Open-source advocates have been wondering where OpenOffice, Sun
Microsystems' office applications suite alternative, was going to land
following the acquisition of the company by Oracle. Now there's news on
this front.
Oracle renewed its commitment to the product on Dec. 15 when it launched two rebranded professional versions of the package: OpenOffice 3.3 for desktops and laptops, and a hosted version, Oracle Cloud Office 1.0, for mobile devices.
Each of them is available in two editions: Enterprise ($90) and
Standard ($50) for on-premises editions. Pricing for cloud deployment
in an enterprise is handled on a per-seat basis.
OpenOffice in any form produces both Open Document Format (ODF) and
Microsoft Office documents, including word docs, spreadsheets and slide
show presentations.
The free version of OpenOffice is still available for download from the open source community at OpenOffice.org and
remains so under Oracle's direction as its primary sponsor.
In 2002,
Sun relaunched its professional version of StarOffice for a fee, which has evolved into Oracle Open
Office. Besides enterprise features such as migration tools and enterprise connectors, it also offers
indemnification, easier upgrading, and consistent releases and patches.
New features Oracle has added into OpenOffice 3.3 include enterprise connectors to Oracle
Business Intelligence, Oracle E-Business Suite, other Oracle
Applications and Microsoft Sharepoint, to enable
integration into existing enterprise software deployments.
Cloud Office, previewed in September at Oracle OpenWorld in San
Francisco, enables Web-based collaboration, mobile phone and tablet
document access, on-premise or on-demand deployment plus native
integration with Oracle OpenOffice. It also can be resold by telcos and
Internet service providers as customized deployments for home and
business user bases.
The office app package competes in the marketplace most often with Microsoft Office and on the Web with GoogleDocs.
Pricing is a major differentiator. Microsoft Office 2010 is priced at $150 (home office and student), home office and business ($280) and professional ($500).
Editor's note: This story was updated to add detail on the free version of OpenOffice.
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