I think LibreOffice is already a rather large suite, and the larger it
is, the heavier it is and the harder it is to maintain and develop. So
where shall we stop?
There are good reasons to integrate Writer, Calc and Draw (or Inskscape)
and Impress. After all, the same individuals typically will write
letters and reports. Those documents are likely to include calculations
or even simple tables, charts and basic plans. It is likely that the
same document may lead to a corporate presentation. Likewise, teachers
may work the other way around and prepare a presentation (i.e. their
course) and an accompanying document (i.e. course material). So it makes
sense to integrate all those modules, and even to develop a much better
integration so that even tables written in a document (i.e. Writer doc.)
are done using the Calc module. Better integration should also mean that
a nice presentation done in Impress could be imported as is and expanded
to make the accompanying document, for example. Right now, one has to
restyle the entire document twice: once in Impress, once in Writer.
As far as I am concerned, integrating a database into LibreOffice is not
really essential. After all, it is not every day that one designs a
database and writes a report within the same project. On the other hand,
seamless data exchange between the database and Writer or Calc is
essential.
On the other hand, the publication is typically done afterwards, and
very often by a different person than the one who wrote the document. So
the important consideration is to allow one to import the ODT document
and make a really good printed document, and ideally to allow one to
export the text back in ODT for future work. It would also be good to
develop filters that allow one to import an ODT document into InDesign
and QuarkXpress.
As for e-mail and calendar product, I find Thunderbird with Lightning a
much better piece of software than Outlook. I also find it much easier
to use, but my 13 other colleagues stick with Outlook 2003 and don't
want to touch Thunderbird with a 10-ft pole. One nice feature of
Lightning is that it allows me more than one calendar.