Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

To start with, see the wiki page about Major OpenOffice.org Deployments.
It also has there another link to the ODF adoption page.

(Just to avoid having an unanswered post)
The ODF Alliance site: http://www.odfalliance.org/.

Here is its mission statement:

As documents and services are increasingly transformed from paper to electronic form, there is a growing problem that governments and their constituents may not be able to access, retrieve and use critical records, information and documents in the future. To enable the public sector to have greater control over and direct management of their own records, information and documents, the ODF Alliance seeks to promote and advance the use of OpenDocument Format (ODF) as the primary document format for governments.

The alliance works globally to educate policymakers, IT administrators and the public on the benefits and opportunities of the OpenDocument Format, to help ensure that government information, records and documents are fully and natively accessible across platforms and applications, even as technologies change.

Hagar, I am big fan and a passionate supporter of OOo; however, I am disappointed with the "wiki page about Major OpenOffice.org Deployments."

One of the things I frequently do is "measure" OOo market penetration. I do this by reading who is adopting OOo, where are they located and how big the move is (a two-person company versus the French police).

The site in question rarely has any changes. Admittedly, the site does not focus on two-person companies; nevertheless, the site is updated too infrequently even for strong supporters like me. If we have to convince others of the extensive migration to OOo, we have to update this site much more often. This means stories from smaller commercial and other organizations -- especially the money saving aspects: (hopefully) everyone understands economics.

NB: My post is NOT a complaint; rather, it is an "enhancement" point that I was hoping to bring up, but never got a chance. Today, after reading this forum, I got my chance...

As I have in other posts, I would like to sincerely express my gratitude to the entire OOo community. OOo is a wonderful product and my dream is to see ODF be the worldwide standard. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen...

I doubt that Open Office has attained commercial quality. Apart from anything else, it lacks features which networks require. To adapt it for a network, you really need IT personnel or an IT contractor with detailed knowledge of the software.

Its market share, I would guess, is a small fraction of Microsoft's share and I don't see that little company giving up any of its market share easily.

crusader, I agree with you (I personally quite never go to that page myself!). You can start a thread in this section for example called 'My migration story' for example, telling your experience in your office and inviting others to do so.

Kingfisher, I have no doubt that today OOo's share is a tiny fraction (if that much) of the overall Office Suite usage.

What gives me hope is:
1. The price of OOo.
2. The quality of software, particularly for basic use.
3. Excellent support at an affordable price.

As OOo becomes better -- and better known, I have every reason to believe it will burst the MS bubble. I am not suggesting OOo will take a huge market share (although I hope it does); what I believe will happen in the long run is the erosion of MS dominance.

On my part, I don't loose a single opportunity to share information about OOo.

Hagar, thank you for the support and encouragement. I will initiate a new thread. Hopefully we can glean good migration stories that will encourage others to explore OOo.

Note that ODF being an ISO standard (and a true one compared to the OOXML from MS Office 2007) is also a key factor since it insures the safety of the users data.

Open Office users need to promote the suite more. I'm a member of one of the larger computer clubs here in Florida, USA. Most of our membership has never even heard of Open Office or open document format. Well, I'm doing my best to promote this fine piece of software. We just had a Feature Event called the 'Best of the Free Software on the Web' and I did a ten minute presentation on Open Office. I wish I had a camera to record the shocked looks on peoples faces as I promoted OO. Next week, I'm doing an overview lecture featuring Writer, Calc and Impress. Can't wait to see the turnout - got my fingers crossed for a record turnout for this lecture!!!!

good day - namaste,

TV, MOBILE, COMPUTER, Openoffice.org©, CALC©, WRITER©,DRAW©, Windows® are all ENGLISH words. And so are DNA, BIOLOGY,etc. AND so are File, Edit, View, Inser, Format, Tools, Data, Help menu items in software.

I have been watching with amazement efforts to "localize" meaning translate the need not translate / untranslatable for benefit of amazing kids and others. To give you an example, in half an hour flat I have found kids telling me, still reading the manual, that pressing this and this ... I'll be able to do this on a fancy mobile phone.

So, arose

You Localize Setup IME
You Localize Setup IME is a Calc template to translate Windows® Menus to setup keyboard input in your own language script. In translating items and making notes themselves, students, teachers and others understand the process of setup quickly and thoroughly. Additionally and very importantly they become familiar with English and global terminology of rapidly advancing technology.
A Simple Calc template to translate Windows® Menus to setup keyboard input in your language script

http://templates.services.openoffice.org/en/node/8624

You Localize
You Localize is a simple Calc template for users to translate menu item trees in their own language themselves. This helps students, teachers and others to start using OpenOffice Calc quickly, methodically and thoroughly. Developments in OpenOffice and technology are proceeding very fast and newer versions are being released frequently. In spite of enormous efforts to translate and localize it is difficult to keep in pace with developments. You Localize has only a portion of the Menu tree of Calc, students can complete it is a learning project. There is no reason why users cannot develop their own templates in Calc for other components of OpenOffice or for that matter any other program. Pictures of the menus in the picture are cut outs from screen capture and rendered in high resolution using Gimp© available at http://www'.gimp.org
A simple Calc template to translate Calc menu items yourself in your own language

http://templates.services.openoffice.org/en/node/8617