Three articles on Word Processors, following on yesterday’s announcement by Sun on the USD 76 pricing for Star Office.
News.com writeson Microsoft’s plans to incorporate .Net elements into MS Office. Writes News.com:
For the next version of Office, the company is considering an optional subscription version tied to Web services based on Extensible Markup Language (XML). Those services, which could include some of the online calendaring and collaboration features envisioned for .Net My Services.
One new Web service being considered by Microsoft would provide customers with Web-based e-mail capable of connecting to multiple services and linking to Outlook. Another service would take a similar approach to calendaring and online collaboration. The service would, for instance, allow online calendars to be updated and linked to a wireless handheld. Another service would provide online data storage for documents.
A separate article on MSNBC talks about AbiWord: “It works on most major OS platforms and supports many languages; its able to read and write most documents in Microsoft Words .doc format, as well as twenty others; its authors claim it can do most of what Word can; and best of all its free.”
Walter Mossberg reviews Star Office in the Wall Street Journal. His conclusion: “I’d recommend StarOffice 6.0 only for light-duty work, and then only for people on a tight budget, or who just can’t abide Microsoft’s licensing and activation policies…StarOffice 6.0 has a long way to go.”
