Re: IBM investment in i - can open source software help sales?

I am curious: have you (or anyone) compared Symphony to OpenOffice?

Haven't yet, though I did read an article about it in a recent
IBMSystemsMag.com edition - I think it was Kim Green that wrote about it.

Don't know if I will every use Symphony, but I am excited about it because
of the fact that IBM is behind it will make it "more safe" for corporations
to start adopting it.

Concerning compatibility issues, I had those with the .docx format in M$
Office 2007. OpenOffice can't open .docx files, but OxygenOffice (based on
OpenOffice) opens them just fine. Hopefully they will implement the
OxygenOffice capabilities back into the base OpenOffice.

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com

On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've used OpenOffice for several years, starting back when it was Star
Office on OS/2. I've had almost zero compatibility problems. Less, in
fact, then clients that use Microsoft and have problems when ever a new
version comes out and the boss gets his brand new machine and sends
memos to his staff that they can't read.

I am curious: have you (or anyone) compared Symphony to OpenOffice?



Aaron Bartell wrote:

And now they are giving away Lotus Symphony (OpenOffice based) :-)

I think this will be a VERY attractive avenue for businesses as most

users

don't use more than 5% of the functionality of their Microsoft Office
tooling. I have been using OpenOffice for about 1 year now and will

never

go back to buying Microsoft Office.

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com

On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:11 PM, Pat Barber <mboceanside@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

wrote:

This reminds me of the first demo IBM/Lotus gave us a
few years back on Lotus Notes.(AS/400 BP's)

The guy opened the session by saying...

"You folks can NOT make money selling Lotus Notes,
so you will need to plan on selling service agreements to
make your revenue stream."

I think every single IBM pc ever sold after that had a
free copy of Lotus SmartSuite.

I often wondered how in the world did they plan on
getting those billions of dollars back on the purchase of Lotus
giving the software away for free.

They are still working on that plan.

I'm sorry I misinterpreted you. FWIW, I think that this move toward
selling support/services rather than selling software is a trend that
will only continue to increase. If IBM i doesn't play well in this
area, it can only be harmful to the i community.

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Booth Martin
http://www.Martinvt.com
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