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StarOffice Dropped From Google Pack

Posted by timothy on from the stardom-is-temporary dept.

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?"

17 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. If there's one thing I wouldn't do... by davidbrit2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...It's use the frothing rants of Steve Ballmer as the basis of my business strategy.

    1. Re:If there's one thing I wouldn't do... by rodrigoandrade · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unless your business strategy involves some future negotiations with Microsoft.

    2. Re:If there's one thing I wouldn't do... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      In which case, you're obviously not an office furniture supplier.

  2. Why not OpenOffice? by Shin-LaC · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The answer might be obvious to the people involved in the project, but as an external observer I'm left to wonder why they were using StarOffice in the first place. Why not OpenOffice?

    1. Re:Why not OpenOffice? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      StarOffice has some proprietary parts that couldn't be put into OpenOffice. In particular, Sun Microsystems licensed information about the format of Office files from Microsoft, to gain better compatibility.

    2. Re:Why not OpenOffice? by David+Gerard · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "In particular, Sun Microsystems licensed information about the format of Office files from Microsoft, to gain better compatibility."

      [citation needed]

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    3. Re:Why not OpenOffice? by radimvice · · Score: 5, Funny

      [citation needed]

      Anonymous Coward. "Re:Why not OpenOffice?" Weblog comment. 10 November 2008. "StarOffice Dropped From Google Pack." Timothy Lord. Slashdot. 10 November 2008 (http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1023681&cid=25702165).

      Hope that helps~

  3. It's obvious.... by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google Apps. Google's only obligation since becoming a publicly traded company (GOOG) is this...

    Making a profit for shareholders

    Including StarOffice does nothing to that end.

    Honestly why is anyone surprised when Google acts like a real company?

  4. Support by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When an enterprise deploys office software they want at least some kind of support from the vendor.

    1. Re:Support by bmo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What support?

      Really, what support from the vendor? Have you /read/ your EULA for any software you've used? Ever?

      YOYO.

      You're On Your Own.

      Every EULA should have "YOYO" printed at the top of the first page (typically of dozens) or just say "You're On Your Own" in 28 point type in the middle of a blank page. It would greatly simplify things.

      That support myth is so old. I don't know which myth is older, that one or the "someone to sue" myth.

      Seriously, stop repeating this bullshit.

  5. staroffice? by sdnoob · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:staroffice? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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).

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  6. Well, the important thing... by Spasemunki · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Well, the important thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Maybe we at Google like reading your nutty conspiracy theories. Don't stop on our behalf.

      -- Eric Schmidt

  7. Seems fairly obvious... by biscuitlover · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  8. What Google should do by teslatug · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  9. Re:It's because staroffice is slow and a resource by Fred_A · · Score: 4, Informative

    What do you think OpenOffice is written in ?? BASIC ? Perl ? Intercal ?

    (Hint : it uses this esoteric language that has a name that starts with C and ends with ++)

    --

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