Star Office 8 out

Sun Microsystems has released an update to its StarOffice suite on Tuesday that will offer greater compatibility with Microsoft Office. StarOffice 8 will include word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database, and drawing software. The software will let users export and import Microsoft Office files from programs like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. It will also preserve macros and other password protected files.

Sun's product is a lot cheaper than Microsoft's product, but I think it would be difficult to make user shift from MS-Office to Star Office.

 

Linux could have been bigger than Windows today

Linus Torvalds, in 1991 rewrote the UNIX Operating System and it was later called as Linux. Only 2% of the current Linux kernel is written by Trovalds, but still he is the ultimate authority on what new code is incorporated into Lunix. Linux is an open source operating system and its code can be obtained and modified as per the user’s requirement. Developers all over the world started working on the Linux kernel and thus Linux started spreading. Business houses started changing the code as per their requirement and some started making their own distros. Companies like Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake, SuSe etc. have their own distributions of Linux and users have the flexibility of choosing from a wide array of products. Linux today is widely used desktops, palmtops, and servers and even in supercomputers.

Microsoft, founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975, has been working on operating systems for a long-long time. Right from the time MS-DOS was introduced till Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, Microsoft has been working to build a single stable platform and always worked hard on the user-friendliness of any product they make.(I am not going much in to the security holes in the OS) That’s the reason it is the market leader and an estimated 90% of the desktop personal computers run on Windows.

Even though Linux is the preferred platform in the server category because of its stability and cost-effectiveness, it’s Windows which is the more popular one because of its user friendliness. Linux fans might disagree with me on this count, but it has to be accepted that Linux is still a nightmare for an average user. As I earlier said, there are countless companies working on different distros of Linux and several thousand developers who are striving to make their product big. On any day Linux developers far outnumber the developers working on the Windows platform. My imagination is if all these Linux developers/companies come together and strive to make a single Linux platform, work on the stability and above all the user friendliness of the OS, then Windows can be beaten outright.

I believe the main problem behind the slow movement of Linux is the innumerable number of distros which are available in the market. I think Linux’s main advantage, which I quoted earlier in this passage is acting as a deterrent to its popularity. Many users are not sure which one is best suited for them and hence think its better to go in for Windows. That’s the reason Linux movement is very slow, even though its gaining popularity.

Well what do you think?

Open Source will die if...

It’s widely believed that Open Source will die if it doesn’t get enough financial support. Developers building Open Source products could face limitations and might move to some other platform if they do not get proper financial backing. Some of the big-time investors in Linux are IBM, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard and Intel. But some of the open source databases like mySQL and Ingres do not get enough commercial backing.

Many of the developers who develop open source products are small time developers with no standard pay, unlike their counterparts who develop non open source products. It will be interesting to see what the future has in store for Open Source. As long as companies like IBM support it, there shouldn’t be much problem.

Mobile users want higher battery life

In a survey, where over 7000 mobile phone users from over 25 countries participated, better battery life is what most of them demanded. The demand for 3G, mobile TV, GPS and MP3 compatibility fell low in their wish-list. All they wanted was their mobiles to run for two days without recharging irrespective of its usage. Next in the wish-list was a high resolution camera and video camera and the device should also have 20GB of memory

As far as the wish list goes it is endless and whether technology can keep pace with people’s imagination, only time can tell.

Well, what is your wish list? Please do comment.

Opera is now completely free

I think Opera have learnt it the hard way. They are now giving away the latest version of their browser (version 8.5) free. They have even removed the banner ads which were a part and parcel of the free version of the browser and any user who didn’t like their ads had to pay to remove them. The latest change in attitude of Opera suggests that they are going to give their competitors a run for their money. Over 1.5 million copies of the browser have been downloaded from the company’s website since they started offering it free on Tuesday, September 20^th 2005. The interesting fact is that the company’s server log shows that majority of the users who downloaded the new browser were IE users. IE’s popularity has been constantly on the decline and Microsoft needs to take some concrete measures to stay up on top even though it is still a leader in the business.

Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser with a market share of 86% and while Firefox is the second most popular browser with 8.3% share.

Its WiMax which will be the future of internet.

Gone are the days when you had to wait for months on end for your telephone connection. Gone are the days when you had to wait endlessly to get the username and password for your net connection from your ISP. These days, be it through wire or wireless you can get online within 24 hours. The ease with which one can get an internet connection and the plethora of information which is available online, more and more people are going online to make their day-to-day lives easier.

Of late the wireless form of connectivity is becoming popular thanks to ease of use and decreasing costs. For mobile communication to take place the handheld devices should be able to communicate with the base stations. The wireless devices must be in the base station’s range; else the wireless device is of no use to the user. These base stations, which incur huge erection costs, have to be placed at intervals of 10-12 Kilometres in the present wireless scenario. This results in wireless companies have base stations only in areas where they expect enough customers thus leaving a vast majority of the population without any network connectivity. Thus, in countries with large geographical area, rural population is deprived of their basic communication tools leave alone have the luxury of hooking on to the net.

But things might change in the near future. The much hyped WiMAX is almost here. WiMAX, also known as wireless broadband, the only advantage being, with just one base station the ISP can cater to customers in a 30 kilometre radius. Thus it reduces the cost of setting up base stations at every nook and corner of the city and also helps in covering a greater area than they used to before. It’s the rural population which will gain the most from this new technology which is based on the IEEE 802.16e standard. With greater areas being covered with WiMAX governments of developing nations can look to bridge the digital divide sooner rather than later.