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Why Google Should Embrace OpenOffice.org
CWmike writes "Preston Gralla has a decent idea that could move the office needle: If Google really wanted to deliver a knockout punch to Microsoft, it would integrate OpenOffice with Google Docs, and sell support for the combined suite to small businesses, medium-sized business, and large corporations. Given the reach of Google, the quality of OpenOffice, and the lure of free, it's a sure winner. Imagine if a version of it were available as a Web service from Google, combined with massive amounts of Google storage. Integrated with Google Docs, it would also allow online collaboration. For those who wanted more features, the full OpenOffice suite would be available as a client — supported by Google. wouldn't be at all surprised to see this happen. Just yesterday, IBM announced that it was selling support for its free Symphony office suite. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine Google doing the same for OpenOffice, after it integrates it with Google Docs."
M$'s revenue was down 24% last quarter over the last year. The knock out punch is putting something out that convinces the market NOT to buy M$ Office. The prospect of platform independence, lower cost and higher reliability can convince wavering corporate IT managers that an upgrade to M$XML and ten more years of file format lock in is a bad idea.
Don't feel bad for the Soft, it's something they have done again and again to other companies, even when the other company's tech was better. The SCO, Get the Facts, and patent attacks are all evidence of the same kind of behavior. They deserve to fail.
I am a name troll of Westlake. Visit my homepage to learn why.
http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/announcementbeta.html
This is version 3 and one of main new features is "a new zoom control on the status bar"?? The other big "improvement" seems to be shiney new icons. That's pathetic.
No mention of performance improvements at all.