RE: IBM investment in i - can open source software help sales ?

I've played with Symphony and have worked with OpenOffice quite a bit.

Symphony was built from a version of Open Office. I think the code base
was originally placed into the new Lotus Notes 8 client and then
extracted as a separate product suite built as an Eclipse RDP
application. Not sure I like the re-use of the OLD Symphony name,
however the price is palatable :-)

Open Office is the way to go for a more mainstream approach. This
codebase has been around for quite a while and it's now quite powerful
as an office suite. I imported one of my Powerpoints and it got about
90% of it right.

We're looking to possibly start integrating one or both of the engines
into our product offerings. Why re-invent the wheel when you can polish
it :-)

Regards,
Richard Schoen
RJS Software Systems Inc.
"Get the information you need. Now!"
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web Site: http://www.rjssoftware.com
Tel: (952) 898-3038
Fax: (952) 898-1781
Toll Free: (888) RJSSOFT


-----Original Message-----
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message: 1
date: Wed, 07 May 2008 16:57:54 -0500
from: Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: IBM investment in i - can open source software help
sales?

I've used OpenOffice for several years, starting back when it was Star
Office on OS/2. I've had almost zero compatibility problems. Less, in
fact, then clients that use Microsoft and have problems when ever a new
version comes out and the boss gets his brand new machine and sends
memos to his staff that they can't read.

I am curious: have you (or anyone) compared Symphony to OpenOffice?