Google drops StarOffice

Google Pack

[bill]

Last August [googlesystem.blogspot.com] StarOffice was added to the Google Pack [pack.google.com]. I had suggested that package to many people as a good free Office alternative. I was going to suggest it again today, but it's no longer listed. When did they drop this option?

[Quadrille]

Interesting.

I wonder if that was a StarOffice choice or Google's?

If it was StarOffice, I'd guess that it was simple matter of Google's wide distribution undermining sales, but if it was Google, the speculation gets a little more interesting.

Are they making a clear space with no tie-ups before launching their own desktop 'open office' version of Google Docs?

Did Microsoft make them a better offer? ;)

Do they believe that promoting a desktop package was sending 'the wrong message' as they push Docs?

Or did it simply fail to justify the cash in terms of creating Google Love?

As for when; your link to Alex's blog suggests it was after 12 August. The GooglePack's 'help' pages [google.com] still include StarOffice, and the Pack's Google Group [groups.google.com] still discusses it 'in the present' up to mid October; nothing since then.

[bill]

A little late to the game, the media's finally picking up on this a bit:

StarOffice dropped from Google Pack [pcpro.co.uk]

Google's decision to drop the software may reflect its desire to drive more people towards its free online office suite, which now includes applications for creating and sharing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and online forms.

Google may also have been stung into action by recent comments from Microsoft boss, Steve Ballmer, who claimed that: "We have better competition today than Google Docs and Spreadsheets. We get more competition from OpenOffice and StarOffice, frankly," he said.

I'm not sure that is the whole of it. Microsoft and Sun have a new deal [webmasterworld.com] in the works. That might have also figured into the decision.