ARN

Oracle now charging US$90 for ODF-Office plug-in

The tool was available at no charge under Sun

Oracle has imposed a fee of US$90 per user on a plug-in for Microsoft Office that was available at no cost under Sun Microsystems' ownership.

The tool allows Word, Excel and PowerPoint users to read, edit and save documents in the ODF (Open Document Format), which is used by the competing OpenOffice productivity suite.

Sun, which was acquired by Oracle earlier this year, founded the open-source project that created OpenOffice.

Oracle continues to sponsor the project and sells two editions of OpenOffice in product form. A standard edition, meant for single users or very small companies, costs $49.95 per perpetual license. The enterprise edition, which requires a minimum of 100 users, adds features such as a Microsoft SharePoint connector and SDK (software development kit), and costs $90 per perpetual license.

A minimum of 100 users is also required to order the Office ODF plug-in, according to Oracle's Web site. In addition, customers who wish to receive upgrades in the future must also purchase a support contract, which costs roughly 22 percent of license fees per year.

The ODF plug-in is meant in part to provide interoperability between Microsoft's platform and ODF, which is backed by an lobbying group that counts IBM, EMC and Oracle among its members.

While Microsoft added support for ODF with the release of Office 2007 Service Pack 2 last year, Oracle's move could also be meant to snare business from enterprises that are reluctant to upgrade from Office 2003 but desire ODF compatibility, as some users noted on an Ubuntu forum.

An Oracle spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.

More about: EMC, Excel, IBM, IBM Australia, Microsoft, OpenOffice, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Ubuntu
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the ARN comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: microsoft office, odf, openoffice, oracle, plug-ins
ARN Directory | Distributors relevant to this article
ACA Pacific , Aquion , ASI Solutions , Australasian PC Distributors (APCD) , Australian IT Spares , Avnet Technology Solutions , Banksia Software , Bluechip Infotech , Compucon Computers , Dicker Data , Express Data , Express Online , ICT Distribution , Impact Systems Technology , Leader Computers , NewLease , POS POS , Synnex Australia , Topstar Computer International , Westcon Group , XiT Distribution , Xpress I.T.
ARN Directory | Vendors relevant to this article
IBM , EMC , Oracle
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to ARN's news, research and invitation only events.
ARN Distributor Directory
Find distributors by name | vendor | location
Channel Deals
/deals/aca-pacific/441_tape-media-and-imation-dataguard-t5r-reseller-
ACA Pacific

Tape Media and Imation DataGuard T5R Reseller Promotion. Ends June 30, 2012

More details »
ARN Vendor Directory
Find vendors by name | category

iAsset is a channel management ecosystem that automates all major aspects of the entire sales,marketing and service process, including data tracking, integrated learning, knowledge management and product lifecycle management.