Today is a big day in the “free” office suite software world. The first big news is that OpenOffice 2.3 has been released. You can get your free copy from OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice is the leading open source software suite and the most serious contender in the productivity software space against Microsoft’s own suite.
IBM officially announced its own product this morning based on OpenOffice: Lotus Symphony. Like its OpenOffice parent, Lotus Symphony is available for free.
SUN still makes StarOffice which is also based on OpenOffice although, at this time, it is still not available for free. StarOffice is unlikely to ever be offered for free as SUN considers it to be the “paid support” version of OpenOffice. Therefore if you want it without support you simply choose OpenOffice instead.
I’ve looked at the screenshots of the apps in this suite and I wasn’t very impressed. They use a goofy-looking Courier-style font all over the place. Everybody’s acting as if there haven’t been any alternatives to MS Office until now. Where have you people been?