| Google invests in enhancing OpenOffice |
Nov. 03, 2005
 In the wake of its highly publicized Oct. 4 handshake with Sun Microsystems, Google is in the process of hiring programmers to improve the OpenOffice.org office suite so that it can really compete with Microsoft Office.
OpenOffice.org has its roots in Sun's StarOffice suite of programs, which Sun bought from German developer Marco Boerries in 1999. In 2000, Sun subsequently released most of the code to StarOffice as open-source software, recasting it as OpenOffice.
Over the past year or so, OpenOffice.org has begun to attract serious attention as an alternative to Microsoft's office suite. For example, the state of Massachusetts recently said it will stop using Microsoft Office-produced documents by Jan. 1, 2007.
Now Google believes it can help OpenOffice -- perhaps working to pare down the software's memory requirements or its huge 80MB download size, said Chris DiBona, manager for open-source programs at the search company, according to an article by CNET's Stephen Shankland.
Read the full CNET article here.
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