Sun Denies StarOffice on Mac OS X

mattworld1 writes, "MacCentral is reporting that while development of OpenOffice for Mac OS X will continue, Sun is denying that a version of StarOffice is in the works. This is unfortunate, as it would be nice for Mac OS X users to have a good alternative to the expensive Microsoft Office." Apparently it's not all bad news, as VValdo writes, "The recent announcement of a collaboration from Apple/Sun on a Java-based version of StarOffice for Mac OS X shocked and angered many of the OpenOffice developers who had been left totally in the dark. After two days of intense programming on a proof of concept, they announced a first look at Open Office in Aqua." Neat!

Comments

There will be StarOffice...

[thrillbert]

It's just that it's going to come in 78 3 1/2 inch floppies.

Of course, since Mac's do not come with floppies any more, this is going to be quite a challange to get it installed on a non-networked system. <snicker>

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After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.

Who is behind it?

[sn00perz]

Follow the $$ trail. Its in M$'s best intrestes to hamper development of Office alternatives.
They have been unhappy about poor OfficeX sales which leads me to suspect they are pressuring Apple to stop cooperating with Sun developers.

Just say 'NO' to intellectual property

Re:Java office suites

[AJWM]

Why would it be any better to try such a thing now?

Well, here are a few reasons for starters:

• Processors are an order or magnitude or two faster now than they were then.
• "Hotspot" and similiar JIT compiler technology means JVMs run orders of magnitude faster even on the same processors.
• Java itself has improved greatly from the, what, 1.0 or 1.1 days of Corel's venture?
• And Java programmers are a lot more familiar with the technology these days -- I imagine Corel's Java coders probably weren't very far up the experience curve.
• Then there's the whole J2EE web services thing, which might make a lot of sense for an organization that wants to maintain some sort of central control over its office documents, but that's a whole other issue.

I'm not saying it necessarily makes sense even now to do a cross-language as well as a cross-platform port, just answering your question.

Re:Mac rumors

[rjung2k]

Apple is an interesting company, that does interesting things, led by an interesting CEO.

If it wasn't for the illegal monopoly (and the ensuing fortune that came with it), nobody would give Bill Gates the time of day.