Since going solo I haven’t really been content with working at home. It’s hard to explain, because working at home costs me 0 minutes of travel to my office and I have all the facilities I would need for a good day of work: a great sound system, an espresso machine, and a well stocked fridge.

Still something was missing: a hard separation of the life/work boundary —knowing myself, who am I kidding?— and seeing other people during the day. Thus started the quest for an office. Eelke also freelancing and just back from Berlin wanted to split an office. With two people as a start and open to add more people and co-workers as space allows, this could be pretty cool.

I have been calling various people on and off for the last two months in the Delft area. Arranging office space is a full time job by itself. There aren’t many opportunities around here and we are quite picky which makes for a difficult search.

We don’t need much it has to be cheap, near or in city center, with internet, electricity, and a lock on the door. We don’t need most of the traditional office amenities, like a receptionist, telephone lines, decent furnishing, in house catering, and parking spaces. This should be easy, right?

Bacinol

Bacinol, picture by Didier Brouwers

Interior of Bacinol, office of Vizi

There is an old industrial building at the skirts of city center called Bacinol which is a hotbed of young and creative entrepeneurs. Its lease is also very low which would have made it pretty awesome. Unfortunately and predictably it is completely full.

At the end of the year it is going to be demolished because of the construction of a railway tunnel. A part of the tenants are going to move to a building on the other end of city center at Hooikade 13. There is a severe lack of space in Delft for the kind of people that Bacinol caters for, tearing it down and replacing it by a building similar in size does not solve anything.

Last week there was a discussion at Bacinol about the need for creative spaces and the prospective offers there will be. There seems to be some stuff happening but most of it is bureaucratic and at least one year out, if not much more. One of the conclusions was that there is a great need for temporary (i.e. risky) lease constructions for the modern networked business that is happening now. Most of the people I talked to were too mired in bureaucracy or their own problems, that I’m not expecting any real solutions to come out of it.

Traditional corporate

We also hit some of the traditional avenues just to see what prices are about like. Anything via conventional realtors in the city center is priced ridiculously. It boggles the mind and tells you how much of a markup you are paying on your services just to be able to visit posh city center offices.

There are corporate agglomeration buildings on various locations outside of town. Besides being outside of town, these building offer all the traditional office amenities we don’t need, are quite expensive and are pretty much all full as well.

We hit one likely location in city center, which looked like it could have been interesting, but we were then snagged by an archaic Dutch arrangement for the lease of office space. Offices are usually let according to a 5+5 years contract. Which means you enter a contract to lease the space for five years and after those five years are over, you are allowed the option to lease it for another five years. Ejecting out of the contract befor the five years are over, is difficult. We could try to enter into a contract as a limited liability company and deflate that when we wanted out, but I think that is called bankrupcy fraud.
This is of course great for real estate owners who are practically guaranteed a solid lease for at least five years and it probably is also great for shopkeepers who want to stay in one place. It’s not so great for the here today gone tomorrow creative internet business we are in.

Alternatives

One of the alternatives we have not fully explored yet is to take office in an anti-squat building. This seems ideal from a space and cost perspective. We do not really need the long term security. Many people say an offer ‘is only valid until the end of the year’ which is plenty long as far as I’m concerned. I’m willing to take office somewhere for as short as six weeks.

We had such a brief lease the week before last when we spent two days Pascalle her old room which Eelke had furnished as a temporary office:

For just two days it still had the vibe of an office, a goto place for work related stuff and an affirmation of the reasons we are looking for an office.

The guy who lets out Bacinol has several other offices around town, where he caters to young starting technology companies. In fact he is just about the only person in Delft who does. I called him again an he’d just got an empty space of 18m2 at the end of the van Leeuwenhoeksingel (bordering the Zuidwal). This week I took a look at it and it seemed to fit our bill pretty well. A bit small, but it will do for now.

So we will probably sign the lease and move in next week.

Elsewhere

How is this situation elsewhere? I know space in Berlin is pretty cheap that you can get awesome office in the city center affordably. I hear that the UK is rife with archaic claptrap when it comes to regulations and lease agreements.
How are situations in let’s say Denmark or the US?

Last week the newest version of OpenOffice was announced, and the new release revived the discussion whether or not OpenOffice is better than Microsoft Office. Although I don’t particularly like Microsoft and normally don’t care about office suites, this latest release did get me thinking.

Disclaimer

Before I start talking about what I think of OpenOffice, let me explain that I appreciate their attempts. OpenOffice has been great at enforcing the Open Document Format that is becoming more and more mainstream. I salute the people behind ODF that make sure that there will be a real standard (unlike OOXML) that will be usable by anyone who wants to make an office suite.

The Players

When you look at some of the current office suites being used, you can probably limit them to the following leaders:

• Google Docs
• Apple iWork ‘08
• Microsoft Office
• OpenOffice.org

Both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice obviously try to play to the same crowd: office addicts. I am not trying to say anything bad about these users, but these people simply need their office suite because of their business, workflow, or other important external factors. Apple iWork and Google Docs on the other hand try to do something different. Call it a niche, call it innovation or call it the long tail, but in the end both of these products make sure they have something specific that makes them more interesting than the big two.

Google Docs

Google Docs has a clear advantage above all other products: collaboration. Because of the online nature of Google Docs they are the only suite of the four that makes collaboration extremely easy. Universities, companies, and even individuals all see the advantages of this. Google recently even proved that Google Docs is destined to coexist next to big suites, by providing OpenOffice in their Google Pack. Admittedly, Google Docs is not the most powerful suite, but unless you are an office addict, you really don’t need anything that powerful.

iWork ‘08

Apple iWork ‘08 on the other hand is making life easier for Apple fans. The suite doesn’t focus on business or students, but just people wanting to make something nice. Like most things Apple it is absolutely simple to use and attracts all kinds of people that aren’t in it for using the tool, but for making a product. Sadly there is nothing like iWork for Windows, but there is a clear niche for tools that enable simple creation of beautiful documents.

Microsoft Office

Clearly, Microsoft Office has a long history with business users. These users enjoy the full integration of Office with products like Outlook and Exchange, and the full range of possibilities the suite offers. OpenOffice is slowly gaining on Microsoft Office, especially in the public sector, but for most companies the economic reasons for a switch to OpenOffice might not be clear. Furthermore, although open standards are nice, not every company has the same to gain by adopting them.

So What About OpenOffice?

What’s OpenOffice’s niche? What sells them? Surely it is not things like ease of use or collaboration, as those are clearly better handled by Google Docs and Apple iWork. Will it sell because it is open source? Maybe governments and other IT companies might understand the importance of open source, but others mighty simply not care to change their workflow.

Then, is there a reason for OpenOffice to exist besides it being open source? Do we still need OpenOffice if ODF ever becomes an industry standard? I personally hope that OpenOffice will be here to stay, but it is clear that with the increase of interoperability, less and less people will be interested in big office suits. And as less people will need Microsoft Office, less people will also need OpenOffice.

Maybe, once we are done standardizing, it is time to leverage the power of open source to the point of innovation?