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Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

office.eu

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Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#81

Post by Confiks »

This is just a Nextcloud rebrand with a confusing domain name. It claims "Core is [100%] Open Source" but no source code is provided beyond what's already available in the upstream projects, and it's unlikely that there will be (as this happens a lot). It's a one-man project without a track record or certifications based out of a shared office space [1].

And don't get me wrong: there's nothing wrong with starting a business rebranding Nextcloud and keeping your development closed source, as long as you're honest about that, which this initiative is not.

If you're looking for a Nextcloud hoster, there's a long list of partners here [2] that have contractually obligated themselves to contribute back to Nextcloud for every user they onboard.

[1] https://blog.tomaszdunia.pl/officeeu-eng/

[2] https://nextcloud.com/partners/

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#82

Post by dzhiurgis »

Kuraj wrote: post #77
stavros wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it is whitelabeled Nextcloud, and all the improvements can go back to the Nextcloud core. That would be a great use of my tax money.

I agree. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Touche

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#83

Post by graypegg »

glenstein wrote: post #21
dabedee wrote: post #6

I laud the attempt and I think it's important there are more projects that try to compete with their American counterparts. I do want to gently note that if your entire pitch is "we are a bold, independent European alternative that liberates you from the hegemony of the established American players," maybe don't name your product the exact same thing as the product you're replacing? "Office." They named it "Office."

For me, the charitable interpretation is that office is very close to a default term for the category of the software. Open Office, Libre Office, WPS Office, Only Office, Polaris Office. One thing that may contribute to Europe's and the world's independence from Office is the notion that it's no longer a term distinctly associated with a Microsoft product. I don't entirely disagree though because they could have atta…

I think they could've worked a little harder to at least find a noun you could futz with so it has some commonality between european languages. "Office" is probably well known, but it doesn't "feel" very european to use a noun that's different from most other EU languages translation. Could be "Productiv" or something. It feels like the federal government here in Canada has a team of language nerds ready to smash together a clever french-english name with two superimposed meanings when needed. ("O-Train", Ottawa Train, Au Train. "Via Rail". "Service Canada". "ArriveCAN". etc)

You can't tell me there isn't a few turbo-nerds somewhere in the entire continent of europe that will find the intersection of 6-7 languages to name an EU groupware suite.

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#84

Post by Kwpolska »

flumpcakes wrote: post #32
sgt wrote: post #10

> Office EU is a complete cloud-based office suite Issue is.. if you are a traditional MS Office "poweruser", the last thing you want to do is spend your days in a web browser. These apps should also be available as native apps, similar to MS Word, Excel, Pages, Keynote, etc.

The vast majority of office use at my work is in the browsers because the files are stored in Sharepoint. It seems to work well enough for basic needs (no macros and fairly simple formulas in excel etc.) I have a non-technical friend in finance who uses the Desktop versions of Excel for most of their work and they say it crashes nearly every day losing work.

Every time SharePoint/Teams decides to open a document in the browser, I cry a little. Misalignments in Word, broken basic keyboard movements in Excel, terrible performance across the board.

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#85

Post by Confiks »

stavros wrote: post #67
GavinAnderegg wrote: post #9

From the FAQ on the homepage: What is Office EU? Office EU is a European productivity suite for files, email, calendars, documents and calls, built on Nextcloud Hub. It brings Files, Talk, Groupware and Office together in one platform. Looking through the Office EU screenshots, they do look like Nextcloud Groupware/Files/Office with the logo changed. Mostly adding this because I wasn't sure if it was a new product or…

Hopefully it is whitelabeled Nextcloud, and all the improvements can go back to the Nextcloud core. That would be a great use of my tax money.

You say "tax money", but this project isn't a government project or using public money at all. As for contributing back to Nextcloud: there is a long list of Nextcloud partners [1] that contractually obligated themselves to contribute back to Nextcloud for every user they onboard. The company in this article has not.

[1] https://nextcloud.com/partners/

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#86

Post by kivle »

gizajob wrote: post #26
tiderpenger wrote: post #15

Microsoft draws over 3 billion dollars out of Norway yearly. We are many that want this number much, much closer to zero. At it's small steps like this that makes it possible.

Your sovereign wealth fund probably makes 3 billion dollars out of Microsoft yearly.

The fund owns about 1.26% of Microsoft (data seems to be for 2025), which according to Gemini is about $37.5b in today's value. Stock value of Microsoft changed about 5.23% over the last year, which comes down to about $1.96b, so you're not far off...

https://www.nbim.no/no/investeringene/investeringsoversikt/#...

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#87

Post by stavros »

Confiks wrote: post #85
stavros wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it is whitelabeled Nextcloud, and all the improvements can go back to the Nextcloud core. That would be a great use of my tax money.

You say "tax money", but this project isn't a government project or using public money at all. As for contributing back to Nextcloud: there is a long list of Nextcloud partners [1] that contractually obligated themselves to contribute back to Nextcloud for every user they onboard. The company in this article has not. [1] https://nextcloud.com/partners/

Oh what! Wow, that' misleading, although I guess it doesn't explicitly say "public" or "government" everywhere. Hm.

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#88

Post by flumpcakes »

sgt wrote: post #79
flumpcakes wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of office use at my work is in the browsers because the files are stored in Sharepoint. It seems to work well enough for basic needs (no macros and fairly simple formulas in excel etc.) I have a non-technical friend in finance who uses the Desktop versions of Excel for most of their work and they say it crashes nearly every day losing work.

Excel is pretty stable.. I guess it could be those specific sheets doing something odd.

I think it's a factor of things, but Excel isn't as stable as it once was. My friends spreadsheets include:

- Row count ~100k - Column count ~1k - The usual vlookup, etc. formulae. - Oracle extensions that sync tables to databases in the cloud.

Re: Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform

#90

Post by duxup »

I'm inclined to agree that this should have had a different name, gonna be different come up with a good name.

As for open source as they claim ... can't find the code or a link to it on their site.

So far this smells like a lot of intent but I'm not sure what this is.

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