OpenOffice will begin shipping an 18-button mouse in December, as the company expands its “furiously burning hatred” for Microsoft to the hardware market.

The OOMouse was developed in partnership with Warmouse and features a scroll wheel and 512k of flash memory to store up to 63 profiles for the 18 programmable buttons.

Unsurprisingly, the device comes with “default profiles for the five core OpenOffice.org applications based on 662 million datapoints compiled by the usage tracking facility incorporated into OpenOffice.org 3.1,” according to the press release.

If 18 buttons wasn’t dizzying enough, the mouse also features an analog controller on the left-hand side, which OpenOffice hopes will attract gamers to the mouse.

“In the three joystick-as-keyboard modes, the user can assign up to sixteen different keys or macros to the joystick, which provides for easy movement regardless of whether the user is flying through the cells of a large spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel or on the back of an epic flying mount in World of Warcraft,” the statement claims.

Which begs the question why stop at eighteen buttons?

“That’s as many as we’ve determined one can effectively use without having to look at the mouse,” OpenOffice explains on its blog.

“The mouse buttons really aren’t that small. If you can use a larger digit – the thumb – on a smartphone button less than one-half the size, you’re not likely to have any problem using your index, middle and ring fingers on the mouse buttons.”

While some commentators have suggested that the OOMouse might offer surprise competition to Apple’s recently released Magic Mouse, the organisation claims its ire is still directed Redmond’s way.

“A difference in design philosophy isn’t personal, it’s just a difference in design philosophy,” claims the organisation. “To be honest, we simply don’t care that much about Apple. Our furiously burning hatred is already far too occupied with Microsoft.”

Author: Stuart Turton
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