Sun offers free Office goodie with Java update but will it help?

Filed in archive Business on October 23, 2007

Sun means business every time and this time round its making efforts to off balance Microsoft Office by doling out Office.org downloads for free along with its regular Java updates. You must be wondering that when the suite is available for free why Sun is following this strategy? Under this plan millions of people will get access to this offer when they sign up for Java auto updates.




Even though it doesn't look that free goodies will be able to topple Office suite but one must take into consideration the fact that it costs money whereas the open source stuff is available for free. You may even see customer shifting base to rivals while deciding on whether to move to the latest Open XML formats or not. With ODF formats getting recognition as international standards OpenOffice.org certainly has an edge over Microsoft but it still needs to be seen whether Sun will be successful in eroding the popularity of Microsoft Office or not even if it offers open office for free.