Sun And Google Finally Get Around To StarOffice
from the that-took-some-time dept
Back in 2005, there was a lot of hype about a joint partnership between Google and Sun that turned out to be a big load of nothing. While there had been expectations that the companies would partner up to push Sun's StarOffice (an office suite based on OpenOffice), the announcement turned out to be nothing of the sort. As for StarOffice, they did mention that they might do something with it down the road, but that there hadn't been much thought put into it. Well, two years later, we're getting our answer. StarOffice is now available for free as part of Google Pack. Still, it seems unlikely that the move will do much to boost StarOffice. In the two years since the initial announcement, there's been a surge of interest in web-based applications, which will remain Google's priority. If there was ever a time for another offline office suite to steal significant share away from Microsoft, it would seem that time has passed.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: office, software
Companies: google, microsoft, sun
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open office is based on star office
sun open sourced a version of star office as open office, but kept it's clip art, filters, and the language localization proprietary. to get those things for OO.O you need to install third party add-ons.
the question is, oddly enough, will google distribute the linux version for free since google pack is exclusively for windows.
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StarOffice was first.
I wonder if the plan IS to take down Microsoft office? Start with the Windows world and expand. Perhaps a Google flavor of Linux?
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Google Pack and Linux
Google has actually been getting better about releasing their apps for Linux.
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