Sun will Support OpenOffice.org
17 Dec 2007 - 10:43:41

Chris Kanaracus, IDG News Service Fri Dec 14, 4:50 PM ET Sun Microsystems on Monday plans to announce that it will provide support for the productivity software suite, citing a wave of momentum behind the open-source project. The support, which starts at US$20 per user per year, will be offered to companies that distribute OpenOffice.org, not directly to end-users, according to Mark Herring, senior director of marketing for StarOffice/OpenOffice.org and . "For a lot of distributors, they wanted to distribute OpenOffice.org and had no option for back-line support," he said. OpenOffice.org and StarOffice, Sun's accompanying commercial product, are compatible with Microsoft Office and identical in terms of capabilities, which include word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software. But until now, Sun only supported StarOffice. Another difference will remain-- Sun does not plan to provide indemnification against lawsuits for OpenOffice.org, as it does for StarOffice, Herring said. Sun's move comes as OpenOffice.org is being downloaded 1 million times per week, with total downloads to date standing at about 110 million, Herring said. Out of that number, Sun estimates that "tens of millions" of people are actively using the software, according to Herring. The most recent version is 2.3. Version 2.4 is expected in March and will contain significant new features, according to the openoffice.org Web site. "Microsoft Office is still the dominant tool out there...

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