Thursday, October 20th, 2005, 3:34 pm
Open Office 2 is Out!
Only weeks after Massachusetts decided to ditch Microsoft Office, Open Office 2 is officially announced and released to the public. This version of Open Office has been claimed by some to be faster and superior to Microsoft Office. Most importantly, it adheres to OASIS, it is inter-operable, and free.
As Computerworld puts it:
The OpenOffice.org Project on Thursday released OpenOffice.org 2.0, adding new features that the group claim will resonate with users from business and governments right down to the home desktop. The product will be simultaneously released for a range of operating systems including Linux and Microsoft Windows.
An interesting nugget of information is this: the main ‘sponsors’ of Open Office, namely Sun Microsystems, have recently formed a pact with Google. This fact on its own right can lead to endless speculations, yet Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, recently denied some baseless rumour that Google aim to implement a Web-based Office suite.
Would Google possibly opt to improve and fund Open Office? Any prospects for ownership and integration with the Web? It is no secret that Linux-loving Google are involved in a heavy battle with Microsoft these days. Simply put, it is a “winner takes all” situation.