OpenOffice: Forget about it

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Macintosh
August 21st, 2003 • 5:54 pm

The lastest news coming from the OpenOffice project is that a native Aqua version of the product will not be available until the first quarter of… 2006.

I have tried OpenOffice. I’ve installed Apple’s X11 environment for Mac OS X, and the huge OpenOffice for X11 package. I have tried to use the software… It just doesn’t cut it. It basically looks and feels like Microsoft Office circa 1994. Does anyone involved in this project really believe that Mac users — of all people — want to give up on all the visual and interface improvements achieved on the Mac platform in the past 10 years, and especially since the launch of Mac OS X?

I can understand using the X11 environment to run highly-specialized scientific applications that are not available with a native Aqua interface for Mac OS X. But an office suite? Office software is based on constant visual interaction between the user and the computer. User friendliness is an essential part of this type of program. An X11 port just doesn’t cut it.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that Microsoft Office v. X is a model of user friendliness, far from it. But no matter how hard they try, Microsoft engineers cannot take away from us the built-in niceties of Mac OS X that Apple has forced them to learn to work with, to the benefit of end users: the Aqua interface, Quartz Text Smoothing, PDF-based printing, etc.

Sorry, OpenOffice — but, at this rate, I don’t think your project has a future in Mac OS X.


One Response to “OpenOffice: Forget about it”

  1. Arne Kuilman says:

    Totally agreed. No one’s gonna install this monster to be faced with gray lugliness.

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