Submitted by IBM plans to mount its most ambitious challenge in years to Microsoft’s dominance of personal computer software, by offering free programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Steven A. Mills, senior vice president of IBM’s software group, said the programs promote an open-source document format. The company is announcing the desktop software, called IBM Lotus Symphony, at an event today in New York. The programs will be available as free downloads from the IBM Web site.
Sun open-sourced StarOffice, Google released their own online office suite, Apple is now selling their own take on office suite applications, and now IBM?
These companies do extensive research on markets before they even consider competing head-on with Microsoft. Is their research telling them Microsoft’s dominance in the office suite market has reached the apex and is now heading for the nadir? What’s going on here?
(By all means, real competition against the office suite monopoly is a great thing for consumers.)
“These companies do extensive research on markets before they even consider competing head-on with Microsoft. Is their research telling them Microsoft’s dominance in the office suite market has reached the apex and is now heading for the nadir? What’s going on here?”
Open Standards…and well not such open standards.
“The ECMA standards effort was also supported by Apple, Novell, Intel, Toshiba, NextPage, BP, Statoil, Essilor, Barclays Capital, the British Library and the US Library of Congress. Some of these are also working to provide some level of OOXML compatibility in software products, as is Corel.”
Everyone knows why Novell is on there, but check out Coral/Apple’s history…and look for big injections of cash, and what they got in return.
Not to mention Microsoft’s own Works is going freeware.
Looks like the office suite business is now a race to the bottom…
WE are not talking about freeware here, we are talking about “openness”.
Sure, you will soon be able to download MS Works for free, but your files are still in a proprietary format, what good is that to me ?
You might have a religious requirement attached to the software you use, but for most people, “free” is “free.” Works is going to compete, which is why I brought it up.
Almafeta, this has absolutely nothing to do with religion and everything to do with being able to read and edit my documents ten years down the line.
If you don’t have anything else to contribute but flamebait, consider not posting at all, why don’t you?
Documents and programs don’t go bad.
Great. I’ve got a cassette tape of some documents I made on my Vic 20. Please print them out for me so that I can re-live the heyday of proprietary computing again.
{)o,B[>~
(I still have my Vic-20, with printer and cassette drive… don’t know if the printer has ink, though.)
How about trying to open Word 6 files with either MSO 2003 or 2007? Even better, try installing Word 6 on either Vista or XP. I wonder how far you’ll get considering that it has already been proven quite impossible without the aid of a virtualized environment running a prior version (9x) of Windows.
I would like to store my information in a format that in ten years time will still be legible without my having to jump through hoops to get at. I would also like for that format to be able to be reimplemented, independently of who created it, without violating God only knows how many patents, even if the before mentioned creator of said format happens to go bankrupt or ceases to exist in some other manner.
Furthermore, software, although it may not degrade over time, still becomes obsolete. Take the situations alluded to at the top of my post; if I had been able to store my documents in the above wished for open file format, no amount of obsoleted software would be able to keep me from reading or editing my documents.
The only thing comparable at that time was TXT and RTF, both could hardly be considered comparable to an actual open document format specifically designed for use with a WYSIWYG interface.
Now please could you actually tell me where in my post you could possible see any allusion to religion?
“How about trying to open Word 6 files with either MSO 2003 or 2007? Even better, try installing Word 6 on either Vista or XP. I wonder how far you’ll get considering that it has already been proven quite impossible without the aid of a virtualized environment running a prior version (9x) of Windows. “
I don’t know about installing “Word 6” (I assume you’re talking of the horrible Mac Word 6? There was no Windows Word 6), but I can load WinWord 2 files in Word 2003 today with no problem. In particular, I have an old 400 page spec written in 1993, which is before Word implemented OLE docfiles, so we’re talking about a very old format, and I read it with no problems. Not to say that there aren’t some old documents that might have problems (due to bugs, mainly), but there’s no problem in theory. Not that it matters, as most documents in the future will be stored in publicly-spec’ed formats, so if necessary programs can be created to comprehend the format hundreds of years from now. (As long as the spec hasn’t been lost; I’ve read that NASA lost the specs to the Saturn 5 rocket that was used for the lunar Apollo missions.
)
Not only was there one, but two versions of Word6 that could be installed on Windows 9x platforms.
From the Wikipedia article relating to MS Office.
As for having no issues with opening or converting your old files, that would make you more the exception to the rule than the rule itself. All you need to do is Google ‘problems opening old Word or Excel files in MS Office (insert version here)’ and the hits start rolling in.
But enough of reading through every little pet gripe about MSO inability to handle even semi decent backwards compatibility. let’s take a more famous and very real case, i.e. MS having to set up virtualized environments to help the UK National Archives not recover, but actually read the plethora of documents they have, saved in word formats no longer legible on modern operating systems.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6265976.stm
If the only way that MS could help the UK National Archive was by using virtualization, then installing old operating systems which only then enabled them to install these old versions of they’re own software, then I have little hope for any documents that I would chose to store, in an MS format, ever being legible ten years from know without me having to practically jump through fire.
I had forgotten about WinWord 6.
But I take issue with your statement:
“As for having no issues with opening or converting your old files, that would make you more the exception to the rule than the rule itself. All you need to do is Google ‘problems opening old Word or Excel files in MS Office (insert version here)’ and the hits start rolling in. “
You know as well as I that problems with loading old files will be posted and talked about while smooth successful operations of loading old files won’t be talked of at all. Let’s not play stupid. It could be that 99% of old files are loaded correctly but that would mean that there would still be hundreds of thousands or millions of problematic cases.
I don’t know about the UK archive issue. But as I said before, the vast majority of documents from now on will be in publicly spec-ed formats so this is moot as far as I can see. And before you start advocating ODF as one format to rule them all, know that even ODF-compliant apps have difficulties reading each other’s files. That’s not a failing of ODF, it’s just the way things are regarding any format, be it RTF, ODF, .DOC, PDF, HTML, etc.
MS Works will be free and the format will be their OpenXML which is an open format. Microsoft already said that they were integrating that format into works. Happy day.
I am hoping to respond and chastise you nicely so that other’s won’t jump on you like a pack of hyenas. Read the other OSNews articles/links on MS’s methods of operation with regards to ISO and read about some of the technology used with (Un)OpenXML and evaluate whether it is legitimately worthy of being considered an open standard. If you can’t decide if it is or not, then please get head checked as soon as possible. 😉 Just because the name includes the word “open”, as described by the company itself no less, means nothing. If my name included the word “God”, would that therefore mean that unquestionably I must in fact be the God?
Edited 2007-09-19 16:54
None of that really matters. Does Microsoft and others provide translators so that OpenXML will indeed work with OpenOffice and soon enough KOffice? Yes they do. Has Apple and Corel the makers of WordPerfect said they will support OpenXML in their products? Yes they have. Micrsofts interactions with ISO and the percieved deficiencies in the format really are truly overblown. The ODF is a ISO standard than use it, dont use OpenXML. There are many things that are “standards” that arent used. If you dont like it, if you dont want to use it then dont. Im pretty sure Microsoft and 90% of the computing world could care less. People will use it especially since it will be the default file format. I really get sick of all the anti-MS, IBM, (insert name of big company) attitude. It reminds me of the homeless people on the street whom have this percieved war with the system mentality. They are hurting themselves and nobody else. I dont pay attention to half the crap people write about Microsoft or any company for that matter these days because nothing they do will be rigt. For example, If Microsoft took the ODF and added extensions to read legacy script and macros people would be throwing a fit saying Microsoft is trying to pervert the format. Nobody cares. I havent seen any mass defections to Linux or anything else, and the only reason Apple is high up the mountain right now is because they are percieved as cool. Not because Microsoft is bad. You want to throw the word Open around and say its truly not Open well my example is the GPLv3, the word Free is included and yet the GPLv3 is more restrictive than many of the proprietary licenses I have ever seen. Im in the opinion that Microsofts shared source licenses are more free than the GPLv3 is.
Edited 2007-09-19 19:26
Does Microsoft and others provide translators so that OpenXML will indeed work with OpenOffice and soon enough KOffice?
Next time you may want to move your foot before you shoot. (o;
The fact that a translator is needed and that there are no other native implementations means that it isn’t open.
Also the fact that MS has said they can’t support OOXML if it becomes an ISO standard and they no longer have control of it means that once it is open they will have nothing to do with it. So, why did they submit it for approval if they never intended to support it once it actually became open?
Please unintentionally tell us more about why OOXML is a fraud…
They had to make an ODF translator for MS Office so according to your logic I guess ODF isnt open either.
MS engineers have been already quoted as saying it would take them about two weeks to implement native ODF support for MS Office.
The only reason why they haven’t implemented said feature is that it would undermine MS’s stance on file formats; It’s the cornerstone of MS Office’s hold on the industry.
Make no mistake, MS has absolutely no interest with evening that particular playing field.
“MS engineers have been already quoted as saying it would take them about two weeks to implement native ODF support for MS Office. “
MS engineers are known for underestimating the amount of time it would take to complete a task (e.g. Vista). lol
But can you provide a reference to these quotes? Maybe they were joking or didn’t know what they were talking about. It doesn’t sound plausible to me. Simply reading the spec and testing would take a lot longer than two weeks.
Edited 2007-09-20 10:11
One article in question quotes MS engineers speaking of how ‘trivial’ it would be to implement ODF in Office 2007
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleB…
Next is a quote from a blog posting, among many blog and article postings, that I find sums up the point I and pretty much everybody else in the industry has been trying to make since this farce of an open standard was released for ISO approval.
http://openstack.blogspot.com/2007/01/opendocument-as-perfect-micro…
There is much, much more information out there. Remember, Google is your friend.
MS engineers where actually spot on about Vista, especially considering the code base change half way through the development cycle. You of all people should know this, MollyC. I think I remember you arguing that very point on this site.
Regarding your computerworld.com article, there is no quote by a Microsoft engineer saying that implementing ODF would take “two weeks”, or that it would be “trivial”; there is only hearsay. I’d like a real quote, not hearsay from an ODF-advocate and sadly, ODF-propagandist.
(BTW, “trivial” could merely mean that while it might take a long time and be very tedious, it wouldn’t be a difficult engineering task. We don’t know what “trivial” means in this context, and I see no evidence that it meant “two weeks”. Then again, I don’t believe any Microsoft engineer actually said this, not one that would be actually involved in the task, anyway.)
Regarding your openstack.blogspot.com link, I stopped reading here (which was early in the article):
The OpenDocument format (“ODF”) is able to handle anything Microsoft Office can throw at it, and handle it at least as well as Microsoft’s new EOOXML file formats.
The article has zero credibility.
* ISO ODF 1.0 doesn’t even have a standard way to store formulas.
* It doesn’t have a way to store tables in presentations (and no, embedding a spreadsheet via OLE isn’t the same thing).
* ODF doesn’t handle irregular tables at all (i.e. tables that have cells that don’t align with particular rows and columns (such tables are created in MSO by the free-hand table drawing tool, where you can split cells vertically and horizontally, independent of rows and columns)).
* ODF doesn’t handle “ink” used by TabletPCs (and no, a picture isn’t the same thing).
* ODF doesn’t handle nested XML OLE objects. OOXML allows OLE objects themselves to be stored as OOXML if possible, so you could have a PowerPoint document containing an embedded Word document containing an embedded Excel spreadsheet, etc, and use an XML parser to drill down into the objects. ODF stores OLE objects as a binary blob.
Etc, etc.
“Remember, Google is your friend”? No, it’s just a way to find propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation. OK, it finds truth as well, but to equate Google search results with truth is a bit much.
“MS engineers where actually spot on about Vista, especially considering the code base change half way through the development cycle. You of all people should know this, MollyC. I think I remember you arguing that very point on this site.”
LOL
That was just a flippant comment on my part.
But I do know from years of development that some developers know how to estimate tasks, while others don’t. But it doesn’t matter, as I don’t believe that any Microsoft engineer said that implementing ODF would take “two weeks”, not one that would actually be involved in the work. It would take a good two weeks or longer just to determine what extensions Microsoft would need to add and how to go about it, before even doing any coding and testing.
Edited 2007-09-20 19:18
Another thing….
You might think that 90% of the computer users worldwide will start to use (un)openxml, so what ?
The important ones, (governments worldwide), are switching to ODF.
Any company looking for a lucrative government contract will need to be using ODF format too, as various ones, (UK, France, Germany, Norway, Philipines, Australia, and a few US state governments, Mass, Texas) have all said that in the future, they will only send and receive in ODF format, and that people sending in other formats will automatically receive a big black mark on their tender. Not nice for Johnny Businessman.
If I am on the lookout to supply pencil erasers, toilet roll or ribbed condoms to my government, I want them to read it, and reply to it, so I will use Abiword for the task.
This is not Microsoft versus OpenOffice, this is Microsoft and its closed formats against the rest of the computing world. Both developers and users, and the general public.
have a look here….
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39288914,00.htm
pay attention to this part:
At the heart of the controversy are fears that Open XML is not as open as it claims to be, raising the possibility that customers using the word-processing format could become reliant on Microsoft for access to their own documents.
No thanks Microsoft, try again.
I’ll be happy to test it as soon as they release a version for Linux. In the mean time I go for something cross platform.
>>Be sure you meet these client system requirements:
…
* 900MB disk space minimum
* 1G RAM memory minimum
Oh dear, is this an office suite or an entire operating system? I have used many 3D Solid Modeling CAD systems that operate fine with 128 MB of RAM. Why should a plain office suite use 8 times more than that? Sounds like a bad combination of Java bloat mixed with OpenOffice bloat and Lotus Notes bloat.
I was wondering the exact same thing while reading the website. My take is that, since the software is really new, someone made a mistake with that info. No way I’ll spend all my system resources just for a Write/Calc spin-off.
If those are the real specs, well, congratulations IBM, you (somehow) managed to write heavier code than Sun and the community togheter! And congratulations for a product no one will use
Now, someone please tell me that it’s not true…
Hey, OpenOffice was already a memory hog, but so is the Eclipse platform, and this Lotus Symphony is based on BOTH at the same time. Yes, it’s based on the Eclipse RCP.
It lacks some Gecko engine inside, throw Firefox on the pack and it will be the best of the worst.
MS is being attacked from all angels. Office, OS, SOA, DB 🙂 go go
Well, if they’re in real trouble from that, heaven forbid that the devils start attacking!
They dedicate 35 paid devs to improving OO.o so that is already an improvement! IMHO OO.o needs a LOT of improving though…Every time I use it I find some new bugs or weird things, and I don’t find it too pretty or easy to use…Anyway, when Lotus Symphony becomes available I shall try it even just out of curiosity :3
Symphony obviously promotes the Open Document standard, which is a good start. But has anyone figured out what sort of license the program itself has? Is it just free in cost with some GPL components, or is it entirely open source?
Lotus already have Smartsuite, what they are going to do with it ??
Tof
SmartSuite was killed a few years ago.
>Lotus already have Smartsuite, what they are going to do with it ??
Smartsuite have been in maintenance mode only, for many years. And finally put out of its misery when IBM aquired Lotus. To bad – I used it for many years on the OS/2 platform and before that AmiPro as a single application. One of the things I miss the most on OO.O is the capability to have documents in tabs. Especially having one master document made out of severel subdocuments, each one in its own tab. It makes a hell of s difference, when working on long documents.
If IBM had opened Smartsuite, before Sun opened Staroffice and adopted the same strategy to develop XML document formats we would have Opensuite now providing the ISO document standard.
I always wanted AmiPro as my word processor back 15 to 20 years ago but I never ended up with it. Instead over the past twenty five years I have got through; Locoscript, Wordstar 1512, Easywriter, Mindreader, Chemwriter, Wordperfect, MS Word, Abiword, Kword and Staroffice/Openoffice.
I really feel the need for a tabbed WP interface. At work I have just finished preparing my section of a collaborative technical document, to be used for an internal strategy meeting, on Word (with large chunks of it done at home on OOo). A tabbed interface would have made it a lot easier. Anyway OO Writer 2.2 running on Ubuntu now seems a lot smoother and faster than Word 2002 on XP compared back to the days of OOo 1.x when it appeared clunky in comparison to Word.
SmartSuite is no longer with us, its having tea with Lotus 123 and wordperfect in the great software bin in the sky…
What can this do that OpenOffice.org can’t?
If they are pouring resources into OpenOffice, is this supposed to compete with that? I don’t get it….
Why can’t they just promote, market and push Openoffice if they are contributing code?
And finally, those system requirements must be a mistake as indicated above…because that would be ridiculous…just take a “zero” off of all of the numbers and it should be about right…
“What can this do that OpenOffice.org can’t? “
It’s probably closer to the level of Lotus SmartSuite than is OO.o. Probably has better integration with Dominoes, Notes, and whatever.
This move smacks of product dumping for the sole purpose of undercutting competition, which is illegal last I heard.
Edited 2007-09-18 21:08
“This move smacks of product dumping for the sole purpose of undercutting competition, which is illegal last I heard. ”
When Microsoft abuse there Monopolistic Market and control of the OS by bundeling the OS with programs and making the *impossible* to remove. Its added value.
When IBM *offers* a suite of free programs its called product dumping.
Although the funny thing is they do seem to be investing an awful lot of time and money with developers; and lobbying for ODF; and making all there programs work together.
You would think they were like serious, and like it said in that little GNU manifesto all those years ago…make money from a service, and lets face it IBM are seriously into providing services its one of their main moneymakers.
No, dumping is when you pour product into a foreign market at a greatly reduced price, usually a loss, in order to undercut the competition. Much like Microsoft did with Windows and Office in the Chinese market to help stave off the government-influenced demand for linux.
“””
“””
I think you are being a bit over-cynical, there , Molly. 😉
Actually, dumping is good for “We, the People”. It’s only bad if the intent is to destroy the competition and then abuse the monopoly they gain from that. That hardly seems a danger in this situation.
I doubt Sun will complain. I know OpenOffice.org will not. Ditto Koffce and Google. Corel might have something to say. Microsoft is hardly in a position to complain as they dump Windows and Office together as a bundle in China for… what is it? 7 dollars?
Edited 2007-09-19 03:08
Undercutting the competition is not illegal and what IBM is doing is probably not price dumping.
It’s a bit fuzzy what actually constitutes price dumping but since IBM is not differentiating the pricing between regions (it’s free everywhere, afaik) I’ll go with that it’s not price dumping.
Must be kind of slow people in New York City or I must not be able to read.
IBM is offering OpenOffice? Big deal.
Why not open OS/2 or Lotus Smart Suite?
RTFA, they are opening up Lotus!
Unless I’m reading a different article, no they did not…
They should have opened up SmartSuite 8 years ago, but I doubt they ever will now.
OK schoate09 I still read ” I.B.M. is taking a different approach this time. Its offerings are versions of open-source software developed in a consortium called OpenOffice.org. ”
It says nothing about offering Lotus. It only says that IBM will CALL it Lotus symphony (note the phony part)
>Why not open OS/2 or Lotus Smart Suite?
That would be great – that also will never happen.
The OS/2 and eComStation communities have tried for years and years.
Edited 2007-09-19 02:18
ok heres what i dont understand this is version 3.0 beta of this software, i know i have been using it. BUT! they now have devoted 35 full time paid programmers to the Open Office project? I dont understand…. at first i figured they were just using the same back end and IBM put a different interface on their version. WRONG! IBM needs to learn on thing “not to spead themselves to thin” IBM has failed many times in the software world from either bad makreting of their products or riding the fence to much with them. pick a product, code it well, support it, and market it to your target audience better then your competition is doing. its that easy.
that asside i do rather like this little suite. an intel mac version would be nice too and not to hard since its eclipse based
Ironic how for a while years back IBM/Lotus had what I considered to be the best office suite hands down. Then Lotus basically just ignored it and it went the way of the Dodo. Now IBM decides to revive Lotus in the office suite business, good for them if they come out with something similar to a SmartSuite 2008. But from what is reported here, this does not seem to be the case if what is reported as true regarding requirements. One can just hope that by the time of release they will have an improved product. Although the free download from IBM indicates that what they might have to offer is something very basic and un-inspiring.
I think the real news here is that Lotus is still around…
I actually haven’t lost faith in Lotus. It was a fantastic brand for an office suite – Organizer was an awesome product in both look, feel and functionality.
I honestly hope they bring it back just for the sheer nostalgia of it.
As for the rest of Symphony, if it’s OO.o under the hood, I have no doubt it’ll be a nice tie-in to Notes. Most of the work has already been done and it still needs improvement. It’s only logical that IBM shows support for it in both fronts.
Once upon a time (mid 1980s, or so if I recall correctly), there was Lotus Symphony. It was a bloated monstrosity that ran well-enough on my PC. Hey, sounds kind of like OO.org!
In that case I as home user doesn’t care that much, it’s not anything “new”, I can understand if it’s intresting for companies thought.
From their FAQ (http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/product_faqs_norm…):
Are the IBM Lotus Symphony tools different from the embedded productivity tools delivered in IBM Lotus Notes v. 8?
* No. The tools have the same functionality but have different names:
* IBM Lotus Symphony was IBM Productivity tools
* Lotus Symphony Documents was Lotus Documents
* Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets was Lotus Spreadsheets
* Lotus Symphony Presentations was Lotus Presentations
While this is an interesting move, it’s a bit of a letdown to hear it’s just another version of OpenOffice.
I was hoping for Lotus WordPro. I typed more pages into that program tan I have into any other I think, though I haven’t used it for a while. I don’t have any positive arguments for it other than “I’m used to it and would love to see it return out of nostalgia” but it certainly wasn’t fatally flawed at any rate.
Be interesting to see where this goes. IBM still has a bit of brand recognition[/understatement], perhaps attaching their name to an OpenOffice derivative will get it some exposure in more places.
I’ve downloaded the Windows version and have spent about 20 minutes looking at it. IBM have added a new interface that includes a tab for each document. The appearance is fresh in a blue Office 2003 sort of way and it seems to work fairly well. The OpenOffice underpinnings show up if you scratch the surface.
Yes, I played with it for about 10 minutes and then uninstalled it. Obviously not enough to draw any real conclusions, but here are the highlights:
*It is disgustingly slow to load. I have a regular Celeron M laptop with 1 GB of RAM and Windows XP SP2 which is by no means a powerhouse, but an office suite should never take 40+ seconds to load. It started at least two processes when I opened a blank Lotus text document: one which I forgot the name of that used about 65 MB of memory, and a soffice process that used about 20 MB. In turn, OpenOffice 2.3.0, while no speed demon, launches in maybe 15 seconds on the same machine, and between the soffice.bin and soffice.exe processes uses a total of about 47 MB of memory.
*It looks quite slick. Very nice blue color scheme with orange highlights. Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations all open in tabs in the same main interface. There is an interesting formatting bar at the right side that changes based on context. Ribbon bar ripoff maybe?
*It does not have anything equivalent to Base or Draw, as far as I can tell.
*The installer changed all my document file associations without asking. Very irritating.
*As previously mentioned, OpenOffice traces show up everywhere you look.
I’m wondering…
If OO becomes too powerful, threatening MS’ Office dominance, won’t they try to sue IBM and Sun against ‘dumping’ practices ?
It seems that OO is not a communitary development, but instead pushed by a very limited number of by big corps.
Can things become nasty ?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_%28pricing_policy%29)
No, because Microsoft would have to have evidence to show that once market dominance gained, they jack up the price; given that OpenOffice.org will be for ever and ever free both free of charge and in source code, Microsoft could never make such an accusation.
In terms of international trade, the local sales have to be higher than the exported price; for example, it is a well known practice by Japenese companies to use their local market as ‘guinea pigs’ then price their products lower overseas hoping that volume and market share growth offset the reduction in profit margins.
I’d take WordPro, 1-2-3 and Freelance Graphics over OO.org ANY day. Just add ODF compatability to those suckers, dump the code into CVS or SVN and go with it.
With that said, it does look like some (much-needed) work went into the Interface. I hope that IBM will:
a. Make ther performance better
and
b. Give their code back to the community.
Edited 2007-09-19 12:18
IBM has never been able to bring anything together either by greed or by off-shoring critical functions of the product/software they are trying to put together.
Lotus Smart Suite was actually a great Office suite I used Word Pro and found it to be far superior to MS Word but like everything else it was never marketed by IBM and it died off like the rest.
IBM sold off their PC division to China, the whole company is a shell of a former giant, now it is a name that holds little water. The only saving grace for IBM is Z Series mainframes, AS/400 and some other servers they sell other than that the whole company is a HAS BEEN operation.
I find it amazingly stupid to waste time on a Office Suite when I use OO.o exclusively because I have been running Red Hat since 6.0 now if they wanted to do something why not offer a computer with a Linux distro and an Office suite but I forgot they sold off their entire division to China.
The only people making money off IBM is the CEO’s milking the company until it is bought out by another big Corp or the Server line being sold off either way it is a joke of a company……
I swear … you guys are the biggest bunch of whiners ever. IBM just gave something like $4 million a year to an open source project. Be happy.
MS Office is frequently cited as a reason to run Windows. I’m happy that anyone is putting resources into trying to unseat Office as the only perceived option.