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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?"

10 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. 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 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. 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
  5. 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.

  6. 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.