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OpenOffice.org News Highlights

October 2004

Replacing FrameMaker with OOo Writer

"I began comparing FrameMaker and Writer when a regular on the OpenOffice.org User's list asked what it would take to give Writer the power of FrameMaker. When I started, I mentally pictured a scale with Microsoft Word on one end and FrameMaker on another, with Writer in the middle, but closer to Microsoft Word. As I proceeded, I found Writer was a much stronger contender than I had expected. At the end of the comparison, I had to conclude that the two products compare quite closely, depending on what features are more important to a given user."
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/10/04/150207

Germans claim Linux lowers costs

"The greatest cost saving opportunities that Soreon Research found were in the adoption of a variety of office applications on work-stations. Over three-years, a 2000-seat organisation would save around €525,000 with office applications, €57,000 with servers, €32,000 with content management systems and €21,000 with databases. For a €1,000,000 budget, the use of OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office would provide a 20 per cent cost advantage."

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19006

Open approach offers Mindef more choice

"The Defence Ministry installs Open-Office, an open source productivity suite, in 5,000 new computers as an alternative to proprietary software.

The Ministry of Defence (Mindef) has installed the OpenOffice productivity suite on 5,000 new desktop computers. This move is aimed at giving employees in the ministry an additional choice in productivity software. It will also help Mindef make 'significant' savings in terms of capital costs."

http://computertimes.asiaone.com.sg/news/story/0,5104,2868,00.html

Ballmer calls for horse-based attack on Star Office

"In a question and answer session after his closing speech a delegate asked what he should do faced with public sector customers interested in Star Office, Sun's budget rival to Microsoft Office. Ballmer replied: “Email me immediately and we’ll send in the cavalry. I’m joking...but I’m not. There is no reason to lose business to Star Office - it’s as good as what we were shipping seven years ago, it’s not compatible with Microsoft Office and it’s missing key applications like Outlook.”"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/06/ballmer_staroffice_charge/

Open for Business - The 2004 OfB Choice Awards

"Best Office Suite: OpenOffice.org 1.1.1 OpenOffice.org remains the only serious contender to replace Microsoft Office on Windows or GNU/Linux desktops. There are

some competitors, such as Abiword on Windows and GNU/Linux as well as Corel WordPerfect Office on Windows; OpenOffice.org seems to have a unique hold on progress toward offering comprehensive compatibility with Microsoft Office in an interface that should minimize adjustment time for users migrating to it."

http://www.ofb.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330

September 2004

OpenOffice.org reveals marketing ambitions

"The organisation behind the office suite for Linux has released a marketing plan which explains how it plans to promote its open-source product.

The developers of OpenOffice.org, the open-source office productivity suite, have unveiled details of a major marketing push to coincide with the OpenOffice.org Conference, which has been taking place in Berlin, Germany, this week."

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39167856,00.htm

Nonprofit brings Linux and open source to Hawaii

"Schools in Hawaii, affected by lean budgets like many other US states this year, are upgrading their computer systems with help from the open source community and Linux. A local nonprofit, the Oahu-based Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation (HOSEF), has supplied over a dozen Hawaiian schools with computers "recycled" with the Linux operating system and raised awareness of open source software (OSS).

[...]

"We have an obligation to reciprocate that which we receive, if possible. OSS (open source software) has been very good to me. I have used it to help employers save money. I have used [Openoffice.org] for my college degrees, and I use it daily on my computers. If I can take my entrepreneurial, economic, and business interests and channel my passion for OSS through them, then I should," Belford enthuses."

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6201542989.html

UK charity builds Linux network on a shoestring

"Homeless charity Alone in London spent less than £2,000 to set up a network of 30 PCs from scratch, compared to a similar-sized charity which spent £30,000 on building a network using proprietary solutions and new PCs, according to James Holland, who ran the project at Alone in London.

[...]

The only other cost was less than £250 for the cable, connectors, crimper and switches of the network infrastructure - in total, the network cost under £2,000. The PCs on the network run Red Hat Linux 9, OpenOffice, Evolution for email and Mozilla for browsing, saving Alone in London further costs on licences for desktop applications."

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39166840,00.htm

NSW opens door to Linux offers

"THE NSW Department of Commerce has released its eagerly anticipated Linux tender, calling for a panel of suppliers to provide enterprise-level software and services for government agencies. The contract, reportedly worth $40 million, is seen as a major step forward for open source lobbyists, as it requests suppliers to provide Linux software for both desktop and server environments.

[...]

In keeping with the NSW government’s push for openness within its IT environment, the tender document states submissions can be lodged in file formats that can be read by OpenOffice.org/StarOffice Write and Microsoft Word."

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10916500%255E15306,00.html

Leading Edge Forum Report 2004 - Open Source: Open for Business

"Desktop software such as OpenOffice, while still reaching maturity, could offer significant savings for large organizations. Office suite software can cost roughly $300 per seat—or $3 million in an organization of 10,000 people. That creates real savings when going to acquisition costs of $0.

[...]

Meanwhile, OpenOffice has climbed to a 14 percent share of the large enterprise office systems market. Microsoft, however, still holds a 94 percent share of the overall office market. "It is a David and Goliath story, to be sure," the report says, "but David is getting stronger.""

http://www.csc.com/features/2004/48.shtml

http://www.csc.com/features/2004/49.shtml

Linux growing on SMB desktops: Yankee Group

"Pay attention to the less-than-20-employee size market segment because that is where the early Linux versus Windows desktop wars will play out, she said. The very small business segment shows the greatest interest in Linux desktop adoption in the next 12 or more months (at 10 per cent), outpacing the intent of larger SMBs by four to six percentage points.

[...]

But YG also said SMBs ought to consider Linux as an alternative, lower cost desktop OS to Windows. The price of a Linux-loaded system with, for example, Sun's StarOffice productivity suite will be less than a system preloaded with a Windows operating system and Microsoft Office."

http://www.integratedmar.com/ecl-usa/story.cfm?item=18755

'Independent' report used MS-sourced data to trash OSS

"Microsoft, incidentally, has a long and inglorious history of reverse-process studies (i.e. starting with the conclusions then sourcing the data appropriate for arrival at it). There are many, many examples but we feel this blast from the past is particularly appropriate to current circumstances. Regrettably, the link to Linux Myths no longer works, but it was sort of release 1.0 of Get the Facts."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/09/ms_capgemini_newham_report/

OpenOffice.org Conference Presentations

The OpenOffice.org Conference presentations can be found at:

http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2004/thursday.html

http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2004/friday.html

Open Office XML May Satisfy ISO

"A letter to Sun Microsystems' COO Jonathan Schwartz by the European Commission (EC) this week may set the stage for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to adopt the Open Office XML format (also known as OO.o XML) as an ISO standard. If it does, the stamp of approval would mark the largest ever validation of Sun's work on the desktop."

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3414101

Weblog:

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2004/09/24/SmartEC

Slashdot story:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/04/09/27/1111202.shtml?tid=117&tid=102&tid=1&tid=218

UN drive to boost free software

"The United Nations is holding events across Asia to encourage the region to adopt free and open source software.

The UN's International Open Source Network (IOSN) is organising the first annual Software Freedom Day on 28 August, giving out CDs and booklets about the technology."

"These include the operating system Linux, OpenOffice, the Mozilla web browser and e-mail project, mySQL database and the Apache web server.

Computer users in South Africa are joining in too, and will be able to take their computers to one an "install-fest" station to have free software installed."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3601710.stm

OpenOffice Set for Larger African Effort

"As part of Software Freedom Day, set for August 28, OpenOffice will be translated into three African languages for the first time. After Saturday, the open-source desktop suite will be available to speakers of the South African languages of Zulu, Sepedi and Afrikaans. The new versions have been prepared by Translate.org.za, a South African translation project that spent two years developing the software."

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/openoffice-zulu-36172.html

A strong OpenOffice.org community is the key, argues Sun's Danese Cooper

"You may have read some of the articles, blogs, and newsgroup postings about excerpts from Sun's settlement with Microsoft that appear in our SEC filing. The discussion centered around the protection we secured for the StarOffice brand, and implications for the OpenOffice.org community."

http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;815001838;fp;4;fpid;4

August 2004

OpenOffice.org Art Project

The OpenOffice.org Art Project has been formed to create and maintain an art portfolio for use by all OpenOffice.org projects.

Initial and ongoing activities include collating existing OpenOffice.org artwork and liaising with other OpenOffice.org projects that have or need artwork.

The Art Project (http://marketing.openoffice.org/art/) web site displays the artwork and graphics in galleries, provides information about licenses, requesting graphics, and how to participate.

The Art Project is currently seeking designers and graphical artists to create icons, logos, banners, labels, and fulfill future requests from other OpenOffice.org contributors. The artwork and graphics are to be seen and used throughout the OpenOffice.org product and community.

If you are interested, please visit the Art Project web site for further information.

http://marketing.openoffice.org/art/

Norwegian Native-Lang Project announced (NO)

"We are very pleased to announce the opening of the Norwegian Native-Lang Project (http://no.openoffice.org) led by Gaute Hvoslef Kvalnes. This project is an offspring of the prestigious Skolelinux community who is a major player in many fields of the Free and Open Source Software thanks to its Linux distribution, its solution platform and its community.

The localization of OpenOffice.org to the Norwegian languages Bokmål and Nynorsk has resulted in many schools and institutions using OpenOffice.org. This in turn has led to several providers offering books, courses and other teaching materials. As OpenOffice.org is becoming very popular among Norwegian speakers, the Native-Lang Confederation is greeting an important new member in its family.

Good luck to the Norwegian Native-Lang Project!"

http://native-lang.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=13

OpenOffice.org in three SA languages for Software Freedom Day

"In celebration of this weekend's global Software Freedom Day, Translate.org.za is planning the release of the OpenOffice.org suite in three South African languages. The popular free software office suite will be available in Zulu, Afrikaans and Sepedi. Tswana is also included but in beta form."

http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=327

U.K.'s NHS licenses Sun's Java Desktop System

"The U.K.'s National Health Service said this week that it purchased 5,000 licenses for Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java Desktop System (JDS) as an alternative to Windows, in a move that could potentially open the door to greater use of the open-source software by the health agency.

The NHS is implementing a $9 billion program to upgrade its ailing IT infrastructure. It began evaluating the potential use of Sun's open-source desktop system last December. JDS includes the company's StarOffice productivity suite, a GNOME desktop and the Mozilla Web browser, which Sun has touted as a comprehensive open-source alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows."

http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/desktops/story/0,10801,95531,00.html

Novell SA implements wall-to-wall Linux

"Novell has not only become the biggest thing in Linux lately, but the company has taken the decision to implement open source solutions on its internal systems. Novell SA, however, is pioneering this worldwide decision by being the first to implement total wall-to-wall Linux and open source solutions from servers to desktops.

The global company recently passed a mandate whereby the company would have to pursue the adoption of OpenOffice across all of its regions. Novell SA, under the leadership of Stafford Masie, has taken it a step further and has decided to implement Linux and open source software across its entire enterprise."

""We will be running OpenOffice as our office environment and have loaded all the filters needed to ensure that people can still access and open Microsoft documents. With OpenOffice they can even save these documents as a .doc. We have also implemented SuSE 9 desktops on a Ximian desktop environment and the Evolution e-mail client," states Singh"

http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/software/2004/0408040805.asp?A=BAP&S=Business%20Applications&O=FPIN

Additional reporting:

http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=319

(Vietnam) Students get free access to StarOffice software

"Vietnamese students and teachers can use StarOffice 7 software free-of-charge in compiling documents, calculating, drawing and saving data at home or schools.

An agreement to this effect was signed on Monday by Sun Microsystems Director Andrew Lim in charge of South Asian education and research and Vice Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan."

http://www.vnagency.com.vn/NewsA.asp?LANGUAGE_ID=2&CATEGORY_ID=32&NEWS_ID=114025

Sun Deals Desktops Down Under

"Initially, Sun will install its StarOffice software in 1,500 desktops in 120 offices. The goal is to connect up to 3,000 users to the new system. Sun said its future plans include stocking the RTA's back-end infrastructure with its other software products including the Sun Java System Portal Server, Sun Java System Access Manager, Sun Java System Identity Manager and Sun Java System Directory Server Enterprise Edition software."

http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3397671

OpenOffice.org Team Cautiously Optimistic On AOL Office

"Members of the OpenOffice.org community are greeting yesterday's announcement of a new version of OpenOffice.org with cautious optimism."

"As more product information is revealed about AOL Office, the OpenOffice.org team is sure to get the answers they seek. And the community will get a lesson in the pros and cons of open source commoditization."

http://linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2004081301526NWDTSW

UN body releases desktop Linux guide

"A UN-funded organisation has produced a Linux desktop user guide to encourage the take-up of Linux in developing countries.

A Linux desktop manual for novice PC users has been produced by a UN-funded organisation, the International Open Source Network (IOSN). The manual has been produced to encourage developing countries to use open-source software. It includes basic information on how to manage files, browse the Web and produce OpenOffice documents on a Linux PC."

"The Linux user manual is available online in OpenOffice and PDF format."

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39164367,00.htm

LinuxWorld San Francisco Awards

"Winners of Product Excellence Awards Announced at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo; Awards recognize the best products and services on the exhibit floor

[...]

Best Productivity/Business Application
Sun Microsystems: StarOffice and Migration Tools"

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040804005205&newsLang=en

New Book: "OpenOffice.org Macros Explained"

"This book provides an introduction to the creation and management of macros in OpenOffice. Numerous examples and explanations demonstrate proper techniques and discuss known problems and solutions. The underlying data structure is discussed and techniques are introduced to evaluate OpenOffice objects, facilitating the use of returned objects in the absence of sufficient documentation."

More information about the book can be found at:

http://www.pitonyak.org/book/

Linux overtakes Mac OS?

"One analyst at IDC believes that this has already happened. "Linux captured the number two spot as desktop operating system in 2003," said IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky in a recent interview.

By 2007 IDC estimates that Linux will have 6 per cent of the desktop market in terms of units, Kusnetzky said. "

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=9336&Page=1&pagePos=1

Desktop Linux offers challenge to "Microsoft world"

"MIT Technology Review has published an informative article about the current state of Linux on the desktop and the challenge it poses to Microsoft. Wade Roush examines the usage and market share Linux is realizing in the enterprise and public sector worldwide. Reiterating IDC estimates that Linux now claims more desktops worldwide than Apple, the article suggests that Linux's 3 percent market share will double by 2006."

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8719735054.html

July 2004

OpenOffice.org learns Welsh

"OpenOffice.org, Sun’s open source office software package, is now available in Welsh from Meddal.com. The package includes a word processor, spreadsheet, drawing and presentations package, and a Welsh language spell checker."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/22/mewngofnodi/

Canadian university picks Xandros Linux desktop for laptops

"Xandros has announced that Canada's Acadia University has selected the Xandros Desktop Operating System (OS) as the Linux offering for its undergraduate program. The Nova Scotia-based facility, credited as the first university in Canada to integrate notebook computers into the curriculum, is offering a customized version of Xandros on Dell D600 laptops through a three year program that is expected to outfit 9,000 laptops to students and faculty."

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7130153723.html

Press release: Allied Irish Bank Selects Sun Microsystems Java(TM) Desktop System

"Global Trend Continues as One of Ireland's Biggest Banking and Financial Services Groups Turns to Sun's Java(TM) Desktop System for a Secure, Reliable and Affordable Desktop Platform"

"Key features of the Java Desktop System include Sun's StarOffice productivity suite, a familiar look and feel and file and printing interoperability."

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=SVBIZINK3.story&STORY=/www/story/06-29-2004/0002201956&EDATE=TUE+Jun+29+2004,+11:33+AM

The Psychiatry in the County of Aarhus switches to OpenOffice

"Why OpenOffice? The Psychiatry has to change its office suite as the Corel office

suite is no longer supported/upgraded in Danish language and the file exchange format in the public sector is Word97 .DOC format. OpenOffice is an open-component product based on APIs and an XML-based file format. By changing to OpenOffice the Psychiatry saves an initial investment of DKK 4,8 mill. in license expenses to Microsoft Office. During 2004 the IT-department designs new templates and macros, program setup, and plans education, etc. in cooperation with a test group and our superusers. Finally, on 2 February 2004 OpenOffice 1.1.1 in Danish is introduced on all workstations. By Mid May 2004 OpenOffice is the sole office suite in the Psychiatry in the County of Aarhus."

http://ph.auh.dk/ookompetence/openoffice_uk.htm

Yatirimlar, Inc

"Turkish OpenOffice.org project group (tr.openoffice.org) has announced another success story with Yatirimlar, Inc. Yatirimlar publishes an adjudication newspaper every Monday in Turkish and English, and this newspaper is distributed to thousands of readers throughout Turkey. All the editors work with OpenOffice.org, so we decided to have an interview with Filiz Keskin from Yatirimlar. It can be reached at: tr.openoffice.org/yatirimlar.html (in Turkish)."

Source: Görkem Cetin

Gov't unveils open source solutions for SMEs, schools

" THE ADVANCED Science Technology Institute (ASTI), the research and development arm of the Department of Science and Technology, has developed several open source solutions designed for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and schools, INQ7.net learned over the weekend. The agency has released the latest version of its Linux desktop system called Bayanihan Linux 3.0, which features a graphical user interface (GUI) similar to Microsoft Windows, according to Chivas Sicam, ASTI senior science specialist.

[...]

However, a CD package is available for 200 pesos. This package contains an OpenOffice suite, a browser, multimedia applications, e-mail software, and a Bluetooth synchronization module, among other items."

http://www.inq7.net/inf/2004/jul/27/inf_1-1.htm

HP unveils 4-user computer with OpenOffice.org

"HP has introduced a multi-user desktop PC with MandrakeLinux. Dubbed the "441" solution, the concept system can be used by four users simultaneously.

This new PC, available from HP for 'emerging markets' targets the education market and ships with productivity applications including OpenOffice.org, educational software, developer tools, and role-based customized graphical user interfaces. The 441 boasts cost savings at 50% of acquisition costs and 65% of maintenance costs, according to the HP website."

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3020785172.html

http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?action=view&id=310&topic=Open%20Source

http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=316

OpenOffice is a workable and flexible alternative to Microsoft Office

"All this by way of introduction to my pitch for OpenOffice.org, an open-source software suite that at best is a lot more program than Works and at worst only a little less functional than Microsoft Office.

OpenOffice.org, which was popularized as Star Office from Sun Microsystems, is more than adequate for perhaps 95 percent of users. Most interestingly, it is the only free Office-style program that runs on both Windows and Linux, as well as the Macintosh, and its files are mostly (more on that later) compatible with Microsoft Office. You can buy Sun's version, which includes product support, for $79."

"Problems with Word are usually pretty simple to fix, but complex formulas in Excel occasionally generate outright spurious results. Setting up a mail list in OO isn't as bonehead simple as it is with Works. A fair number of users would like to see an integrated e-mail program and personal information manager, a la Outlook.

But the price is right, and the program is more than adequate for casual users. If you're doing anything complicated, evaluate the program yourself."

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-txdolinar3880443jul04,0,5568469.column?coll=ny-news-columnists

Free online OpenOffice.org support program available

"Enfobridge has announced a free support program for the OpenOffice.org application suite, along with the launch of a new website that offers users a way to register for support and download OpenOffice.org software. The program is available to new and existing OpenOffice.org users.

Free professional support is available online for up to 30 days, through a trial program from Enfobridge. Through DownloadOpenOffice.org, the company is offering two levels of software support. A free version gives users unlimited access to the online support staff for 30 days, and an extended 90 days support subscription provides 90 days of support for US $13.95."

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2978835938.html

UK government backed open source CMS supports OOo

"APLAWS is an Open Source Content Management System developed to assist UK local authorities deliver services online as part of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's Local e-Government Programme.

New Functionality in the latest (July 2004) release:

* Allow searching of Word, Excel, PDF and OpenOffice.org attachments

http://aplaws.sourceforge.net/"

Replace Microsoft Office with OpenOffice

"Spend a few days getting familiar with OpenOffice. Pretty soon you'll discover that it has no real liabilities. Begin exchanging documents with customers and friends, and they won't notice the difference. Once everyone in the office is familiar with the programs, you can uninstall MS Office and save yourself a bundle on licensing or renewal fees."

http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/biztools/article.php/3374141

Microsoft offers the French 60 per cent off software licences

"Microsoft has offered a 60 per cent cut off the prices of its licences for three years to the city of Paris. It's a tactic that bore no fruit in Munich when the German city government opted for open-source software on 14,000 desktops earlier this month. Will the software giant be more convincing in Paris and stop the French making the swap? Faced with the possibility of losing the French capital, Gates and chums have opted for the same tactic that they used in Bavaria when confronted with customers making eyes at Linux or OpenOffice: agreeing to take a knife to the cost of licences. According to French daily Libération, in January, Microsoft made an offer to Philipped Schil, the Paris mayoral authorities' director of information technology and systems – an offer cutting licence prices by around 60 per cent for the local government's computers, which meant some 15,000 PCs. In financial terms, the bill for three years would drop from €13.27m to €5.65m. "

http://software.silicon.com/os/0,39024651,39121786,00.htm

June 2004

OPENOFFICE.ORG ANNOUNCES VERSION 1.1.2 - HAKONE

"18 June, 2004 - 20H00 UTC

OpenOffice.org is proud to announce the immediate availability of the new 1.1.2 version of the award-winning open source office suite, codenamed Hakone.

This new version is initially available on the Windows (98/ME/NT/2000/XP), GNU/Linux (X86 and PowerPC) and Solaris (SPARC and X86) platforms.

In addition to English, builds for Czech, Danish, French, German, Japanese and Slovak are immediately available with other localisations following shortly."

http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=206

OOoConv : 10,000 conversions

OOoConv has passed 10,000 conversions !

http://www.oooconv.de/

This is a very nice performance for this tool which has been online since the 1st of January of this year. It was developed by Laurent Godard, and is hosted in Germany thanks to Patrick Prasse who has offered the hosting and the domain name.

This tool is now translated into 17 languages with the help of the whole OpenOffice.org community. The highest conversion rate is in the english language (about 40%), however some languages have only been available for a short time.

The stats given on the site show a wider use of the convertor from Writer to Word (more than 50%).

Many thanks to Laurent Godard for this tool that allow a larger availability of OOo file format, but also to Patrick Prasse, Simon Tosser, Fred Labbe and all the translators.

[Submitted by Sophie Gautier]

Ontario offers Sun's StarOffice to students

"The Ontario Ministry of Education has acquired Star Office 7 licences from Sun Microsystems Canada for all the province's 72 public and Catholic school boards, The Star Office productivity suite is being described as part of a movement to deliver superior technology to students while keeping spending in check. It is the largest- StarOffice 7 delivery in North America, with more than 2.5 million students having access to the alternative office suite on Windows.

Schools at all levels have chosen the interoperable Star Office suite instead of more expensive office productivity products because they can re-invest saved funds into other projects for students, the ministry stated.

StarOffice software is an open-source based, comprehensive office productivity suite that runs on Solaris, Windows and Linux and is compatible with Microsoft Office file formats. The StarOffice suite has an intuitive interface and includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing and database capabilities."

http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040527.gtsun0527/BNStory/Technology/

Case Study: Hentzenwerke Publishing switches to Linux

"The third function was to determine if we were going to get hung up with exchanging data with outside entities. As with internal data conversion, this step turned out to be a non-issue. OpenOffice.org reads Microsoft Office files with ease, although we're finding more and more people are sending files in Adobe .PDF format, which is also readable by a variety of open source tools that come standard with popular distributions. And the graphical images that we exchange are also platform-independent."

http://software.newsforge.com/software/04/05/28/1936211.shtml?tid=132&tid=2&tid=82&tid=94

Sun lands bank deal for Java Desktop System

"Sun Microsystems' Java Desktop System (JDS) is to be deployed on 7,500 desktops throughout Allied Irish Bank's (AIB) branches. The network will run the Linux-based JDS software, and the deployment includes the migration of branch applications. The roll-out is planned for next year as part of AIB's New Branch Banking Platform."

http://www.computing.co.uk/News/1156272

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1618126,00.asp

Munich Seeks Bids For Municipal Linux Migration

"The city of Munich in Germany will officially kick off its much publicized Linux migration project on July 1 but it remains unclear which vendors will nail the $40 million contract, a spokesman said."

"The project entails the migration of 14,000 desktop and notebook computers from Microsoft Windows and Office software to Linux and OpenOffice."

"In the same press release, the city said it had entered a pilot project with German applications giant SAP to adapt SAP for OpenOffice."

"Meanwhile, Novell announced a major Linux win with another European city even as Munich begins the vendor selection process for its 40,000 seat migration. On Tuesday, Novell's SUSE Linux subsidiary announced it had landed a contract to migrate the server infrastructure of the largest city in Norway " Bergen -- from Unix and Windows servers to a Linux infrastructure based on SUSE Enterprise Server 8 platform. The deal will impact 50,000 users, according to a statement released by SUSE."

http://www.internetwk.com/allStories/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=22100148

City of Treuchtlingen

The City of Treuchtlingen is using StarOffice in a Sun Ray ultra-thin client environment. The interesting part of the German article below is the link to an end user survey. According to the survey the users are very happy with the new environment. Here is one sample statement from the survey:

"Compared with the former equipment (MS Windows NT4/Novell/Zen 1997-2001) I like the new environment

0% absolutely not

25% similarly well

50% better

16,67% I would like to have it at home, too."

http://www.pro-linux.de/news/2004/6925.html

http://www.open-government.org/index.php?id=93

City of Wolfsburg evaluates Linux Desktop

According to the articles mentioned below the City of Wolfsburg will have 21 employees testing a Linux desktop in parallel to their existing Windows desktop.

http://www.pressebox.de/index.php?boxid=20858&sid=searchengine_sid

http://www.golem.de/0406/31511.html

France looks to open-source in challenge to Microsoft

"Civil Service Minister Renaud Dutreil told Reuters that France wants to use open-source software providers to resupply part of the almost 1 million state computers under a government cost-cutting drive designed to trim a bulging public deficit. "The competition is open," he said. "My estimate is that we can cut the state software bill at least in half."

At stake, in the case of office suite software alone, is about $362.5 million worth of software to be introduced to state computers over three years. Savings on operating systems could be of a similar amount, officials said. "

http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/0,10801,93946,00.html

Successful migration to OOo

Summary of article into English from Dutch:

The CIBG (Brussels, Belgium) switched about 100 users to OpenOffice.org for practical reasons rather than the basis of ideology. The migration went smoothly.

http://www.cibg.irisnet.be/ci/NL/Supports/Communicatie/Press (Dutch)

Battle of the giants

"COMPUTER giants Sun Microsystems and Microsoft are battling it out for dominance in the Hungarian education sector.

On May 4, Sun announced that it had concluded a deal with the Hungarian Education Ministry which would make the application suite StarOffice 7 available for free to staff and students at all of Hungary's 5,500 schools and 67 higher education institutions.

The program has previously operated successfully in other countries, but has only now been introduced in Hungary."

http://www.budapestsun.com/full_story.asp?ArticleId=%7B7DB0F14CAE8349C590672A6DBDC6A5C5%7D&From=

PC Gemilang: Linux outsells Windows

" Ten thousand PC Gemilang units were sold in the first few months following the brand’s debut, of which more than 7,000 were Linux-based machines. Pikom said the Linux PC generated the highest demand due to its attractive price.

The PC Gemilang project was kicked off in March with two models: A RM988 PC running a Linux-based operating system and bundled with the OpenOffice productivity suite; and a RM1,147 desktop with the Bahasa Malaysia version of the Microsoft Windows XP operating system and Works Suite 2004."

http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2004/6/23/technology/8282356&sec=technology

NSW Roads kicks out Exchange for Sun, deploys Mozilla

"The NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) will migrate 1500 users across 120 offices from Microsoft Exchange to Sun’s Java Enterprise System messaging and calendar servers for e-mail and calendaring.

As part of the contract, the RTA will also deploy Sun’s Staroffice productivity suite for wordprocessing, spreadsheets and presentation development; the open source Mozilla browser will be used for accessing e-mail and calendar information."

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;148604439;fp;16;fpid;0

Novell Australia leads global Linux migration, dumps MS Office

"The migration, which will see staff across the globe using SuSE Linux systems running OpenOffice, is partly motivated by broader commercial concerns."

"However, Novell Asia Pacific CIO Sam Gennaoui said that there was also a basic financial argument for the shift. "We are like any other company; we still have ROIs to deliver," he said."

"Around 90 per cent all of the company's 350 Asia-Pacific staff, half of whom are based in Australia, have started using OpenOffice as a replacement for Microsoft's Office suite.

Reaction so far has been positive. "There always tends to be some pushback from users, but there's a sense of willingness to embrace the new technology," Gennaoui said. The local operation is "way ahead of the movement" in the rest of Novell, he added. "We have a smaller base of users and we're more flexible."

Novell has also developed a number of custom enhancements to OpenOffice to help migrate common internal document templates. The source code for those enhancements will be made available to the broader OpenOffice community."

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;526044789;fp;16;fpid;0

StarOffice slashes seat costs

"IT wasn't long ago that Microsoft Office, at $500-plus a seat, was the only option for businesses seeking an integrated office suite. Times are changing, however.

Sun Microsystems is slowly winning over large business customers to its StarOffice 7, which costs $50 a user.

IDC analyst Megan Dahlgren says Sun's success is based on its reputation for high-quality support, coupled with deep discounting aimed at getting StarOffice widely adopted by government and big business.

StarOffice is based on the open-source OpenOffice.org, both of which offer similar functions to Microsoft Office in spreadsheets, word processing and presentations.

StarOffice product manager Laurie Wong says Sun Java Desktop is a complete package made up of StarOffice, Ximian Evolution (an Outlook alternative) and the Adabase database.

OpenOffice.org and StarOffice claim several technology advantages over Microsoft Office, including the ability to output PDF files from the application without needing extra software, the option of using file formats based on industry-standard XML that are easily readable by other programs, and cross-platform versions of the package for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris.

XML brings an important change in the way office packages work, enabling storage of structured content in a file, allowing the information to be reused easily in other applications.

Wong says Microsoft's file format is a binary file wrapped in some XML tags. "It's XML only as long as you use another Microsoft application, or one authorised by the company to read it, which is not in the spirit of XML," he says.

In comparison, the OpenOffice.org and StarOffice binary file format is a zipped version of an XML file, allowing other software or users to see the file format in readable XML.

Sewing machine maker Janome Australia has found the cost savings of the OpenOffice.org package outweigh the inconvenience of migrating staff away from Microsoft Office, IT manager Scott Langford says.

The biggest challenge was educating users to import Microsoft Office documents into the software, he says."

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,9821373%5E15382%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

OpenOffice.org in 5th FISL (International Open Source Forum) in Brazil

The coordination of the OOoBr is celebrating the results of its participation in the 5th FISL, held in Porto Alegre, from June 3rd to 5th, 2004.

Altogether there were 4 days of activities (one pre-event extra); 3 companies sponsoring the stand of OpenOffice.org.br; 9 hours of panels, meetings and presentations in the pre-event and in the Forum; over 800 users registered in the stand of OooBr, from 23 Brazilian States, Argentina, Uruguay, England, United States, France, Spain and Germany; 100 t-shirts sold in 3 days; 17 raffle winners of books and t-shirts, and 200Kg of food donated by the project, the sponsors and the OOo community to the “Fome Zero” program.

More information:

[english]http://www.openoffice.org.br/saite/conteudo.php?inc=noticias/ver_noticia&id_aba=57&id_noticia=14

[español]http://www.openoffice.org.br/saite/conteudo.php?inc=noticias/ver_noticia&id_aba=57&id_noticia=13

EU eGovernment policy-makers encourage the uptake of open document formats

http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/jsps/index.jsp?fuseAction=showDocument&parent=news&documentID=2387

See also:

Advantages of the OpenOffice.org XML File Format Used by the StarOffice Office Suite

http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/whitepapers/index.html

European Commission's IDA TAC Publishes Recommendations on Open Document Formats.

"You can find some of the materials on the EC Web site. Our basic points were first that the Office XML formats are incomplete (no PowerPoint, missing pieces in Excel), second that the licensing terms are kind of scary (our lawyer's acid-tongued comments have been excised from the online papers), third that the OO.o format is much more reusability-oriented, and finally that Microsoft has iron control over every aspect of their XML, while the OO.o format is well on its way to being an OASIS standard."

http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2004-06-17-a.html

May 2004

OOoCon 2004: Call For Papers

The second worldwide OpenOffice.org is approaching quickly. The conference team is still looking for more speakers, exhibitors and sponsors. Thus, submit your abstracts today!

http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=announce

Hungarian Native-Lang project

The Hungarian Native-Lang project lead by Andras Timar has opened its doors and is already bringing some fresh air to the Confederation by having been the first to implement fully localized webpages to OpenOffice.org and removing the default english links and navbars.

Azeri Native-Lang project

"Thanks to the mentoring of Charles-H Schulz, Rail Aliev and Gorkem Cetin, The Azeri project lead by Emin Husyenov has started to work rather quickly after his setup phase and is now almost completed.

Upcoming Native-Lang projects

Bengali (bn) and Croatian (hr) Native-Lang Projects to be soon set up; Armenian (am) and Ukrainian Projects in queue, but they should follow soon after Louis has checked the necessary steps with them. More on the reform of the Native-Lang Confederation, and the common development of right-to-left (RTL) lanuages (currently focused on Thai, Arabic and Hebrew) in the Native-Lang newsletter:

http://native-lang.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=3143

Courtesy of Charles-H.Schulz, Native-Lang Confederation

http://native-lang.openoffice.org/

Linux in action: A public library's success story

"Over the past year, the Howard County (Md.) Public Library has migrated more than 200 public PCs from Windows 98 and Windows NT to Linux. These PCs are used both to surf the Internet and to access the library's catalogues. NewsForge recently spoke with Brian Auger, associate director of the library, and the IT team responsible for the migration. We wanted to learn more about why and how it was accomplished, and how pleased they are with the results.

...

Using LFS as a starting point, Luis and Mike were able to build a minimal Linux kernel that included only the functionality required by the "kiosk style" machines. They added the Gnome desktop environment, the Mozilla browser, and OpenOffice.org to complete the picture. They call the new distribution "Lumix." It's a combination of their first names, Luis and Mike. By the way, it's pronounced loo-mix, not lummox, which is something else entirely."

http://os.newsforge.com/os/04/05/03/1520209.shtml?tid=2&tid=82&tid=94

Brussels embraces OpenOffice.org

“C.I.R.B has a mission of technological watch driven by the Government of Brussels” says Miss Lökkhana Quaremme, C.I.R.B PR manager, “and will deliver a positioning report about OpenSource opportunities for Local Government Agencies”. The actual feedback seems to be a positive first step.

...

After a product evaluation period, the 100 users got an dedicated information program, followed by the installation of OpenOffice.org 1.1 on every desktop, and a training. Document templates were migrated and support implemented thru an internal and online F.A.Q.

...

“We did not face any heavy technical issues, just small details to fix” says finally Miss Lökkhana Quaremme.

French article:

http://www.toolinux.com/lininfo/news/news/news20040524005103.htm

Dutch article:

http://www.cibg.irisnet.be/ci/NL/Supports/Communicatie/Press

Sonneburgh: OpenOffice.org deployment in Rotterdam

"In 2003 there has been a noticable trend of public organisations considering to migrate (or already migrating) to OpenOffice[.org] (1) . Large-scale examples include the French Ministry of Interior and the city of Munich, but small cases are also common. This paper looks at such a small-scale application in a residential care centre for ill or elderly people, located in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. We look at what has been done and why it makes sense for them to use OpenOffice[.org]."

http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/jsps/index.jsp?fuseAction=showDocument&documentID=1799&parent=chapter&preChapterID=0-452-470

Scottish schools get help with StarOffice

"The Scottish Executive has signalled a possible move away from Microsoft Office with the signing on Thursday of a deal that will enable it to manage licences for Sun's StarOffice7 suite of office applications.

As a result of the deal, any school, college, university or local authority in Scotland will be able to ask the Executive to manage its licences.

The Executive has not actually bought any licences -- which are provided at no cost to educational establishments under Sun's StarOffice 7 Education Licensing programme. But the deal will allow it to provide licensing support for 2,833 Scottish schools - which would mean 738,597 students and 50,048 teachers using StarOffice if every

school decided to take advantage of the offer."

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39020384,39153936,00.htm

Migration Study: Health First

"There are two big IT projects going on at Health First Inc., and Linux is at the heart of both of them. Health First, a family of Brevard County, Fla., nonprofit health care facilities, is migrating its desktops to OpenOffice[.org] and bringing in many Novell's Nterprise Linux Services. Weaning 6,000 IT users off of Microsoft Office 97 on 3,500 PCs is no small feat. It's manageable, however, if an IT shop takes it one step at a time, according to Danny J. Wall and Daniel Bray, Health First IT network administrators. Their primary pain comes from integrating OpenOffice[.org] with Health First's almost 500 applications.

In part 1 of this in-depth migration story, Wall and Bray explain why Health First is backing away from Microsoft Office and choosing OpenOffice[.org]. Next, they describe the OpenOffice[.org] implementation process. Then, in part three, Wall tells us how Health First is bringing in and will be using Novell's new Linux services."

Part 1:

http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/qna/0,289202,sid39_gci964811,00.html

Part 2:

http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/qna/0,289202,sid39_gci964821,00.html

Part 3:

http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/qna/0,289202,sid39_gci964823,00.html

StarOffice: ready for the big time

"StarOffice is already very popular and has become something of a standard on Linux PCs often in the guise of OpenOffice[.org], its open source brother. Sun acquired Star Division GmbH five years ago, with the clear intention of competing directly with Microsoft. It has taken time for Sun to establish a competitive position, though. StarOffice never got strong reviews until version 6, which debuted in early 2002. It is just now in version 7, which is attracting even more attention because of the quality of the release."

"For large organizations looking to reduce the costs of the desktop significantly, Star Office looks compelling. Siemens did a trial project to test the Ximian/OpenOffice/Linux combination with office staff in Germany last year. (Open Office has some minor differences to StarOffice, such as fewer fonts and graphics) Siemens concluded that changing to Linux and StarOffice was no more expensive than a Windows upgrade - in terms of training. On top of that, it saved 20 to 30 per cent in administration costs, 50 per cent in hardware costs and 80 per cent in licensing costs. Pretty compelling when you think about it."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/29/staroffice_reaches_maturity/

New White Paper about the OpenOffice.org XML File Format

This new white paper explains the advantages of the OpenOffice.org XML file format used by all applications of the StarOffice software. Developers also get a basic introduction to the different tools and resources available for leveraging the XML file format programmatically.

The white paper can be found at at:

http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/whitepapers/index.html

Article: Programming with the StarOffice 7 Software Development Kit

"While StarOffice software offers a full-featured office suite, you can make it even better by extending it with the StarOffice Software Development Kit (SDK). You can create customized extensions for your own organization or full-featured plug-ins that other organizations may want to license."

http://developers.sun.com/techtopics/desktop/reference/techart/staroffice_sdk.html

Star Wars: StarOffice Vs MS office

"Mr Pramanik said that StarOffice is fast gaining ground, citing a recent large 10,000 user win from United India and 8,000 units from the Haryana government as an example."

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/638623.cms

Sun-Microsoft deal: Questionable significance for OpenOffice.org

"In January 2001, Corel announced its intentions to spin off its various Linux products and not work on broadening its WordPerfect customer base beyond its existing audience. Now Microsoft has reached an agreement with Sun, settling their $4 billion lawsuit for $1.6 billion. Since Microsoft's total payment to Sun will come to well over 10 times the amount it paid to Corel, I wondered what impact if any this might have on OpenOffice.org? I asked Dr. Louis Suarez-Potts, community mnager for OpenOffice.org and Chair of the Community Council, what the possible repercussions might be for the popular open source office suite."

http://software.newsforge.com/software/04/04/19/2117259.shtml?tid=130&tid=82&tid=93

April 2004

New Native-Lang Projects to be created

Two new Native-Lang Projects are on their way to be created: The Azeri Project led by Emin Huseynov is at this moment in his pre-set up phase. Emin wanted to start the Localization effort first, but insisted on providing his community a meeting place here on OpenOffice.org. The domain name hasn't been set up yet (no JCA nor ssh keys submitted). However Charles-H. Schulz has spent some times helping out Emin off list and asked Rail Aliev and Görkem Cetin from the Russian and Turkish Project to bring Emin and his community on the right track.

Ukrainian Native-Lang Project proposal accepted: Led by Mr Vad V. Mashckoff (Adiel), backed by the Alt Linux Community and OSDN Ukraine, the project will soon start. The Localization effort however is being undertaken by Sergyi Kudryk and will remain a separate initiative on SourceForge.

Talk-shows & Politics

After two months of off list work involving discussions with many native-lang leads, Charles-H. Schulz comes up with what he believes will be the "Next Big Thing" © for the Native-Lang Confederation.

Proposal for the Directorates for the Native-Lang Confederation posted and voted on; despite a big majority in favor of the reform Charles-H. Schulz halted the process in order to propose a set of ideas to be implemented that would acknowledge and prevent possible risks of failure.

Software Patents not welcomed at all: the Homepage of OpenOffice.org and many native-lang projects as well have displayed their solidarity agains the Software Patents in the European Union. Simon Brouwer, lead of the Dutch (nl) native-lang community launched the momentum and got many followers.

Native-Lang Confederation Guidelines revised and augmented by Charles-H. Schulz: new policies on projects'setup and creation processes and dispute settlement policies inside the native-lang projects.

Localizations

Ainu Localization effort started: Despite some cultural issues making the translation of technical terms difficult, the Ainu people will get OpenOffice.org in their own language; Hirano Kazunari, a member of the Japanese Native-lang Project works on it with several other volunteers. Louis proposed to interview the Ainu localization team and sent them questions to the team. The team has answered them so the final interview will soon be published as an article linked from the homepage.

Pavel Janik has extracted the Readme files of the upcoming 1.1.2 in order to allow the native-lang projects to translate them and hence provide 100% translated builds in every available language.

Many localized 1.1.1 builds released: Prague gets multilingual: French, German, Danish, Turkish, Japanese, Italian and many more available for download.

Development & Software

OOVirg, FontOO, OOConv get translated in several languages: after having included OOVirg in the OOo software suite, the add-ons family from the Native-Lang projects are getting a widespread use thanks to their translations in several languages. Last to date but not least, OOConv has been translated in Hungarian. Congratulations to their authors and translators!

Marketing & Communication

Several leads, such as Marko Gronroos (fi) and Davide Dozza (it) expressed the idea to have another web site for marketing and users' support purposes. Albeit the discussion got stopped somewhere, the idea is already implemented in some sense through the many different sites and portals about OOo in specific languages and countries. CollabNet is not that easy to use, after all....

German Poster Contest for OpenOffice.org: congratulations to the winners!

The OpenOffice.org Schools Project Mascot Competition was won by Andrea Maggioni of Italy. Thanks to Ian Lynch for this contest that was made possible by the OOoEdu initiative

(http://marketing.openoffice.org/education/schools/).

Live from Japan: The OpenOffice.org's Official Users Guide will be available on the 23rd of April in the bookstores of Japan, thanks to the members of the Japanese Native-Lang Project.

Wal-Mart teams with Sun on Linux PCs

"Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has begun selling PCs manufactured by Microtel Computer Systems Inc. this week featuring Sun Microsystems Inc.'s alternative operating system based on Linux and its StarOffice productivity software, according to Wal-Mart's Web site.

Sun's Java Desktop System (JDS) is available in Microtel PCs with processors from both Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The systems are being sold on Walmart.com at prices ranging from $298 to $798, depending on configuration."

http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,91813,00.html

OpenOffice.org at Ministry of Health

By using OpenOffice.org, the Congress of Brazil could save 5 million reals, i.e. 15% of the IT budget. In addition, the Ministry of Health will migrate this year 30% of their computers to free software. Another very interesting initiative: thousand government employees will get training about free software in April so that they can share their knowledge with their colleagues, once the migration has been completed.

French Article:

http://linuxfr.org/2004/04/08/15959.html

One of the Spanish source articles explicitly mentions OpenOffice.org and Linux. According to that article Argentina is also not renewing their contracts with Microsoft.

Spanish Article:

http://softwarelibre.cl/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=311&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

310,000 copies of Catalan version distributed

"Next Sunday 25 of April, one of the biggest newspapers in Spain, el Periodico de Catalunya[1] is going to give away for free a copy of a CD-ROM that we at Softcatalà put together with software localised into Catalan. The Catalan government is paying the cost of producing the copies of the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM includes OpenOffice.org 1.1, Abiword, Mozilla, FireFox, and other free software tools and documents localised into Catalan by the people arround the Softcatalà community. Windows and GNU/Linux versions are included.

You can see how the CD-ROM looks like at:

http://www.softcatala.org/~jmas/cd.jpg

The newspaper has produced 310.000 copies of the CD-ROM This is the large action never done in Catalonia to distribute free software to end-users. It's so cool to put some many hours of efforts in translation and software developers in the end-users hands!.

Regards,

Jesús.

[1] http://www.elperiodico.es/”

Source: Jesús Corrius (jesus@softcatala.org)

10,000 Seats in Finance

"... i am in the middle of a huge OO implementation on a Spanish bank. We are done with the pilot which calls to implement 10.000 OOo suites in a major bank in Spain. Hopefully, within a month I will forward the business case which will be translated into 3 different languages to be used in other countries as an example of OO TCO."

Source: aromeo@lared.es (found on the OpenOffice.org marketing list)

The Israeli finance ministry plans to distribute 150,000 copies of OpenOffice

"According to the site, the goal of this step, is to encourage free choice, and to lessen the digital gap. It note the need for support of organizations that can help the distribution to the general population using Internet sites, advertising in newspapers and internal distribution within the organizations themselves. There is also a need, according to the site, for training using the Internet and telephone support."

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/9576/

Gati Limited (India) uses OpenOffice.org

"Gati Limited – A leader in the express cargo industry in India – is reaping remarkable benefits from its gargantuan 200 man year effort spent in designing its own customized ERP solution, called GEMS (Gati Enterprise Management Solution).

[...]

Describing how Gati has taken the Open Source trend forward, Ravikumar explained, “We have 1000 desktops out of which hardly 10 users are on MS Office. The remaining have migrated to OpenOffice. We are also using iPlanet for our mail server, instead of MS Exchange.”"

http://www.cxotoday.com/cxo/jsp/index.jsp?section=News&subsection=Business&subsection_code=1&file=template1.jsp&storyid=846

French OpenOffice.org Add-ons

"Some new tools are also available in french :

• Cart'OOo : a fabulous tutorial assorted with map libraries for the Gallery which allow you to create maps with Draw

• PincOOo : will allow you to reproduce the style in the same that the brush do it in Microsoft Office

• Multisave : in only one clic, save your documents in the file format of you choice SXW/SXC - PDF - DOC/XLS

• SHOOo : a PHP class which allow to create a HTML Table and a Calc document from the result of a SQL query or from the content of a PHP table, illustrating the XML file format of OpenOffice.org and how it could be processed out of the suite."

Different web pages with screen shots:

http://www.framasoft.net/rubrique90.html

http://home.t-online.de/home/gfriege/dmaths/

http://soshg.free.fr/cartooo/demo1.htm

http://oootools.free.fr/fooox/

http://www.jdisoftware.co.uk/pages/epdf-home.php

Source: Sophie Gautier (sgauti@firstnet1.com)

Linux User & Developer Awards - Best Open Source Project: OpenOffice.org

"Linux User & Developer magazine last night announced the winners of this year's prestigious Linux User & Developer Awards at a gala event held in London's Royal Lancaster Hotel. Hosted by comedian and renowned comedy scriptwriter, Barry Cryer, the night was a spectacular success - the biggest and best awards show in the Linux industry. There were 12 panel-nominated award categories, with best Open Source Project going to Sun Microsystems for OpenOffice.org."

http://www.btnsn.com/btnsn/pr_view.asp?id=5276&dt=&cid=8652

March 2004

OASIS Milestone Reached

"An important milestone in the evolution of a universal XML file format has been achieved. In a unanimous vote, the OASIS Open Office XML Format TC has formally approved the Open Office Specification 1.0 Draft 12.

The completed phase one specification now goes before the OASIS general membership for comment and approval. The discussion period and vote date have yet to be determined."

http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=discuss&msgId=1122898

OpenOffice.org BizDev Project

"We are proud to announce the opening of the Business Development project of OpenOffice.org (BizDev) The goals of this project are to build a business partners' network around OpenOffice.org .

In this regard the BizDev project is the place where commercial leads, and business and consulting information can be discussed. It is a project for services professionals who are looking for customers, projects, and for contributing the way they want. Several companies have already joined the BizDev project. Among them is the Olliance Group, based in Palo Alto, California, a consulting firm pushing the adoption of Open Source Software and open standards in large companies. They believe in this project and think that letting businesses participate and generate wealth around OpenOffice.org is a major asset in today's industry.

"We are seeing and hearing a need for a more supportive and integrated approach from the community to address users requirements in deploying Open Source solutions. Creating a project where service providers can present themselves, communicate, and discuss customer’s needs and topics such as “best practices” is a bold, innovative, and needed step by OpenOffice.org” said Andrew Aitken, Managing Partner, Olliance Group, a leading OSS strategic consulting firm.

As a first step, the BizDev project volunteers have built a business directory called the Consultants' Directory (http://bizdev.openoffice.org/consultants.html ) where consulting businesses get listed in order to maximize their visibility to the public and the community. This list already provides a large amount of information and is still growing."

Source: Charles-H. Schulz (BizDev Project Lead)

http://bizdev.openoffice.org/

OpenOffice.org 1.1.1RC3

"Release Candidate 3 of OpenOffice.org 1.1.1 is ready for download.

http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.1rc3/index.html

It incorporates numerous bug fixes and is cleaner than RC1. However, we are asking you, the community, to make sure that there are no outstanding issues remaining.

Therefore, please download RC3 and test it. If you find any bugs or regressions, file an issue describing it. To learn how to file an issue, visit our QA Project:

http://qa.openoffice.org/issue_handling/project_issues.html

This build is so far in English."

Source: Louis Suarez-Potts

OOo 1.1 Portuguese Native-Lang translation

The N-L Portuguese team released the OpenOffice.org 1.1 in Portuguese.

For about about 4 months we've worked in the glossary and on the HUGE GSI file of OOo1.1. We've faced some problemas with the build, mostly because of the Windows build and some template problems, that Olivier Hallot from the PT-BR Team helped us solve it. For him, one big hug for the important and essential help.

Also, the QA released 3 public RC's, on which the last one, had been downloaded in 3 days, 2.000 times for Windows and 400 for Linux.

More information can be found here (in Portuguese):

http://pt.openoffice.org/html/ooopt-marketing-pressrelease-1.1f_PT.html

Source: Louis Suarez-Potts

FontOOo 1.0

"Please find here the official announcement of FontOOo 1.0

Based on DicOOo principle, this tool let you install free fonts into OOo (no system installation is performed).

You'll find FontOOo at: http://oooconv.free.fr/fontooo

This is an official call for testers and translators in the same spirit as DicOOo.

For contributing to your native lang translation, please refer to issue

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.