(Domestic) OpenOffice.org conference in Denmark

The organization OSL (http://www.osl.dk) is arranging this conference together with the Danish OpenOffice.org community.

The conference will be on April 30th. at University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark.

We will try to cover the story with two tracks, Business and Technical.

Open Office - a real alternative
Conference in Odense 30/4-09:

Track 1: Business
9.00 - 10.00 Arrival, registration
10.00 - 10.05 Welcome v. Kurt Gammelgaard Nielsen, SDU (University of Southern Denmark)
10:05 - 10:45 Open Source in government - Barriers to implementation and use of Open Source in government v. Jens Kjellerup, IT manager, Århus Kommune (Municipality of Aarhus)
10.45 - 11.15 Business Case: - Implementation of OpenOffice in industrial v. Ørnbøl Bent Larsen, PKF-IT
11:15 - 11:25 Break
11:25 to 12:00 in 2500 even better users - Training of employees in connection with the switch to OpenOffice v. Jens Christian Damgaard, IT consultant Aarhus University Hospital Risskov
12.00 - 13.00 Lunch
13.00 - 13.35 An alternative office - what is required? - Consideration to make before a switch to OpenOffice
v. Leif Lohdahl, language coordinator, OpenOffice.org, Denmark
13.35 - 14.10 Open Office in Gribskov Kommune (Municipality of Gribskov) - A pragmatic solution based on economy and practicality v. Michel van der Linden, IT manager, Gribskov Kommune
14.10 - 14.30 Break
14.30 - 15.05 Virtual desktop in Open Office - Experience with virtual desktops in a VDI environment v. Kurt Gammelgaard Nielsen, konst. IT Director at University of Southern Denmark
15.05 - 15.15 Break
15.15 - 15.50 Keynote: Open Office - a real alternative v. Kim Østrup, Vice President, IBM

Track 2: Technical
9.00 - 10.00 Arrival, registration
10.00 - 10.05 Welcome
10:05 - 10:45 Open Source in government - Barriers to implementation and use of Open Source in government v. Jens Kjellerup, IT manager Århus Kommune
10:45 - 11:20 Standards Project in KL (association of Local Government in Denmark) and KMD (KMD is owned by Kommune Holding A/S which in turn is owned by KL) - Results and prospects v. Rolf Sorensen, Director, KMD, and Peter Thrane, Senior, KL
11:20 - 11:25 Break
11.25 - 12.00 IBM Lotus Symphony - IBM's version of Open Office, Speakers - t.b.c. (Symfoni Software )
12.00 - 13.00 Lunch
13.00 - 13.30 Writing Support in Open Office v. Speakers - t.b.c.
13.30 - 14.00 Migration from MS Office to Open Office in primary schools in Tønder v. Bo Ramsing, IT mentoring and Erik S. Kristensen, IT Adviser, Deputy & school, Tønder Municipality
14.00 - 14.05 Break
14.05 - 15.05 Open Office extensibility v. Jürgen Schmidt, lead developer, Sun Microsystems
15.05 - 15.15 Break
15.15 - 15.50 Keynote: Open Office - a real alternative v. Kim Ostrup, Vice President IBM

The market opportunity for OpenOffice.org integrations

My friend Roberto Galoppini speaks about business opportunities in the market for migrating customers from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org. Roberto think that many of the technical difficulties that we are facing should be taken care of by Sun Microsystems. Robertos blogpost was even refered to by infoworld.com here: http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2008/12/the_market_oppo.html

When I speak to customers about taking Openoffice.org into consideration the talk often comes to mission critical business software and integration. Not long ago, I had a good talk with a company (large public energy provider). There is no doubt that they have a good business case: more than 2.000 thousand users. They would like to look into OpenOffice.org (and other F/OSS software applications), but when we began counting, we found more than 100 individual pieces of integration.

The same thing with many other companies:

• Edit your website with your favorite text editor and save directly to your website (CMS integration).
• From you customer register (CRM), do mail merge directly.
• Ask the bookkeeper to give you an overview of next month cash flow. You will get the result as a spreadsheet. The report from ERP will be created directly.

Roberto writes on his blog ( http://robertogaloppini.net/tag/openoffice-migration/ )that Sun Microsystems should help contributing to this problem. I disagree. Not that we don't need Sun, but Sun is already doing what they can and we shouldn't point our fingers at sun all the time.

Sun is already contributing (with IBM and others) to a project to ODF-Toolkit ( http://odftoolkit.openoffice.org/ ) and a few extensions e.g. Sun Wiki Publisher ( http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/wikipublisher ) and Weblog Publisher ( http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/swp ).

Sun Microsystems are already deeply involved with this and what we need is that other IT companies will join the case and create extensions. Whats more important is, that local (domestic) companies will begin to listen to their customers and provide a real choice. Today many companies doesn't actually have a choice. The provider of ERP is making the choice for them.

The market places are different. I Denmark Sun is not an active participant. Sun StarOffice ( http://www.sun.com/software/staroffice/ ) doesn't come in Danish and there is no Danish certified business partners. Not a single provider that can use the various migration tools Sun provides. This open for a new business opportunities. Small companies and freelance consultants has a good chance to find a business in this segment. In other market places the situation is different and the businesses is to be found individually in each country.

MS answers to Master Thesis

Microsoft is commenting on the master thesis I wrote about a few days ago (http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2008/04/master-thesis-openofficeorg-vs.html) on the website Comon (http://www.comon.dk/index.php/news/show/id=35500) .
Among other things, Jasper Bojsen from Microsoft in Denmark says that...

It is not possible to say, that the same calculations are valid for all public institutions, because there are big differences between the medical systems etc. used and in the way they are integrated.

I say: True enough. There are big differences between the public institutions and the medical systems etc. That is already taken into consideration by the author. Further more has Microsoft promised us full interoperability in Office 2007 and OOXML, so the integration shouldn't be any problem, or should it ?

Microsoft also claims that there should be taken into consideration, the productivity-advantages in Microsoft Office. This is precisely what shouldn't be, because that subject is covered in another chapter in the master thesis, and the conslusion is, that there is very limitted advantage in Microsoft Office compared to OpenOffice.org.

Whats up duck ?

I haven't been blogging that much lately. Sorry, but I feel rather busy at the moment.

• Busy trying to catch up with all the information floating around, both in the community but also regarding ODF and in the NOOOXML world.
• I have spent the last couple of days on a small travel to Aarhus ( http://www.findvej.dk/,8000 ). You know, I also need bread on the table ;-)
  
• Translation of 2.4 is going slowly forward. But we are still missing several hundred strings.
  
• Also preparing the next (December) edition of the Danish newsletter (expected to be out one of the first days in December). Sign up for it here: http://da.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=nyhedsbrev (if you understand Danish)
  
• I am also trying to contribute to the new certification project and today I have submitted my comments to the Spanish syllabus (http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/OOo_Certification_Syllabus). Please join the project here if you think you can contribute in any way. Sign up here: http://documentation.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=certification
• And then I have been trying to plan how to approach the new Parliament after the election this month. Hmmm. I think we have to act on this very soon. I better get on with it, eh ?

And then of cause

• I promised my family to be present once in a while. On Saturday I think we will all go to the movie theater together. Perhaps I should ask my wife out for dinner too. Yes, this is a high priority task on the list :-)
  

The history of open standards

or

the first 21st
Century Format War

How did it all begin, this thing about open standards and wow did it suddenly become very much like a war against one company ?

Can anyone remember ?

Andy Updegrove has decided to write the story about open document standards and the war between Microsoft and the rest of the World. And he is asking for your help to get all the details. The attention is to release it as an eBook when done.

You can read the first chapter here: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20071125145159900

It's not enough that the IT solutions works

-Solutions needs to add value !

Traditionally we think of laptops, servers, network, Windows operating system and pc programs when the talk comes to IT in business matters. But if you want to get the best of your IT investments, it's important that you don't make your discissions based on the amount of features and functions. Much more important things must be taken into consideration.

It's no big deal to buy a new server or to install an update to the database system. The challenge comes when we want to exchange the new technology into actual valuable working processes in the organization. One of the conditions for creating value is that the staff, customers, subcontractors and so on can and will learn how to use what comes from the investments. This can only happen if the investments has been

1. based on business needs
   not from what others do or what you think would be a nice geek. The organizational needs must be covered up front, so that the solution can help improve the collaborative processes in the right direction.
2. introduced during a successful implementation
   not only from a technical perspective, but also from an organizational perspective. Users must be involved, so the solution is set up to match the individual needs.
3. adopted in a way that suits the business needs
   This is unfortunately not always the case in real life. Education and full introduction is necessary to get a successful implementation.

Today, words like Web2.0, mobile access and on demand as well as the technology behind it, is setting the agenda. Everything must be accessible from the web and from mobile devices. For instance, users can read mail and see customer information from CRM systems. Mobile access has limited functionality, but covers most of the needs.

We are going away from the traditional computer installed program. The trend is going towards focusing less on individual features and we accept that the applications work a little bit different from what we are used to.

This is a healthy development, because it's more important that a function is adding value to the people using it, for instance by enhancing collaboration, than adding a bunch of new buttons. Many has already discovered this by changing from Microsoft Office to the free and open OpenOffice.org. With a simular investment you can both install the software (free) and develop templates and macros as well as train the users in how it works. This is because the expenses moved from licenses to organizational implementation.

By doing this, you spend money on adding value, not only on making it work