Skip the navigation
News

IBM joins OpenOffice.org to widen its reach

It will provide developers, other resources to open-source project

By Todd R. Weiss
September 10, 2007 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - IBM has gotten so much from the OpenOffice.org office suite to enhance its own products that the company has decided to finally give back in a big way: It's joining the open-source project and will contribute code, developers and other resources for free.

In an announcement today, IBM said that by joining the effort directly, it hopes to develop feature enhancements and help push broader adoption of the OpenDocument format (ODF) standard used in the suite.

Doug Heintzman, director of strategy for IBM's Lotus collaboration division, said IBM has been using OpenOffice code for the past several years to create its own version of the office applications integrated into the Lotus Notes 8 collaboration suite. By incorporating OpenOffice features, Lotus Notes 8 gained integrated office applications that seamlessly work within the application, he said.

To build on those features from OpenOffice, IBM Lotus developers built and enhanced accessibility features for visually impaired and other handicapped users, he said. Previously, IBM had been doing this work outside of the OpenOffice community. With today's announcement, the company will stop work on its own version of OpenOffice.

"We decided that the time was right," Heintzman said. All future Lotus and IBM products that incorporate OpenOffice code will use code from the community rather than from what had been IBM's forked version of the project.

The reason for the move, Heintzman said, is that IBM is anticipates shifting demand from customers, changing specifications and wider adoption of ODF, as well as other changes expected in future office applications.

IBM will dedicate a core team of 35 programmers in China to the OpenOffice project, but more people will be added as needed around the world, he said.

Louis Suarez-Potts, the community manager at Sun Microsystems Inc. for the OpenOffice.org project, called IBM's announcement "extremely important."

"What it's doing for us is not only enhancing the community by expanding it," but adding future richness and additional ODF technology to the project, Suarez-Potts said. Another benefit is that IBM will add these things into many of their existing products, which are distributed worldwide, he said. "It's fantastic all around. The community is very happy about this and is looking forward to working with IBM."

John McCreesh, OpenOffice.org marketing project lead, said in a statement that the IBM move is "great news for the tens of millions of users of OpenOffice.org and the thousands of individual members of the project. But equally important is IBM's future commitment to package and distribute new works that leverage OpenOffice.org technology supporting the ISO ODF standard. ODF is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the IT industry to unify round a standard, and deliver lasting benefit to users of desktop technology."

OpenOffice.org includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, database and other modules and uses ODF as its native file format; it also fully supports other common file formats, including Microsoft Office. OpenOffice runs on all major platforms, including Windows, Vista, Linux, Solaris and Mac OS X, and is available in more than 100 languages. It is interoperable with other popular suites and may be used free of charge for any purpose, private or commercial, under its GNU Lesser General Public License. Created in 2000 by Sun, OpenOffice has been downloaded nearly 100 million times, according to Sun.

Read more about Open Source in Computerworld's Open Source Topic Center.



Additional Resources
Forrester Consulting - Optimizing Users and Applications in a Mobile World
WHITE PAPER
Solving application issues over the WAN requires careful consideration. Based on their independent research, Forrester Consulting offers recommendations on how to tackle application performance issues, insufficient bandwidth and the inability to quickly restore users in a disaster.

Read now.

Security KnowledgeVault
WHITE PAPER
Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

Cut Communications Costs Once and for All
WHITE PAPER
New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

Open Source White Papers
Consolidating SAP Applications to Linux on Power by IDC
IDC studied a group of enterprises that had deployed SAP applications on IBM Power Systems servers running Linux server operating environments and had...
An Interactive eGuide: Open Source
By now, enterprises are well aware of the benefits of open-source software, which boasts a clean design, reliability, and maintainability, as well as...
The Benefits of IBM: The Savings of Open Source
Download Now
Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
All Open Source White Papers
Open Source Webcasts
Optimizing Networks for the Cloud
Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware
Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn...
Virtualize Business-Critical Applications with Confidence
Virtualizing business-critical applications has become a key focus for organizations as they move along their virtualization journey. With the launch of VMware vSphere®...
All Open Source Webcasts
Newsletter Sign-Up

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter
  1. View all newsletters | Privacy Policy
IT Jobs