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Microsoft Office Faces British Invasion

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the in-the-loosest-sense-of-the-word dept.

jdkane writes "CNet reports that a small British software maker, Ability, plans to challenge one of Microsoft's most profitable markets by selling its low-cost package of productivity applications in North America. Ability Office faces competition from Corel's Word Perfect, Sun Microsystems' StarOffice package and OpenOffice, it's free, open-source sibling. None of these products have captured a significant share of the market from Microsoft's Office. Does anybody have any hands-on experience with the Ability Office suite, or are there any general speculations as to why this move will make a difference in the office software market (if not just for the bottom line of the software company)?"

9 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Aawe, too bad. by Gerad · · Score: 5, Funny

    Man, what a misleading headline. For a moment, I had this amusing mental image of fully armed British special forces storming Microsoft headquarters.

    Curse you, slashdot!

    --
    Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
    1. Re:Aawe, too bad. by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, depending on how the EU antitrust case shakes out ...

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    2. Re:Aawe, too bad. by sharkey · · Score: 2, Funny

      Tomorrow's headline: "Gates and Ballmer pelted by crumpets and used teabags"

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
  2. Let's just hope that.... by elid · · Score: 1, Funny

    ...they're not into the web server business (slashdotted already!)

  3. I might try it.. by Mondoz · · Score: 4, Funny

    If only it would integrate itself into my OS, my handheld, my car, my toothbrush, my toaster, and my TV Dinners.

    I'm not sure I could cope with an Office suite that didn't...

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    /sig
  4. yeah...right... by jusdisgi · · Score: 3, Funny

    In other news, fear is struck into the heart of Hillshire Farms, as a small British consortium has announced plans to import "bangers" to the United States.

    --
    Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
  5. Re:It's not about cost, but controll by Jameth · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh, yeah, because Linux is just all over the desktop. I mean, damn, that 3% marketshare is frickin' enormous. Just, wow. We sure got attention real quick over the last five years that we had a usable desktop.

    Maybe, sometime down the road, we'll hit 5%. Then, with Apple's help, we might knock Microsoft's monopoly down to 90%.

    Yeah, that's a bright lookin' future!

  6. Re:Great by IM6100 · · Score: 2, Funny

    it's an apples to oranges thing

    Which is a difficult comparison to make on modern hardware, as Apple ran Orange Computer out of business with legal harassment.

    --
    A Good Intro to NetBS
  7. today's lesson by palad1 · · Score: 2, Funny

    astroturfing 101 :
    pose your product as anti-ms and get free press on /.