Value in return of the Open Source industry ---by Yu Pun Hoi, Chairman of Redflag 2000
- Categories:Media Coverage
- Time of issue:2008-11-18 13:53
(Summary description)(CSDN Reports) The 6th OpenOffice.org Annual Conference 2008 was held ceremoniously in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing. Mr. Yu Pun Hoi, Chairman of Beijing RegFlag Chinese 2000 Software Technology
Value in return of the Open Source industry ---by Yu Pun Hoi, Chairman of Redflag 2000
(Summary description)(CSDN Reports) The 6th OpenOffice.org Annual Conference 2008 was held ceremoniously in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing. Mr. Yu Pun Hoi, Chairman of Beijing RegFlag Chinese 2000 Software Technology
- Categories:Media Coverage
- Time of issue:2008-11-18 13:53
(CSDN Reports) The 6th OpenOffice.org Annual Conference 2008 was held ceremoniously in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing. Mr. Yu Pun Hoi, Chairman of Beijing RegFlag Chinese 2000 Software Technology Company Limited ("Redflag 2000"), the organizer of this conference, made an excellent speech, in which he elaborated his and Redflag 2000's progressive recognition and practice achievements on the concept of green IT, and expressed his willingness to make greater efforts for the promotion of open source software's efficiency, simplicity and reliability, and to take more responsibility for environmental protection. In addition, Mr. Yu's speech also involved the following topics: given the profound influence on China's IT industry imposed by the open source technology, how to advance the development of China's IT industry with utility of this technology; in-depth elaboration about the relations between technology and innovation and service model; his quest for new business value; his ambition to accelerate international technology amalgamation and take a leading role in this industry.
At Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, our reporter had an exclusive on-spot interview with Mr. Yu, during which he shared with us his views on the current situation and hotspot topics of the open source industry.
Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, was really being honest.
When quoting Ballmer's viewpoint that the biggest competitor of Microsoft is not Google Apps, but OpenOffice, Mr. Yu said that actually Microsoft had recognized Linux as its threat in its 2003 or 2004 annals for the first time, and they also predicted that OpenOffice would impose a certain affect on Microsoft. They never gave it a mention to Linux or OpenOffice in 2005 and 2006. But this year, once again, they talked about OpenOffice in the same way, the reason behind which is that, on the one hand, Microsoft believes Google Apps is not perfect enough in function; on the other, many users feel great about the function of the new edition of OpenOffice 3.0, and some feedbacks are even better than those to Microsoft Office, as tremendous improvement has been made for the new edition. Table function is also upgraded. Therefore, considerable users are definitely turning to OpenOffice, which is proved by the download volume of 3.0 edition. IBM has declared that it's going to make an overall return to OpenOffice 3.0. So Ballmer was really being honest in saying that Microsoft had sensed the threat from OpenOffice.
Nonetheless, Mr. Yu also emphasized that he was optimistic that Google would make improvement on the development of Google Apps.
Major difficulties and obstacles for the popularization of open source software
When talking about the major difficulties and obstacles for the popularization of Redflag 2000's open source software, Mr. Yu pointed out that the biggest obstacle for users to accept the open source products was not the technology, but the use of habit. Microsoft products have developed the computer operation habit of a generation of Chinese, who are already used to and dependent on their formed way of computer operation. Although the stability and simplicity of the open source products have matched or even surpassed those of closed software, it causes a kind of "doorsill" for users as they need change their old habit and fit in the new operation environment, which surely hinders the popularization of the open source software. Government has made the development of open source product a long term program; however, what the Ministry of Education advocates in school is still the teaching material from Microsoft. The open source resources reachable to students are extremely limited and they have no other choice but to accept the monopolistic products.
In some perspective, government should take more effective measures to coordinate and support open source. For their own part, RedFlag 2000 has made tremendous work itself: large amount of code contribution for Open Source Community, making China the host of the OpenOffice.org Conference 2008, further promotion of the communication and cooperation between China and Open Source Community, and drawing more talents into the community to make it stronger. Beijing's host of the OpenOffice.org Conference 2008 may attract more Chinese enterprises to join the community, make better contribution, command core technology in this field and make China a big contributor to Open Source.
Expectation and Value Reward of Open Source Software
On the question of expectation and value reward of open source software, Mr. Yu admitted that despite Redflag 2000 products' large scale sales in government sections, development zones and large corporations, the total cost is still higher than the revenue in the open source business. He deemed that domestic open source software should continue to accumulate experiences, promote comprehensive product competitiveness and do still more work in marketing.
The current market environment is far from where a single open source product is able to challenge a free Microsoft product. Actually, clients of many large corporations, such as IBM and SUN, are all using OpenOffice software. The reason for domestic users' reluctance in acceptance is more because of their old use of habit, but not the software function itself. We need to change their ideas and habits. Mr. Yu concluded that "The battle before us is not about the technology, yet about culture and habits, and our competitor is not Microsoft technology, but a kind of hegemonic habit built under Microsoft monopoly."