The IBM agreement announced today represents a milestone in OpenOffice.org's trajectory. It's not just that IBM is implicitly confirming OpenOffice.org's mission--others have done that, not least of which we can number Redflag--but that it is also throwing its weight behind OpenOffice.org's ODF implementation, as well as furthering it with its accessibility technology.
That last element is particularly relevant for governments, which righty insist on technology all can use, not just a segment of the population. Governments previously chary of committing to the ODF and OpenOffice.org because they were either unsure of accessibility support or unsure of the project's future and nature, may think twice now, assured that the technology will be there--only better and more flexible than the proprietary alternative.
Built by thousands of contributors working from every region of the globe and backed by some of the world's most powerful and visionary IT companies, OpenOffice.org is hardly any longer a thing of wonder, an alternative suite whose main virtue was that it could do for free what others did for a fee. Rather, it can rightly claim to be the first choice and also the right choice.
That last element is particularly relevant for governments, which righty insist on technology all can use, not just a segment of the population. Governments previously chary of committing to the ODF and OpenOffice.org because they were either unsure of accessibility support or unsure of the project's future and nature, may think twice now, assured that the technology will be there--only better and more flexible than the proprietary alternative.
Built by thousands of contributors working from every region of the globe and backed by some of the world's most powerful and visionary IT companies, OpenOffice.org is hardly any longer a thing of wonder, an alternative suite whose main virtue was that it could do for free what others did for a fee. Rather, it can rightly claim to be the first choice and also the right choice.
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