Google is going to hire some new employees to help further develop OpenOffice a free, open source offering in collaboration with Sun Microsystems. The speculation is that Google is making these moves to pry Microsoft's death grip on desktop computer software like Microsoft Office by using the Google brand, its developers, innovation and maybe even by sprinkling a little bit of “Google dust”* on this open source competition.
So it will be interesting to see what becomes of this collaborative project between Google and Sun, since few details were released about other software they may be working to develop. I just wonder if they are creating an open source online operating system to take on Windows? Who knows? Time will only tell as we are presented with more information.
For more information on Google and Sun and OpenOffice check out these post in the blogosphere on John Battelle’s Searchblog, BlogSEO , The Last PodCast, The Barrel and The Mighty Linux Blog. Also check out this article on CNet’s News.com, MediaPost.com and Search Engine Watch.
*"Google dust" Disclaimer: Like fairy dust, the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, I am not sure if “Google dust” really does exists but “something” has allowed Google to take on a wide range of projects across a number of arenas, from here to the Moon (literally, in teaming with NASA recently) and remain an innovator in all of them without missing a beat. It has got to be Google dust?
