| Sun's StarOffice: Challenging Microsoft's Office suite [ZDNet] |
May 03, 2002
Michael Silver provides this perspective of StarOffice's challenge to Microsoft's Office in this Gartner Viewpoint at ZDNet . . .
"It's an understatement to say Microsoft has a leading position in the office productivity application market."
"Microsoft Office is part of the basic IT infrastructure of the enterprise and cannot be eliminated or easily replaced. The positive feedback loop and the drive for compatibility in basic applications used by most enterprises have given Microsoft a commanding lead in market share. This should indicate that Microsoft will continue as the dominant provider of office productivity software . . ."
" . . . Enterprises that do not buy a software maintenance plan for Microsoft Office by July 31, 2002 (thereby paying Microsoft a fee every year) will have to re-buy the software the next time they want a new version, at roughly twice the price they used to pay for an upgrade. This has engendered a lot of resentment among Microsoft's customers, and Gartner has experienced a marked increase in the number of clients inquiring about alternatives to Microsoft's Office suite. Of Microsoft's three major office suite competitors--Sun Microsystems' StarOffice, Corel's WordPerfect Suite, and Lotus's SmartSuite --StarOffice may become the greatest threat to Microsoft's market share largely because of the "mind share" it has garnered as a free product and through its connection to the open source movement . . . "
Read full story
Related Stories:
(Click here for further information)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
