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Despite being a low cost alternative to Microsoft Office, only 10% of enterprises have adopted OpenOffice.org, the open source alternative. With the release of Office 2010 imminent and the increasing popularity of online office apps from Google and Zoho, what does the future hold for OpenOffice?
Forrester Research, early adopters of OpenOffice, spoke to other adopters of the open source solution and discovered some interesting reasons why companies aren't keen to make the switch away from Microsoft products. They found that the main barrier is integration with third party applications. Many software packages only work with Office; one company supplied all 7,000 of its users with OpenOffice, but had to revert back to Office on 5,000 systems when they discovered that one of their most important applications wouldn't work.
The research found that collaboration can also be a problem when using OpenOffice. Although many applications can be accessed by both open source and Microsoft platforms, the process isn't seamless and features such as formatting and macros can be corrupted or completely missing. Companies that use a lot of legacy content may be unwilling to switch from Office to an open source platform if they need to edit or manipulate files; for example, documents based on templates may have to be recreated from scratch.
Another drawback is simple user acceptance; many people feel comfortable with Office and are unwilling to use anything else. It's been known for firms to "customise" their copies of OpenOffice with a Microsoft logo to encourage employees to use it.
Forrester's research makes it easy to see why OpenOffice hasn't been adopted more in business; it's proved more versatile as a no-cost office solution for the home-use market. The key to OpenOffice's survival could be held by other office software developers. IBM/Lotus have invested heavily in the Lotus Symphony Suite, but are thought to be looking at integrating OpenOffice into their LotusLive cloud collaboration platform, as well as IBM's Project Vulcan, which brings together email, calendars and social analytics. Novell is currently distracted with its imminent sale but has considered integrating OpenOffice with Pulse and Google Wave. Oracle is also planning an industry-compatible open office solution, but no details have yet been announced.
The Forrester research concluded that OpenOffice could yet find its way into enterprise, albeit surreptitiously, through integration with other products and collaboration with content management and business systems. However, it's unlikely ever to be a replacement for Microsoft's products in the workplace.
http://www.forrester.com |
