On Mon, 2010-04-12 at 00:49 +0200, Ismaël Grammenidis wrote: > What I understood from Oracle's FAQ's about Oracle Open Office: > StarOffice en StarSuite will no longer be the brand for the commercially > supported distribution. Instead it will be replaced by the brand "Oracle > Open Office" and not just "Open Office".
OOO as opposed to OOo? :-) > Since the last one is a registered > trademark in certain European countries like Belgium, The Netherlands and > Luxembourg. This is why OpenOffice.org uses the ".org" to make a separation > between those two brands. > > So basically, "Oracle Open Office" is just "StarOffice", the commercial > product of OpenOffice.org, but than renamed. Why it releases again a > commercial distribution again so short after ditching StarOffice, this > raises definitely some questions here. I think it is obvious. Oracle buys Sun, Oracle needs to make money to cover the costs of the acquisition of Sun. They need Oracle brand names to strengthen Oracle not a now defunct brand that signals the dead past. > I agree with you, but let's be honest, If you would compare Lotus, > NeoOffice (or Oracle OO) with OpenOffice.org branding you will see > immediatly which brand looks more professional, and it's certainly not the > last one. So those companies want to promote a product with a strong visual > identity and create thus an entire new brand. It is also a characteristic of the largest Open Source projects to have a range of branding. Look at GNU/Linux and the number of rebranded distros. OpenOffice.org is redistributed on a similar basis (well with commercial forks so possibly more like BSD). The argument could be that this is a good thing as it prevents a monoculture and promotes competition. > To come back on-topic: I think that StarOffice was a much stronger brand > than OpenOffice.org I'd question that. In my experience a lot more people have now heard of OOo than StarOffice. SO is probably a stronger brand in certain commercial environments but I should think OOo is much better known to the general world population. Has SO had 100 million downloads? It surprises me that SO is even commercially viable especially if the development costs of OOo are taken into account. Probably if all Sun/Oracle desktops run it as opposed to buying MSO licenses the savings might help tip the balance. But in the end commercial companies have to have products that at least break even (or perhaps do overall fatal damage to a major competitor ;-) ) > (and OracleOO), just because of all the trademark > problems that occurs at the moment. Like using .org instead of just "Open > Office" and in Brazil they use "BrOffice" instead of OpenOffice.org. > In my personal opinion, not every open source project needs to incorporate > the word "open" in their brand name. If Oracle wants to ditch StarOffice as > a commercial brand name, why not use it instead for the open community? > Oracle, Novell, Canonical can then just use "StarOffice Pro" (by > company-name) to promote their builds. That way, there is just one brand to > maintain and it can create a broader recognition. But again, that's just my > personal view. They do it for a reason. Open Source has become fashionable. The word Open strengthens the branding and conveys a desirable property. This provides the evidence that OOo is a stronger brand than StarOffice otherwise why not use StarOffice? Branding is not just about glossy presentation. > The fragmentation is already done a long time ago, it's now up to Oracle and > the Marketing team to actually consult the entire community including UX and > locals to actually try to make this brand strong and make it work (as one). While Oracle is contributing the vast majority of the development resources, they are going to have the last say and they will put their interests first. Of course it could be in their interest to consult and take notice of the community but the political power is heavily stacked towards them until someone has the resources to create a fully independent fork that could realistically compete with Oracle's development team. I don't see much sign of that. > I'm not saying that it is possible to please everyone. But creating bleached > icons that causes a serious visibility problem, even those for whom having a > perfect eye-sight will not solve this. Instead linux distributions like > ubuntu will just adapt the entire thing to make sure it integrates with > their policy and branding of what is a user-friendly user-experience > oriented, both in terms of product and branding. So the entire effort of > this branding will be useless if issues like these are not resolved. > > With kind regards, > Ismaël Grammenidis -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications A new approach to assessment for learning www.theINGOTs.org - 01827 305940 You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
