StarOffice Dropped From Google Pack

Barence writes "Sun's StarOffice suite has been mysteriously dropped from the Google Pack of free software. The office suite has been axed without any warning or explanation on the Google site. Is Google trying to drive more people towards its own online suite of office applications? Or has it been stung into action by Steve Ballmer's recent comment that Microsoft Office faces stronger competition from StarOffice than it does Google Docs and Spreadsheet?"

Comments

staroffice?

[sdnoob]

was google PAYING sun for (the commercially licensed) staroffice? perhaps this is just the first step in replacing staroffice with (the free) openoffice to eliminate that (unnecessary) expense.

note that staroffice 8 is also over three years old (derived from openoffice 2.0), compared to openoffice 3, which was recently released... google could simply be moving to openoffice to stay more current with the software.

but i wouldn't put it past 'em to be removing it completely in order to drive users to their (less capable) web applications; as the article suggests. if they do not actually replace staroffice with another offline equivalent (e.g. openoffice), though, there may be some user backlash.

Re:staroffice?

[TheRaven64]

Or maybe they're following the IBM route, and making their own fork of OpenOffice.org, only in their case with better integration with Google apps (e.g. storing documents on their servers and sharing them via Google Apps).

Well, the important thing...

[Spasemunki]

is that we begin right away with the baseless speculation about which of many conspiracies is responsible for this omission. God forbid someone email someone at Google, or wait until they make a blog post or something.

Re:It's obvious....

[noshellswill]

Classic short-sight! GOOGLES value largely depends on how web_usrs view it as an "honest broker". Usrs revalue the company every day. GOOGLE is one-button-click away from bankruptcy and that button must be considered & re-chosen constantly. Other buttons abound. It's not like GOOGLE makes toilet-seats.....

Re:It's because staroffice is slow and a resource

[Anonymous Coward]

Applications written in interpreted languages are for prototypes and programs that you don't run often.

Modern industry is held together by custom scripts.

For everyday use, you want something that loads fast, is responsive, and doesn't take bazillions of Mbytes from both your RAM and Disk Space,

I use a text editor, sc and awk; YMMV. Most people seem to use Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office which discounts your theory entirely.

I also think that Vista sucked because it's probably written in .NET, obviously.

Wrong although I can't disagree completely, Vista does suck!

Seems fairly obvious...

[biscuitlover]

Maybe Google are removing a competitor to their own office applications because... they are a competitor to their own office applications.

In order for Google to make any kind of inroads into Microsoft's customer base, they have to convince people that online apps are just as viable as their offline counterparts. So providing an offline office suite in the Google Pack - ostensibly to keep the doubters happy - might be considered by some to be an admission that Google Docs won't do the job.

What Google should do

[teslatug]

Google should develop a really good plugin for OpenOffice.org that makes it a client for Google Docs. It should handle uploading, downloading, synchronizing, merging conflicts, etc. That would scare MS off a lot more, and it would actually make both OOo and Google Docs more useful.

Re:How were they giving it away in the first place

[master811]

To add to that, if you are a 'student or work in Education' you can also download it from free here: http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/solutions/staroffice.html#StarOffice

Microsoft Signs MSN Toolbar Deal With Sun

[Vandil X]

Here's why!

Microsoft Signs MSN Toolbar Deal With Sun

Google caught wind of a Microsoft/Sun deal.

The word processors.

[ChrisMaple]

I used Microsoft Word, 7 years ago. It was much more powerful then than Open Office is now. Google Docs is hopeless; it can't even read a sophisticated .doc file correctly.

Word can do things like a color gradient side border with rotated text that are hideously difficult or impossible with other editors.

I'm trying to make a sharp-looking resume. I am continually frustrated in my efforts by Open Office. I can't put text where I want it, I can't put horizontal lines where I want them, I can't get font sizes to print as they look on the screen (or to print or display the same size as Word prints and displays the same TrueType font.) I'm going to have to buy the Microsoft product to get the results I want, and that displeases me. Some employers require resumes in Word format, and the Open Office .doc format output doesn't always work.