One of Australia's most vocal advocates of open source software has predicted that the parallel releases of new open source and Microsoft versions of office software suites will start the demise of Microsoft's desktop dominance.

It would take a brave person to predict anything so dramatic as the end of the dominance of the world's longest running software monopoly. However, Google has already demonstrated that Microsoft has some chinks in its armour. Con Zymaris, CEO of open source solutions company Cybersource, believes the release of Microsoft's new Office version, Microsoft Office 12 will be the equivalent of the software giant committing Hari Kiri.

Zymaris says the industry's two major office suites, Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org, will soon be releasing new versions. According to Zymaris, recent research into these versions by large government departments indicates that for many sites, it is now 10 times cheaper to migrate to the new OpenOffice.org 2.0 than upgrading to Microsoft Office 12.

"Thanks to excellent new features and through Microsoft's poor decisions, OpenOffice.org has suddenly become the de-facto
next-generation office suite to move to," says Zymaris. "This is because OpenOffice.org is now more familiar to existing Microsoft Office users than Microsoft Office 12 is."

According to Zymaris reviewers recently published screenshots of Microsoft Office 12 and the screen layout and user-interface is clearly different to what most users are comfortable with. Even Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates, hinted that the level of difference that users will come to see in this new version, is dramatic. Gates told reporters: "There will be some shock among users."

"Cybersource believes that this change in policy by Microsoft will allow the open source OpenOffice.org suite, Microsoft's main competitor, to gain enough momentum to reach a tipping-point in the market. This scenario therefore threatens Office, which is one of Microsoft's two key product franchises - providing almost half of Microsoft's profit," says Zymaris. "And since Microsoft Office is the single biggest thing tying users to the Microsoft Windows platform, a weakened market
for Office also threatens the Windows product franchise too, in turn threatening the other half of Microsoft's profit base."

According to Zymaris, OpenOffice.org 2.0, due for release in the near future, offers the best combination of features, openness and value available. OpenOffice.org 2.0 can be a drop-in replacement for most Microsoft Office users, can
read and write Microsoft Office file-formats along with the new OpenDocument Format industry standard, is available on all major platforms (Win32, Linux, Mac, Unix) and can be downloaded for zero cost.

"With even Microsoft's own research showing that workers could take weeks to acclimatise to the new version of Office, diligent managers should look to alternatives which can deliver next-generation functionality, but without the staff down-time and cost risks," says Zymaris. "We've researched reports from organisations which have looked at migrating to either of the new office suites, and have found public comments from independent parties showing that migrating to
OpenOffice.org is 10 times cheaper than upgrading to the drastically different Microsoft Office 12."

In a recent presentation to the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, the state's secretary of administration and finance Eric Kriss said that his organisation would 'save significantly by migrating to OpenDocument-based products rather than going with Office 12 -- on the order of US$5 million for OpenDocument versus US$50 million for Office 12, including hardware and operating-system upgrade costs."

"We believe a 90% reduction in costs, as suggested by the independent Commonwealth of Massachusetts analysis noted above, is an excellent reason for all businesses looking at updating their office suite software, to choose OpenOffice.org 2.0. The risks are negligible, the gains are immense. The opportunity is there for responsible managers to make a positive impact on their IT budgets now and for the coming decade," says Zymaris.

To be fair to Microsoft, what Zymaris does not say is that a number of industry pundits have applauded Microsoft's move to do away with the dated menu based Office system, calling it a bold step in the right direction. While most also say that it is a gamble by Microsoft, Gates and co. know that an even bigger gamble would be for Microsoft to sit on its hands and do nothing, while its customers leak to the open source alternative in an ever expanding trickle that one day turns into an unpluggable gush.