OpenOffice suite takes on Microsoft

It's weird how things can come back to bite you. Microsoft Corp. killed off the competition for office software suites and became a de facto monopoly in the area, with what result?

The competition is back and, this time, it's free!

The latest version of the free OpenOffice suite promises to be a strong competitor to Microsoft Office. It's still in the "beta," or unfinished, stage, but it's already a good alternative for people who aren't heavy users. And you can't argue with the price.

OpenOffice is the fruit of a collaboration between Sun Microsystems and volunteer programmers around the world. Sun bought a German company in 1999 to get office software to bundle with its computers but figured that it wasn't going to make big bucks selling the software to a wider market because of Microsoft's grip. So it released portions of the code to the public. It probably didn't hurt that archrival Microsoft loathes the idea of free software.

Full story at SMH Online

Posted by david.thornton on 2005-05-06 00:00