OpenOffice distances itself from OpenOfficeMouse, joins everyone else
By Donald Melanson 
posted November 9th 2009 6:48PM
posted November 9th 2009 6:48PM
Well, the OpenOfficeMouse rightly caused a bit of skepticism when it was officially announced earlier this week, and it turns out it is something non-involved after all -- just not the way you might think. Yes, the multi-buttoned mouse is still all too real (in prototype form, at least), and supposedly set for a release... sometime, but it seems that mouse's creator got a bit ahead of himself in slapping the OpenOffice name on it. As it happens, the mouse was apparently officially presented at the recent OOoConference in Italy to judge the reaction from the OpenOffice community, but the relationship ended there, and the mouse's creator was never given permission to market the mouse with the OpenOffice name (probably a wise move). Not one to be deterred, WarMouse now seems to simply be referring to the mouse as the OOMouse -- don't worry though, you can still call it "ugly."
Update: The OOMouse creators have contacted us to give their side of the story, claiming that they have emails granting permission to use OpenOffice.org's logo. In their words, "Due to the massive confusion about OpenOffice.org producing the mouse and the numerous questions about the mouse working with programs other than OpenOffice.org, we have mutually agreed with Sun to change the name of the mouse and cease using the OpenOffice.org logo."
Update: The OOMouse creators have contacted us to give their side of the story, claiming that they have emails granting permission to use OpenOffice.org's logo. In their words, "Due to the massive confusion about OpenOffice.org producing the mouse and the numerous questions about the mouse working with programs other than OpenOffice.org, we have mutually agreed with Sun to change the name of the mouse and cease using the OpenOffice.org logo."
OK so Steve Jobs is anti two button mouse. I have to imagine he would up and die at the sight of this thing. It would be like a cross to vampires.
HISSSSSSS Stay back! It burns!!!
I'll call it "fugly" instead and call it a day.
Looks like it could almost double as a phone. I'd like to be the office ass-hole answering calls overly loud on his mouse.
"Can you hear me now? Yeah, you just made me jump to the bottom of this god awful spreadsheet"
"Sorry"
"Kill me"
Mr. Melanson's most recent article is inaccurate in a number of ways. We did, in fact, request and obtain explicit written permission to make use of the OpenOffice.org logo on the OpenOfficeMouse from the responsible individuals at OpenOffice.org. We did this long before presenting the mouse at OOoCon 2009. Mr. Melanson did not know this because he did not attempt to verify any information with us, but the inaccuracy of this article should have been obvious from the start because "OpenOffice" is not even an exclusive trademark of Sun or OpenOffice.org. The relevant mark is "OpenOffice.org".
We are pleased to continue to enjoy amicable relations with the OpenOffice.org Community and expect to put out a press release in cooperation with OpenOffice.org clarifying these and other related matters sometime this week.
your mouse still looks like shit tho
Ya, no matter what you call it, that mouse needs a serious redesign. I hope that's not a final prototype.
It may look like that to you, but to me it just looks like an industrial designer had one hell of a hard night the night before, and one hell of a short day that day. Seriously, I guarantee the IDer on this one just doesn't exist. Probably sent a brief to a no-name South Siberian mp3 player mfg, and said "I wanna mouse that has lots of buttons".
Who would buy this? not for looks but for pure concept? If you guys were to make anything like this it should be a keyboard, since 90% of the time I'm using office software thats where my hands are -_- poor idea, poor execution, be glad you're getting at least some publicity on Engadget.
It's very peculiar to make a mouse with all those buttons for a office programs set, which require you to have both hands on the keyboard to be productive.
At least razer when they did it called it a WoW mouse, although that is even less ergonomic from the looks of it when you can't hold it because the keys are in the way so this guy still has one up on them in that regard.
Looks like this prototype will go on the list of worst mouse ideas with the combimouse.
http://www.combimouse.com/
Steve Jobs would be ashamed.
Great. OpenOffice distanced themselves from an outdated and ugly Mouse concept.
Now if only they could distance themselves from that outdated and ugly UI.
Strange statement from someone who went through trouble to end up with that avatar of yours.
Sorry for getting personal, but come on
rip off!
The PowerMouse 100 by ProHance:
http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue113/p08_reviews6_BUILDING_A_BETTER_MOUSE.php
i want this hard for call of duty mw2 !! seems a bit interesting