Sun ODF Plugin For Microsoft Office No Longer Free
Update: The Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office is no longer available on the Sun Oracle website. You may still download the -- rather large -- plugin for Microsoft Office from third-party download sites like Softpedia.
Microsoft added support for open document formats to newer versions of Microsoft Office. This means that you don't need the plugin anymore if you use a new version of Office. End
Sun released a plugin back in 2007 for Microsoft Office that allowed Office users to work with Open Document Format (ODF) documents. The Sun ODF Plugin was maintained by Sun and offered as a free download. The recent acquisition of Sun by Oracle had an impact on the availability of the plugin.
The Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office is now offered for the premium price of $99 per application user plus an annual support fee of $19.80 with a minimum order quantity of 100 licenses.
This means that Oracle targets business and Enterprise customers solely at this point in time, and that home users may not get their hands on the plugin or updates at all anymore.
No information is currently offered if the product will be made available to Office end users as well.
The main Sun ODF Plugin page is still displaying a Get it now. Free button which when clicked links to the new pricing information that are then redirecting the user to the Oracle shop.
The shop page lists the current pricing for the Oracle ODF Plug-in for Microsoft Office. The move may come as a surprise to many users, especially since the Sun website button still states that the plugin is free.
Microsoft Office 2007 has integrated ODF 1.0 support with the release of the service pack 2. The ODF plugin on the other hand adds support for ODF 1.2 document formats introduced in Open Office 3.2.
It is obvious predatory tactic to prevent people from using ms office. Behavior of almost all businesses (im)matures from luring customers to sn(c)aring customers. Sometimes these businesses misuse monopoly that may lead to killing the golden goose/duck with their very own hands. Anyway there is no guarantee that oracle continues providing openoffice as free or at affordable cost. The current cost of oracle open office is 45USD to 60USD which is somewhere between affordable to costly and i think it is leaning more towards costly than affordability. I think this is omen for the coming things. Once monopolistic market share is reached they will price it more than ms office. Giving open solaris as free to gain desktop market does not become successful unless the videos/movies are played out of the box using miro, vlc,etc and skype/yahoogtalk audio/video chat is available on opensolaris. Anyway, opensolaris would be priced more costlier than windows once some market share is gained telling it is market leading production grade server os or zfs, dtrace, timeslider may not be available in desktop version.
>> Microsoft Office 2007 has integrated ODF 1.0 support with the release of the service pack 2.
This is not true AFAIK. Microsoft implemented ODF 1.1.
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/may08/05-21ExpandedFormatsPR.mspx
Microsoft need to rethink a stragedy. They really need to make their products more accessible to Open document Format. It will save the headache for MS office users in the long run.
I sure hope that it won’t start a document format war.
I did try to get some clarification by phoning . They kept changing the subject, one operator hung up, and the other guy was truthful. He’s just an operator, his opinion that it won’t affect other suites.
I sure hope the openoffice.org won’t get phased out. OpenOffice.org is an answer to strapped users.
For users of openoffice.org, the best way to keep your writings, is save it as notepad, RTF and PDF format. as a backup
As the saying goes, every software has it own quirks, and downsides.
And a little extra work, won’t kill you, just side track you a bit.
Hi all,
don’t be scared OpenOffice.org will stay free. There has been a paid solution of OOo called StarOffice under Sun and now called Oracle Open Office but OpenOffice.org will stay free.
And there’s a big community for developing it.
Its still free for OO, MS Office is a paid suite so Oracle is trying to cash in on that.
yeah for how long. I agree with you on this one as well. Oracle is trying to cash on that.
It sounds like a smack in the face to MS office user.
9,000.00 is a little excessive, 90.00 with additional 19.80 for a first year.
I think current ms word users would kiss that ability good bye. So yeah I am a little peeve.
Who knows what the fate of open office would be. To be truthful its kind of smack in the face when Oracle decides to levy a fee of 90.00 in addition to first year of 19.80.
As Ben says it, the irony that a format destined for freedom would go from free to 90.00
The whole point of open document format is alternative to other office suites.
Now the pooch had been screwed. We’ll wait and see how things come into play in the long run.
Speaking of which, it did not say anything that the darn product would be available for office end users.
The cost of using that fee is excessive, not to mention ridiculous.
I am hoping that the home user won’t get screwed by this.
The irony that a format desined for freedom would go from free to $90. I’m sure it won’t be too long till someone makes a free one
Open invitation to piracy then – and serves them bloody well right…
Wonder how long before Open Office becomes unOpen.
Its was possible to download free version 3.1 from Softpedia yesterday.
Oracle is indeed greedy. How the hell can anyone afford 90.00 US per a user. Let alone 9000.00.
Unless they’re doing something else entirely
Larry needs a new boat!
That’s Oracle changing things for worse.