Toolkit

Story: OpenOffice nears download milestone

Posted by: Jean Nguyen (Wednesday 19 October 2005, 5:05 PM)

Congratulations! 50 million is a huge number and a clear sign the project has traction. It's big enough and broad enough that everyone can feel confident OpenOffice is here to stay. (Being open source helps strengthen this confidence as well, of course.)

The pace of downloads is sure to increase with the imminent release of OOo 2.0. However, to move to the next plateau, I think OOo is going to have to get beyond downloads and into OEM space. Which PC hardware maker will be the first to promote a preinstalled copy of OpenOffice as a competitive advantage? It would cost them nothing yet save their customers a great deal of money, generating goodwill and loyalty.

What about internet providers? Why not a free copy of the OOo installer on the discs you receive from AOL, PeoplePC, Earthlink, Comcast, or whatever? Again, their marketers could tout they give their customers free copies of software "worth $400!"

I think it will happen, despite this being the absolute stronghold of MS' market power. Frodo and Sam are probably heading for Mt. Doom this very minute, outside our gaze and knowledge. But we'll all see the result.