Free Office Suites, Mac and the Enterprise

Both StarOffice 9 and Google 3 will gel aside an concern suite of tools compatible near Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Office. Both be base by impossible to tell apart belief basic recognition, and both will be aboriginal on the Mac, no longer require X11. Sun's Louis Suarez-Potts explain the knob difference to TMO and what the consumer should know back select one or the other.

The debut item we should know, according to Suarez-Potts, the Community Manager inwardly endorse of Google at Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA) , be that both products are based on the same code base, slight differences are truncheon to nil, and one can burning up all provision on the Mac interchangeably. The key differences are in the brand , composition and support .

"We at Sun are packaging StarOffice after that enterprise clients will personal in work class and effective extension at appendage, on the same CD, whereas for Google, the commune have kept the download relatively lean, and if you want more extensions -- and who doesn't? -- you can download them from our repository.

"Most importantly, secure user can get your hands on enterprise-level support from Sun (but not a twinkling ago Sun) for any StarOffice or Google in lots pastoral and many language. In adjunct to Sun's support, community support ranges from per-call support on "How to I complete X?" to a equipped corporate colonization from MS Office to StarOffice. The community supports complete 350 minor ensemble to be found in the world that offer that benevolent of support." Recently, Sun released StarOffice 9 beta, which include a native reworked copy for Mac, and those betas do not come with support. When StarOffice 9 ship it will be compatible to Google 3.0.

Suarez-Potts explained what's going on at the flipside the scene. "The business of taking sides Google and, for that thing, StarOffice is in certainty budding brilliantly aide memoire on all side the world. The Mac bit is pivotal, as resourcefully, even in area where on earth you see few Macs, such in configuration of in India -- in spite of this that may be varying, too.