The Hindu : New `OpenOffice' suite ready for free download

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 21, 2003

National

National

New `OpenOffice' suite ready for free download

By Anand Parthasarathy

BANGALORE JULY 20. The first major upgrade to "OpenOffice", the Open Source office productivity suite that can open and save files in the formats of "Microsoft Office", is now available for download. And unlike the dominant, but pricey competitor, it's free.

"OpenOffice 1.1RC" is being offered for download from the www.openoffice.org website since last week. The "RC" stands for "Release Candidate" which means almost major changes since the prototype or "beta" version have been incorporated — and the final distribution is imminent.

Key improvements in the new OpenOffice version include the ability to export files in Adobe systems' portable document format (PDF), now an industry standard for sending documents via email.

Another new feature allows users to send and receive files in Macromedia's "Flash" animation format, a useful feature to exchange multimedia content on the Net.

Cannily, version 1.1 also includes many features that support the emerging Extensible Markup Language (XML) which is likely to be the standard for creating Web pages — what Hyper Text Markup Language or HTML was till now.

The main selling point of OpenOffice has been that any file created using its tools can be read by Microsoft Office, with the reverse also possible. "Selling point" may be the wrong phrase to use, because OpenOffice is not for sale, It is a free service sponsored by Sun Microsystems who bring out a priced version with a few enhancements, called StarOffice.

The new OpenOffice release includes the word-processor called "Writer", a spread sheet programme ("Calc"); a presentation tool ("Impress"), a graphics tool ("Draw") and some basic data base features. These are compatible with Microsoft's "Word", "Excel" and "PowerPoint".

Version 1.1 can be freely downloaded in different versions for Windows, MacOS and Sun Solaris platforms, from the OpenOffice website — but most Indian users will find this fairly difficult: the software is between 60 MB and 80 MB in size depending on your operating system; and will take many hours with a dialup connection. The better option is to order OpenOffice on a CD.

OpenOffice encourages third parties to distribute its releases. The website lists agencies worldwide, who offer to provide its software on CD for a small charge.

Of the three Indian web addresses listed, only two appeared to be live when this correspondent checked today: www.btbytes.com based in Bangalore and www.worktools.info from Chandigarh. Both list the previous version of OpenOffice — 1.0.1 — and offer to dispatch it in India for Rs. 100. They can be expected to offer the latest version once OpenOffice announced the final distribution, next month.

Hitherto Microsoft has managed to retain the loyalty of customers for its Office suite — in spite of the price tag that is Rs. 30,000 upwards.

But it is widely rumoured to be contemplating some special pricing for educational and government institutions at least, in developing markets like India, when its next release of "Office" is made towards end 2003.

After all, Microsoft knows better than any one else, the compulsive attraction of "free" as against "fee" — that is how it captured the browser market from Netscape. And it is a game others can play as well.

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