.
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/07/08/_office_partners/
Sun exec denies Linux desktop retreat
-------------------------------------
"We remain fully committed to JDS," he wrote in his blog this week.
"The point I made that caused the stir is that you will see us begin
to emphasise JDS on Solaris and SunRay 'even more'."
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Sun_exec_denies_Linux_desktop_retreat/0,2000061733,39203106,00.htm
Move to Linux flattening, says Microsoft NZ
-------------------------------------------
""The features of open-source products such as OpenOffice and MySQL are
becoming stronger and lending them more appeal,Ó Wiggins says.
OpenOffice is now much more Microsoft Office-compatible than it was,
and MySQL has added stored procedures, which some proprietary database
systems still lack, he says. Apache continues to hold its dominant
share of the webserver market, and 30% of Java developers use the
Eclipse IDE, he adds."
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/0/D1C0C42087EBD4AECC257043000CAF9C?OpenDocument&pub=Computerworld
Events
#########################################################################
Upcoming
========
OSCON 2005
----------
O'Reilly Open Source Convention
August 1-5, 2005
Portland, OR, USA
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2005/
OOoCon 2005
-----------
OpenOffice.org Conference
September 28th - 30th 2005
Koper - Capodistria, Slovenia
http://marketing.openoffice.org/conference/
EuroOSCON 2005
--------------
O'Reilly European Open Source Convention 2005
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
October 17-20, 2005
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/eurooscon/create/e_sess
LinuxWorld Frankfurt
--------------------
Frankfurt, Germany
November 17-17, 2005
http://www.linuxworldexpo.de/
Newsletter Archive
#########################################################################
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