Israeli Treasury to give away Microsoft Office alternative

B

Binyamin Dissen

Adapted from Jerusalem Post / Dec. 28, 2003

Israeli Treasury to give away Microsoft Office alternative

By Yehezkel Laing

The Finance Ministry said Sunday it will begin distributing Open Office, a
suite of basic software programs similar to Microsoft Office, for free as of
next week. The ministry said that it would begin to distribute thousands of
Open Office CD-ROMs at public computer centers and later on at community
centers throughout the country. The offer is expected to last throughout
2004.

The Open Office suite includes a word processing program, a spreadsheet
program similar to Excel, a presentation manager similar to PowerPoint, as
well as a drawing program. The suite can be downloaded for free from
http://www.openoffice.co.il.

The Treasury also said that free email and Internet portal programs can be
downloaded from Mozilla. All the programs can be run on the Linux operating
system which can also be downloaded free.

Open Office was originally created under the name of StarOffice by
StarDivision, a German company founded in the mid-1980s.

StarDivision was subsequently acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999. During
the past year the programs were translated into Hebrew by Sun and IBM, with
the assistance of the Finance Ministry.

The ministry said its goal is to lower the price of a computer in a bid to
reduce the technological gap between rich and poor.

But the offer is also believed to be a bid to break Microsoft's monopoly on
the Israeli software market. Microsoft Office, which can cost up to NIS
2,000, is currently installed on almost every personal computer sold in
Israel, drastically increasing the price of a computer.

Analysts of the software market say that while Linux is a having some
success in selling its operating system, especially in the business field,
its still a very long way from breaking Microsoft's iron grip.

This article can also be read at

www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1072587532143

(Link requires registration)
 
G

Gordon Darling

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 20:18:43 +0200, Binyamin Dissen wrote:


snip
But the offer is also believed to be a bid to break Microsoft's monopoly on
the Israeli software market. Microsoft Office, which can cost up to NIS
2,000, is currently installed on almost every personal computer sold in
Israel, drastically increasing the price of a computer.

Analysts of the software market say that while Linux is a having some
success in selling its operating system, especially in the business field,
its still a very long way from breaking Microsoft's iron grip.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13350

Regards
Gordon
 
B

Binyamin Dissen

:>How does this differ from the download at www.openoffice.org/ ?

Hebrew documentation, for one.

:>On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 20:50:16 +0000 (UTC), Gordon Darling
:>
:>>On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 20:18:43 +0200, Binyamin Dissen wrote:
:>>
:>>
:>>snip
:>>
:>>>
:>>> But the offer is also believed to be a bid to break Microsoft's monopoly on
:>>> the Israeli software market. Microsoft Office, which can cost up to NIS
:>>> 2,000, is currently installed on almost every personal computer sold in
:>>> Israel, drastically increasing the price of a computer.

:>>> Analysts of the software market say that while Linux is a having some
:>>> success in selling its operating system, especially in the business field,
:>>> its still a very long way from breaking Microsoft's iron grip.

:>>http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13350
 
R

REMbranded

Gordon Darling <[email protected]> wrote:

This is a great article!

While the site sounds like a tabloid, everything it said in the
article makes perfect sense.

And while MS revenues/sales are going flat/decreasing, Redhat revenues
are heading upward:

http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2003/press_q3fy2004.html

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1417646,00.asp

Mandrake is moving in a positive direction:

http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/investors/financials

Suse provides a bright outlook:

http://www.suse.com/us/company/press/index.html

http://www.suse.com/us/company/press/services/information/linux/market.html


And all are poised to ransack the MS corporate customer base via
revenue producing training and maintenance contracts and operating
systems that are more secure and are licensed in a reasonable fashion.

When people start working with linux at work they will begin to favor
it at home, as is the case with MS presently.

It will be very interesting to see exactly how Microsoft will respond
in the future. Will it concede the fact that those who pay for the
software are "the boss?" Or, will it continue to operate in the
Napolean complex? A certain amount of greed is healthy for a
corporation. Too much can certainly bring it down. All of the arm
twisting and dirty tactics MS has utilized in the past set it up as
the bully people would love to see take a fall, for sure.

It is possible this could be a historic period of time we might tell
our grandkids about some day.
 

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