Showing posts with label OpenOffice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OpenOffice. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

IBM supports openoffice

IBM announced that they are going to support OpenOffice and launch it as Lotus Symphony.
IBM will also put 35 programmers to the Symphony-cum-OpenOffice development effort.
Kudos for all this.
With IBM's backing OpenOffice will certainly be benefited and we might see OO emerge as an worthy competitor.
However, I have one slight doubt.
Why is IBM launching it as Lotus Symphony ?
Why not simply support it as OO ?
Why is this re-branding necessary ?

OpenOffice is now a very familiar open source application. Almost all desktop Linux know about it. Even some of Windows users use it and like it. Now one fine day when IBM introduces Lotus Symphony; will that not result in confusion in peoples mind ?
Users like me will see that same product ( at least more or less the same product) is being offered in two flavors
1) OpenOffice
2) Lotus Symphony.
Which one to choose and why ?

Will Lotus Symphony be having more features than vanila OO ?
If no, then why not just stick to OO ?

IBM has with this OO initiative tried to further promote its Lotus brand.
If IBM really wants to help OO, then it should simply help OO with its talented developers, provide commercial support and promote OO as such.
This in my opinion would be truly helping OO.
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