LibreOffice at CeBIT 2016: wrapping up

Last week LibreOffice was present at CeBIT, and it was a good opportunity to meet users, listen to their suggestions, and talk about the future of the project. Our stand in hall 3 was well-staffed by The Document Foundation team and members of the German LibreOffice community.

CeBIT focuses primarily on IT in business, so we had a lot of inquiries about large-scale migrations to LibreOffice and what can be done to make them as smooth as possible. Our flyers about LibreOffice in the enterprise helped here, but it was also good to speak face-to-face with IT managers who are considering LibreOffice, pointing them to the many successful migrations that have taken place in recent years.

But it wasn’t all about big business. Our stand received lots of visits from people who use LibreOffice at home or in other places such as churches and mailing rooms. It’s fascinating to see how the software is being used in so many different scenarios. Many visitors to our stand simply wanted to say thank you for working on LibreOffice – but of course, we were just a tiny sample of the wider LibreOffice community, so we’d like to pass on those thanks to everyone who has contributed to the suite!

And, of course, we had lots of merchandise to give away. Our sweets and stickers were especially popular, with some visitors asking for handfuls of the latter to adorn every computer and gadget they own. Thanks to everyone who visited us!

TDF and LibreOffice at CeBIT 2016

CeBIT, the world’s largest computer expo, is just around the corner. CeBIT 2016 will take place as usual at the Messegelände in Hannover, from Monday 14th to Friday 18th of March – and the LibreOffice community will be there. So if you’re attending the event, come by and say hello! We will have a stand (D30) in Hall 3, and many of us from The Document Foundation will be present along with other LibreOffice users, developers and supporters.

CeBIT is a great opportunity for us to spread the word about LibreOffice and open document formats. We’ll be explaining how the software is developed, talking about what’s new in the foundation, and (hopefully) encouraging new developers to get involved with open source projects. With over 300,000 people expected to attend over the week, we’ll be very busy.

So we hope to see you there – have a chat, pick up a leaflet, and maybe even buy a T-shirt to support LibreOffice. And when you’ve talked to us, why not post the image above (large version here) on your Twitter account or blog to let others know that we’re here!

LibreOffice 5.1 Videos: Analytics

For LibreOffice 5.1 we created a playlist of short videos highlighting some of the new features in action. At the time of writing, these videos have been viewed over 50,000 times in total. Here’s the breakdown:

  • Calc: 15,346
  • Impress: 12,275
  • Writer: 25,229

Let’s take the Writer video and look at some of the viewer analytics data behind it. Interestingly, Spain currently provides the most viewers – whereas for the Calc and Impress videos, the USA is in first place. This chart shows the breakdown of the top 10 countries where the Writer video is popular:
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Marketing Project: New Marketing Assistant

I’d like to introduce myself as the new Marketing Assistant at The Document Foundation. My name is Mike Saunders, and some LibreOffice followers may have already seen the 5.1 New Feature videos that I made for Calc, Impress and Writer. Others may have come across my work in Linux Voice magazine in the last two years, and other computing publications such as Linux Format before that. (I’ve also written a book about Linux.)

I’ve been using, developing, writing about and advocating open source and Free Software since 1998, when I took the plunge with Red Hat Linux 5.1 from a magazine coverdisc. Around the same time, I discovered StarOffice, the commercial office suite which, of course, eventually became OpenOffice.org and now LibreOffice. I’ve seen the Free Software community grow from a grassroots movement to a major force in the computing world, and along with writing about and promoting FOSS, I’ve tried to give a little bit back with my own Free Software project: MikeOS.

So I’m really excited to be joining The Document Foundation – helping to promote and spread awareness about LibreOffice. Not only is LibreOffice a hugely versatile and useful piece of software, it represents much more: the growing importance of open standards and document formats. It’s clear that companies, communities and local governments are starting to recognise that fully open formats are the future, so it’s great to see adoption of LibreOffice all around the world.

I’ll be working on a part-time basis, helping The Document Foundation with various tasks and projects. We’re going to be at CeBIT in mid-March, we’re working on our Annual Report for 2015, and we have many ideas for presentations, events and social media promotions in the pipeline.

So far I’ve met lots of great people involved in LibreOffice and TDF, and no doubt I’ll be meeting many more – either in person at events, or collaborating on the wiki and mailing lists – over the coming 12 months. I look forward to working with you!