OpenOffice.org 3.0 Wants to Compete with Outlook

Being a Linux user, I am sometimes limited to what I want to do, especially when it comes to creating sparkly graphs for our reviews, which is why I choose to use Office 2007 on the Windows machine. But a recent announcement by the OOo folks intrigues me. At a recent conference, a foil on one of the slides called 3.0 an “Outlook replacement”, which sounds great to me. Plans are even noted to include Thunderbird as the e-mail client.

I admit it, I love open-source software. On this Linux machine, I have only a single piece of commercial software (Nero Linux) and I am pleased with all of the other applications I use. But, the reason I choose to use Office 2007 over OOo 2.x is because when I do use it, I can’t help but feel like I’m back in the Windows 98 days using Office 97. Sure, looks are not everything. I am a huge advocate of that. But for universal adoption, 3.0 better have some sweet eye-candy. For the sake of everyone who loves OOo though, we hope it’s not bloated like Office 2007. See, I’m not pro-Microsoft.

At the OpenOffice.org 2007 conference about a month ago there was a presentation on what to expect in the next major milestone for their Microsoft Office competitor. “The presentation mentions bundling Thunderbird with their Office Suite, and refers to it as an ‘Outlook replacement.’

Source: Slashdot