Enterprise open source Toolkit

Story: The problems with open source

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I totally agree with this article, when it comes to corporate users. The author didn't specify that this was his intended audience, but from the language of its content, I would say it is. On an "end user" basis, this article carries very little weight. End users very rarely go to training classes for computer use, so the training aspect is moot. End users formatting is minimal at best, so the few times the formating does differ, it won't matter.

There are a few things that the author leaves out of his article, even in regards to corporate users.

1) OpenOffice.org's built-in "Export to PDF" feature. Whether it is a presentation, a spreadsheet, or a 500 page document, if the receiptent of the file doesn't need to alter the file - PDF is better than Word or Excel anyway. And exporting a document to PDF ensures formating continuality. Presentations can even be exported to Flash.

2) Paid support is available. While OpenOffice.org itself does not offer paid support, there are a number of groups and individuals who do offer such support, and those are listed on the OpenOffice.org website. Also, Sun Microsystems, the host of the OOo codebase, offers StarOffice, which is OOo plus some added filters and templates. Sun offers corporate-level support for StarOffice, which is available on WIndows as well as Linux and Solaris.

3) It is all about choice. OpenOffice.org (and it's Star of a bigger brother) is not the only office suite available for Linux. KOffice, AbiWord, Scribus, and others are out there. With CrossOver Office, you can even use Microsoft's office suite on Linux.

I hope this helps clarifies things.

-Chad Smith
OpenOffice.org user, on Linux, WIndows, and Mac (NeoOffice/J on Mac)

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