Google Offers Free $70 Software -- Redmondmag.com

Barney's Blog

Google Offers Free $70 Software

Forty months ago, Sun and Microsoft buried the hatchets (the same ones they'd been hurling at each other's skulls). As part of a broad agreement, Microsoft promised it wouldn't sue Sun for any StarOffice patent or copyright infringement.

Little did Microsoft know that Google would use this deal against it. Last week, Google announced that it's giving away StarOffice, which ordinarily retails for $70 bucks.

Now, before you get too excited, keep in mind that the paid version includes support. With the Google version, you're pretty much on your own. If you look at it that way, it's nearly the same as simply downloading OpenOffice, which is also free.

While some critics contend that this is a major challenge to Microsoft Office, it's simply a marketing/distribution deal. And since the Google home page is so sparse, I doubt most users will even know the software is available. If Google really wants to unseat Office and Windows, it'll have to do a lot better than this!

What say you? Share your thoughts with other Redmond Report readers be e-mailing me at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on 08/20/2007 at 1:15 PM

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