Monday July 23, 2007

A funny thing happened to OpenOffice.org

Great companies follow their customers, and sometimes those customers go in unexpected directions. When StarOffice split into two products, it was thought that OpenOffice.org would be the hobbyist-oriented, community-supported version,  and that StarOffice would be the professionally-supported version that would be demanded by large organizations, rather in the mode of RedHat and Fedora. Then a funny thing happened.

As Jonathan pointed out recently, OpenOffice.org is popping up everywhere, and it is being adopted by some very large organizations, particularly government agencies around the world. More and more, agencies are following mandates that the software they use be entirely open. However, these large customers don't want to run unsupported, and Sun, following its customers where they lead, is beginning to sign deals to support OpenOffice.org. You read that right: customers can buy professional OpenOffice.org support from Sun. This takes nothing away from StarOffice -- there are still plenty of customers signing up for StarOffice support.  But it does show that sometimes whole market segments come out of nowhere, and astute companies must be ready to serve them. Sun is ready.

I was recently assigned to be the product manager for StarOffice and OpenOffice.org services, so this subject is very close to my heart. Anything you'd like to see happen in StarOffice and OpenOffice.org support? Let me know. Sun follows its customers.