OpenOffice went LibreOffice, Symphony goes OpenOffice, vowe goes nowhere
by Volker Weber
Once in a while somebody sends me an ODT or ODP file. Usually somebody from the ibm.com domain. For that I keep a copy of LibreOffice arTound. It's made by the people who used to make OpenOffice until Oracle p'ed them off. My copy is currently at 3.4.5 and I believe they are working on 3.5.
Then there is OpenOffice, currently on 3.3. IBM donated their Symphony code to the project. While it is transitioning from GPL to the Apache License (no I am not going there), progress has become a bit slow. But eventually OpenOffice will come out as 4.0, at which time it replaces Symphony.
That's right folks, Symphony 3.0.1 is probably the last version that IBM puts out. If I recall correctly they will also remove Symphony from Notes. Which I believe is a good thing. You shouldn't be dragging around another boat anchor that's too big for your ship.
I never felt inclined to use Symphony, although its interface is prettier than OpenOffice or LibreOffice Both of them are stuck on an old Microsoft design. If somebody wants a free office product, I usually install LibreOffice.
With version 4 OpenOffice is likely to become the new Symphony, with the OpenOffice name. IBM will distribute an "IBM Edition", which is technically the same thing. You can pay for support though, which makes enterprise happy.
For Lotusphere, IBM asks their presenters to use Symphony. In the words of Andrew Pollack:
IBM wants the slides in Symphony's ODP format -- and has "strongly requested" that we use Symphony to present.
I prefer to spend a little money. I am using Keynote for my presentations. It's 15.99 € from the Mac store. I also use Pages if I need a formatted document, which rarely happens. I am not happy with Numbers though.
If I do get files to work with from other enterprise users, they are usually in Microsoft's formats. For those, I keep a copy of Office around.
If I could only have one Office suite, it would be Microsoft. I like both Excel and Word. But I would still buy Keynote. I believe you just have to use the best tools for best results.
Comments
I thought in another post you said, you need MS Word, because of the spell check?
I think each of the OO forks look a bit like toys.
I use pages, I love Keynote and I can live with numbers.
I remember IBM Workplace (Yes I am that old, but not old enough to forget it). They had an offline client with a very easy and simple project management tool. That's what I miss. Should have kept a copy.
Yes, Word has the best spell and grammar check.
I agree with you on Keynote and Numbers.
But Pages? Seriously, it's the worst writing program ever, if you want to do more than a pretty letter.
As long as you don't write much text htat needs serious formatting, pages might do though.
Duden Korrektor used to be a really good spell/grammar checker solution for OO. Especially since the same license can be used on OS X, Windows or Linux. There is a plug-in for MS Word as well, but unfortunately Windows only.
So to put it short but a little provocative: OO with Korrektor has the best german language spell and grammar checking on the Mac.
Reason for me to use Mac OO sometimes although otherwise I would agree with vowe's MS Mac Office / Keynote combo. Maybe adding Pages because of its Lion versioning support and iCloud integration (continue working on the iPad).
Yup, OpenOffice 4 will not be a Notes "embeded experience". Maybe not enough "Open" or "Social" ;-)
Johannes, pretty letters are never more than one page at vowe's magic flying circus.
Tobias, Word does exactly what I want.
