OpenOffice.org: About Turning OpenOffice.org Migrations into a Business
The OpenOffice.org Italian Association announced that OpenOffice.org in Italy broke the five million mark this year, yet another record for the Italian release of the world’s leading free and open source productivity suite.
Davide Dozza, PLIO’s president commented the result:
Back in 2006, when we started counting OOo downloads, 800,000 downloads per year was an astonishing result to us. At that stage we couldn’t even imagine that the number would have grown to 1.780.000 in 2007, and beyond five millions in 2008.
Even if the number of downloads is not an accurate measure of the market share, it definitely shows the trend.
So said, there is still a lot to do, especially in the business arena. OpenOffice.org has recently started a Business Development Project, managed by Alexandro Colorado, who recently posed questions about how to set standards for OpenOffice.org professionals.
Migrating to OpenOffice.org has a tremendous business potential, but before finding answers we better pose all the good questions. The need for integration, sometimes addressed by Openoffice.org volunteers, is one of the areas where Sun Microsystems should lead the dance. Migration methodologies and toolkits, along with specific partners’ programs enabling OpenOffice.org professionals to deliver ‘productized services‘.
OpenOffice.org community can help a lot, but execution is in the Sun’s hands, though.
Roberto Galoppini, and 
Leif Lodahl 3:07 pm on December 19, 2008 Permalink
I agree that there is a future business in migration. We surely need better integration to OpenOffice.org from other systems, but I don’t see SUN as the major problem here. SUN (as in conjuction with IBM and others) are working hard to develop tools (e.g. ODF-Toolkit etc). I more see the various vendors of properitary business software as the big problem. We need integration from ERP, CRM and other critical business software.
I would rather point my fingers of those Microsoft Business Partners, that provide customers with no choise (as to select Microsoft Office).
First step will be the customers to ask their business software providers if they can deliver a solution without vendor lock-in.
Roberto Galoppini 3:54 pm on December 19, 2008 Permalink
Hi Leif,
I am glad you joined the conversation. Actually you are right, EAI is a two faces coin. As a matter of fact vendors are conservative, and they tend to be in the early majority.
The Colosseum wasn’t built in one day, nad even Microsoft spent time and energy to build its Office System partnerships network.
What I have learned volunteering for years is that communities can help a lot, and IT vendors are paying more and more attention to what people say, especially if they are bloggers under the radar.
We can make a difference, but Sun has to play its role, and they have good reasons to do it, before others like IBM will likely do..
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