Re: Star Office will it sell?
Today, Star Office 6.0 is #4 on Amazon's list of top 100 best selling software. MS Office Std. is #86 today.
Besides, OpenOffice 1.0 is really taking off with 484,000 downloads of the binaries and 57,000 downloads of the source code each of the last two weeks.
Success of OpenOffice will help Star Office in the business markets since they will not mind paying $25 to $50 per seat per year for support. And MSFT's new licensing plan is causing widespread opposition.
License 6.0, though, has proved massively unpopular. Announced in May 2001 and originally due to take full effect on October 1 2001, the program has been delayed until August 1 2002. As that date looms closer, though, a revolt is simmering among customers.
A survey of chief information officers, chief technology offers and chief operating officers at 1,500 at corporations worldwide found 36% are unable to afford the changes. Thirty eight percent said they are seeking alternatives to Microsoft products. Linux, Unix, StarOffice and Novell's eDirectory were most often cited alternatives.
According to the survey, conducted by ITIC and Windows NT and Windows 2000 specialist Sunbelt Software, 37% said they will not adopt Licensing 6.0. Le Brunerie said Microsoft would take no action against such companies, but they stood to lose money as a result.
The three-year licensing cycle has also proved unpopular. The survey found 57% actually migrate products every four to five years, and 90% claimed they would be worse off under Licensing 6.0. Le Brunerie said Microsoft picked the three-year cycle because this generates the maximum return on investment to customers.
Besides, MSFT charges nearly 10 times the cost of StarOffice per year.
I expect Sun to garner $200 to $300 million a year from Star Office (MSFT gets $10 billion a year from desktop applications - chiefly Office). Apparently, there's a video which says the same thing but I have not seen it yet.
theregister.co.uk
[video] ONtheMove: Sun: StarOffice sales could be hundreds of millions [8.5 min] - ON24 - 1:27 pm |
