[luau] NEWS: Washington Post on StarOffice

[Warren Togami]

Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post writes about StarOffice 6.0 and
OpenOffice 1.0 being serious challengers to Microsoft's Office software
monopoly.  He talks about the benefits of cost, features, cross-platform
(Windows, Linux, Solaris, and currently experimental MacOS X), and excellent
MS Office file format compatibility.

He also praises the responsiveness of the Open Source development model when
he was annoyed by the hard-to-find "Word Count" feature in StarOffice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4246-2002May11.html

Then, two Wednesdays ago, OpenOffice.org 1.0 arrived, and Microsoft Office's
long winning streak may finally screech to a halt. OpenOffice is what many
computer users have been waiting and wishing for: It's free, open-source,
Office-compatible and cross-platform (Windows, Linux and Solaris, with a Mac
OS X version in early development).
After using the Windows version of OpenOffice for the past week and a half,
I can attest that it either matches or beats Microsoft Office in features
and ease of use, at the cost of slower performance on older computers and
the occasional slight garbling of complicated Microsoft Office documents.
It's hardly perfect, but somebody in Redmond ought to be worried about this
program.
...
 Free and adequate looks enticing compared with expensive and adequate. I
also suspect OpenOffice's developers will find and fix problems quicker than
Microsoft could.
One example: I was annoyed enough by the limited, hidden word-count function
to file a feature request at the OpenOffice.org Web site. Two days later, I
saw that my report had been assigned a tracking number and a programmer,
with his e-mail address listed.
When's the last time Microsoft responded to its Office customers like that?
(read more in his article)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4246-2002May11.html