In what seems to be an all-out assault against software giant, Microsoft Corporation,  Google  recently included MS Office's major competitor, Star Office 8,  to its GooglePack.  Before its inclusion,   StarOffice was available  at no cost to   education and research institutions but is normally sold to other consumers at .95.   Now ,  GooglePack makes it available   to everybody for free.Note , however,   that unlike the paid version, the Google version is not entitled to technical support from Sun. 

GooglePack runs on Windows XP or Vista. Google software can alo be downloaded for Mac users.  However, it is not yet  available for Linux.   The size  of the StarOffice installer  varies from 140 MB to  as much as 210MB, depending on the language.  Thus,  downloading using dial-up connection could take hours. The use of broadband connection is highly recommended.

Visit  http://pack.google.com to download the pack.

Why not OpenOffice.org?

Star Office is the commercial version of OpenOffice.org. It is an  office suite  that contains a word processor, a spreadsheet tool, applications for presentations, databases, math formulas and drawing.   StarOffice   became the foundation of OpenOffice.org  when  Sun Microsystems  released StarOffice's source code in 2000.  Bloggers everywhere are asking: Why did Google choose  StarOffice over  OpenOffice.org?   Sun 's 2005 agreement with Google “ aims to make it easier for users to freely obtain Sun's Java™ Runtime Environment (JRE), the Google Toolbar and the OpenOffice.org office productivity suite”.  So why not Open Office.org?

I would speculate that the choice has to do with the fact that StarOffice “packs more punch” than OpenOffice.org against its rival, Microsoft Office. Indeed , StarOffice is a step-up from the open source project version.  Both OpenOffice.org and StarOffice support Microsoft Office formats except for Microsoft Office OpenXML .   However  , OpenOffice.org does not consist of all of the StarOffice code.   OpenOffice.org does not include certain fonts , the database component , Adabas D, templates, an extensive Clip Art Gallery, some file filters and management tools which StarOffice carries.

There are a few clear  benefits to the  Sun-Google tie-up. The inclusion of Star Office into GooglePack is bound to make a dent  in the  office suite market, grabbing substantial market shares from Microsoft Office.  Since StarOffice supports Google through  added Internet search capabilities within its applications, it  increases  Google's   online and offline presence in personal computers.    Google reciprocates by  pushing  StarOffice rather than develop its own  Google Office  that is  based on OpenOffice.org. 

However, Sun Microsystems is bound to lose revenues from the Google Pack inclusion.  Who would want to pay .95 for Star Office now?  The partnership between Sun and Google  suggests that market share dominance is only the first step, and Microsoft Office is just roadkill on the Google-Sun highway towards a grand master plan.  What's really in it for Google and Sun? I don't really care. I just want my  Star Office freebie.

By the way, here's a follow up on last week's article on Open XML.  Apple Corporation's recently released iWork '08 ,  a suite of three Mac applications called Keynote (presentation), Pages (desktop publisher)  and Numbers(spreadsheet) . This office suite reads the Office Open XML files with very high fidelity.  You can view the current  list of implementations of the Office Open XML standard  at  http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/08/07/iwork-08-supports-the-open-xml-formats.aspx.

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