Guys,

Could Linux and the other "mayor" enterprises make Microsoft fall slowly? Linux is growing very fast and if others start to improve their products to do things like the report below, i think maybe Microsoft won't be the same in the next years. Besides, Linux fans are really happy that Microsoft is falling... and this is not new.

(Report from newsfactor.com)

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Sony (NYSE: SNE) has announced it will replace Microsoft Office with Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) ' StarOffice suite on most of its desktop PCs sold in Europe.

The Japanese computer maker said the switch will affect PCs sold in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Switzerland. Sun has announced that discussions are under way to place the company's StarOffice 6.0 software on Sony PCs in other countries, too.

"I'm surprised that more PC manufacturers haven't done this," said Steve Kleynhans, an analyst with Meta Group. Kleynhans told NewsFactor that because of the cost factor, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) alternatives like StarOffice are attractive to PC makers.


An Easy Switch

Like Microsoft's Office package, Sun's StarOffice 6 is a suite of office productivity software, bundling word processing, spreadsheet and other applications typically needed for office work. The user interfaces of the Sun and Microsoft programs are similar, allowing a user familiar with one to switch to the other with relative ease.

Unlike Microsoft Office, StarOffice is an open source software product, and it is considerably less expensive. The new version of StarOffice retails for US$75.95. Microsoft Office sells for $479.

Additionally, the StarOffice program can be used on both Linux and Windows systems. The package uses an XML (extensible markup language) file format, allowing users to share or modify StarOffice content with commonly used software tools.


Eroding Market Share?

While Microsoft has a dominant hold on the desktop PC software market, Sony's decision to switch to StarOffice represents a significant victory for Santa Clara, California-based Sun.

Indeed, the company has worked hard to erode Microsoft's market share. In addition to including StarOffice with its server software, Sun has donated millions of copies to schools.

"Since [the software is] not costing them a lot, Sun hopes to make it up in the long run," Kleynhans said.

Analysts note that Sun has held discussions with ISPs to persuade them to include StarOffice with their basic offerings. Additionally, StarOffice is bundled with the offerings of many OS developers, including SuSE Linux, Ximian and Turbolinux.

Sun representatives were not immediately available for comment.


Big Guns

Sun has some powerful weapons in its efforts to gain more desktop customers. Chief among them is that the company has resolved file compatibility problems between StarOffice and Microsoft Office. In other words, if users want to transfer content between the two programs -- the most common example is Microsoft's .doc files -- the transfer should be problem-free.

An even bigger market factor benefiting Sun is falling PC prices, with some PCs flirting with a sub-$500 price tag. "The home market is extremely price sensitive, and manufacturers are doing anything they can to strip out costs," Kleynhans said. One of the few ways to squeeze extra profits from low prices is with software, he added, noting that StarOffice's low cost gives it a critical advantage.

Kleynhans speculated that Sun offered Sony the software at a price so low that it represents only a nominal profit for Sun. The reasoning behind that alleged strategy is that if Sun can gather a critical mass of home users, adoption in the more lucrative business market will follow.


A Third Player

The other competitor for desktop market share is Corel (Nasdaq: CORL) , which, like Sun, has only a small fraction of the office software market. Earlier this year, Corel scored a major coup by signing a deal to place its WordPerfect suite on PCs made by Gateway, Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

Analysts note that Europe is a particularly fertile market for alternative software products, largely because of European reluctance to embrace Microsoft. Yet, Corel is less well positioned than Sun to enter the European market, because it lacks the necessary alternative language versions of its office program.

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What do you think?

Thanks.