3a - Online office suites
The most known online office suite is probably Google Docs, but there are more available. Find a few of these and try to figure out how they stand out in the competition.
Think of a context (school use, higher education, corporate use etc) where you think the application suite could be helpful and make up a list of evaluative criteria (requirements for your purpose) and compare two or more online office suites. Based on your evaluation, pick an online office suite to use for the rest of the assignment.
Use the chosen application suite to create a brief report in which you describe the evaluation process (context, evaluation results, and conclusions). Make sure to utilize some of the basic functionality. The report should contain text, tables and images (e. g. screenshots of the application).
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Online office suites
An online office suite is a type of office suite offered by websites in the form of software as a service. They can be accessed online from any Internet enabled device running any operating system. This allows people to work together worldwide and at any time, thereby leading to international web-based collaboration and virtual teamwork. Usually, the basic versions are offered for free and for more advanced versions one is required to pay a nominal subscription fee.(Gillett et al.)
Applications for online office suites are often developed on the Web 2.0 platform with different levels. The term Office 2.0, which is usually used to refer to online office suites, originated with Ismael Ghalimi in an experimental effort to test whether he could perform his entire computer based work in online applications(Ghalimi and CEO, 2007).
The online office suites could be helpful in some ways as below (Skoczen and Bussmann, 2006):
- · The cost is low. Most of the time there is no specific charge for using the service for online users
- · There is no need to download or install software outside of the office suite's web page
- · They usually can be run with minimum hardware requirements
- · Users share a document without the need to run their own server.
- · No need to upgrade online software
- · They are portable. Documents are accessible from approximately any computer with a connection to the Internet
- · Users’ documents are stored on the remote server.
As first step for this assignment I try to list some important online office suites and sort them by functionality.
Open source suites
- OpenOffice.org. Its components include Writer, Impress, Math, Draw, Calc, and Base. Releases are available for MS Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris. Since Sun was purchased by Oracle, OpenOffice.org is now under Oracle's ownership.
- Calligra Suite free and open-source office suite.
- GNOME Office
- LibreOffice: independent fork of OpenOffice.org with a number of enhancements
OpenOffice.org vs. GNOME Office
OpenOffice.org
Introduction
How does OpenOffice.org introduce itself?
“OpenOffice.org is both a product and an open-source project. Both have been in existence since October 13th, 2000. OpenOffice.org 1.0, the product, was released on April 30th, 2002. (about.openoffice.org)
OpenOffice.org's mission statement was drafted by the community:
To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format.
The OpenOffice.org project is primarily sponsored by Oracle, which is the primary contributor of code to the project. Our other corporate contributors include RedFlag CH2000 (RedOffice.com), and IBM, to name but two. Additionally over 500,000 people--unaffiliated individuals, business and government employees, and students from nearly every curve of the globe--have joined the project with the aim of creating the best possible office suite that all can use. Their work as a community is both invaluable and practical: people use what the community does. This is the essence of an open source community.”(about.openoffice.org)
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo , is an open source office suite which main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, graphics , presentations and databases.
OpenOffice.org is available for different operating systems like windows, Mac, safari etc, is published as free software and is written using its own GUI (graphical user interface) toolkit.
Features
Multilanguage service
OpenOffice.org 3 is available in more than 100 different languages (help, openoffice.org), working on all common computers, and storing data in an international open standard format.
Compatibility with different format
OpenOffice.org is able to read and write files from other common office software packages, as well as being available for download and use completely free for any purpose.(IRIMESCU, 2008)
In particular, the publishers of the office suite stress that it is the result of over twenty years' software engineering, it is easy to use, and it is free, released under the LGPL license. (wikipedia)
Components
OpenOffice.org comprises a collection of applications that work together closely to provide the features commonly included in modern office suites. Many of the components mirror those available in Microsoft Office. The components available include:
Module | Notes |
Writer | Similar to MS Word |
Calc | Similar to MS Excel and Lotus 1-2-3 |
Impress | Similar to MS PowerPoint and Apple Keynote |
Math | Similar to MS Equation Editor |
Base | Similar to Microsoft Access |
Draw | Similar to Scribus and MS Publisher. It can also export its creations to the PDF format |
Socialization
Beside all routine services as an office suite, this website tries to be like a social network. Since there are more than 400,000 registered members on openoffice.org, the system has provided networking and blogging facilities for its users. Every registered user has a profile and can search through other users’ profiles to find related topics and publications and projects memberships. Users also can search all tags belonged to all posts.
Extensions
OpenOffice.org supports extensions, something like Mozilla Firefox, including the exclusive extension .oxt. Extensions usually are used to add new functionality to an on hand OpenOffice.org installation. There are more than 390 extensions for recent versions. Since OpenOffice.org is open source software, developers can simply build new extensions for it.
GNOME Office
Introduction
GNOME Office is a free office suite for the GNOME desktop.
How does GNOME introduce itself?
The GNOME Project was started in 1997 by two then university students, Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena. Their aim: to produce a free (as in freedom) desktop environment. Since then, GNOME has grown into a hugely successful enterprise. Used by millions of people across the world, it is the most popular desktop environment for GNU/Linux and UNIX-type operating systems. The desktop has been utilized in successful, large-scale enterprise and public deployments, and the project’s developer technologies are utilized in a large number of popular mobile devices.(about us/ GNOME.org)
Features
Compatibility with different format
OpenOffice.org is able to read and write files from other common office software packages, as well as being available for download and use completely free for any purpose.(IRIMESCU, 2008)
Socialization and interface
Level of socialization in GNOME office is less than other famous projects like Open Office.org since you only sign in to be a user of the system and have a simple profile. Then you only can subscribe other users to find out what they have published.
Components
Module | Notes |
Abiword | Word processor |
Gnumeric | Spreadsheet |
Evolution: | Email, contacts, calendar |
Planner | Project manager |
Inkscape | Vector graphics |
XSane | Scanning |
Gnucash | Finances |
gLables | Label designer |
Glom | Database designer |
Some of above tools are listed on the GNOME Office official website but not installed on the downloadable versions!
Applications
Hundreds of applications are available for GNOME. They enable people to employ a vast range of activities, including everything from playing media and editing photos to system administration. Most of these facilities are free of charge.
Banshee
Allows users to play music and videos, Stay entertained and up to date with podcasts and video podcasts.
Shotwell
It gives users the opportunity of organizing, editing and publishing photos. It’s easy to crop, sharpen and fix the colors on photos. Users also can setup multiple background slideshow.
Inkscape
Draw freely! This is a vector illustration application which allows users to produce stunning graphics in the web standard SVG format.
Tomboy
Tomboy is an application used for note-taking. It is Simple and easy to use, but with potential to help you organize the ideas and information you deal with every day.
Rhythmbox
This application is used to Organize and listen to music, rip CDs. Browse, preview, and download albums, features Internet radio and last.fm. It has good support for mass storage music players.
In contrast to other projects like OpenOffice.org, the integration between the different applications in this office suite is rather less. So GNOME Office could be considered as a collection of desktop productivity applications written for the GNOME environment not an complete office suite in the usual sense. (Samoladas and Stamelos)
Collaboration
GNOME relies to its participants. More than 3500 individuals have contributed changes to the project’s code repositories, including the employees of 106 companies. GNOME is a result of this huge collaboration. In addition, GNOME is governed along meritocratic principles.
Since 2000, the GNOME Foundation has acted as the custodian of the project. The Foundation is GNOME’s legal body. It supports the project through the collection and distribution of funds, acts as the interface between the project and its partners and provides strategic guidance.(about us/ gnome.org)
Comparison table
Specifications | Openoffice.org | GNOME office |
Predecessor | StarOffice | AbiWord, Gnumeric |
Costs in USD | Free | Free |
License | LGPL | GPL |
Microsoft Office (.doc, .xls) support | Yes | Yes |
Portable Document Format support | With free plugins | Yes |
HTML editor | OpenOffice.org Writer | No |
Online editing | With free plugins | No |
E-mail client | No | Evolution |
Windows | Yes | Yes |
Mac OS X | Yes | Yes |
Linux | Yes | Yes |
References
- GHALIMI, I. C. & CEO, I. 2007. BPM 2.0. IT-Reduz, Porto Alegre.
- GILLETT, S. E., LEHR, W. H., WROCLAWSKI, J. T. & CLARK, D. D. Year. A Taxonomy of Internet Appliances. In.
- IRIMESCU, D. 2008. Deployment of Open Standards in the Public Administration. Revista Informatica Economic nr, 3, 64.
- SAMOLADAS, I. & STAMELOS, I. Assessing free/open source software quality. Department of Informatics Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124.
- SKOCZEN, S. & BUSSMANN, R. W. 2006. Olorien Online peer-reviewed journal software for low-cost international organizations.
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