Can IBM put OpenOffice over the top?

But the key question in the comments remains, will OpenOffice now become a viable competitor to Microsoft Office?

I use OpenOffice, and while it's good in many ways it has problems. The documentation in particular is poor. When I cut-and-paste from Write into a browser window, I get extra line breaks which must be eliminated manually. Turn off the program and it forgets what files it worked on. Small things, but telling.

At Sun's OpenOffice conference next week, development will again be pulled in several directions.  Language support advocates will compete for resources with feature support advocates, and support support advocates.

What will change talk into action is money, resources, direction, attention. Sun's capabilities in this area are limited. IBM's are not.

Gradually all Microsoft Office opponents have been folding themselves into open source. Qualcomm's passing of Eudora to Mozilla is one example. Lotus Notes integration with OpenOffice will be another great step.

What OpenOffice needs to really take on its larger rival is leadership, professional leadership, paid leadership that will focus the group's resources on the task at hand, and develop a strategy aimed at gaining market share. Mozilla has that. OpenOffice does not.

Is that coming from IBM? Or, like Qualcomm, and like Sun, is IBM just dumping failed code over the side?

That's the question I want answered over the next few months. Not with words, but with action.