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Quite a bit of talk has arisen today over two of Microsoft's competitors (Google and IBM) offering free office suites in an attempt to supplant Microsoft as the office king. And now that this is happened, some are wondering if Microsoft will finally face reality and offer its own Office product for free so it can compete.
This one has been circulating for the past few hours (also sent to Groklaw and added by now). The articles really speak for themselves and they all originate from (or cite) IDG. Although it is not related to Novell, it sure relates to anti-consumer — and probably anti-competitive too — moves from Microsoft.
The Microsoft Office productivity suite has risen to become the dominant application of its type for business IT management. But there are open source office productivity suites available that may provide a suitable alternative to Office.
Purely coincidentally or not, while Microsoft grapples with big legal issues around the Windows-specific MS Office, household names like IBM, Intel, and Sun are particularly busy these days beefing up software for rival office productivity suites that run across Linux, Windows, and OS.
Nobody disputes that Microsoft Office is king of the hill in office suites, but if you put marketing and market share aside, how does OpenOffice.org compare?
Microsoft is set to launch Office 2010 Starter -- a stripped down and ad-supported (but totally free [as in price]) version of Office 2010. Is this Microsoft's response to OpenOffice and Google Apps? Or is this an opportunity to get PC buyers to "try then buy" complete Office suites? Here are some thoughts.