OpenOffice for OS X Delayed

Posted on August 22, 2003

This is frustrating… apparently the OpenOffice.org team is pushing back their estimate of when a native version of the OpenOffice suite will be available for Mac OS X. They had been projecting mid-2004, but now they’re saying it will have to wait till after the release of OpenOffice 2.0 in 2005 — which means Mac users likely won’t have a native port of the suite until 2006!

OpenOffice is one of those projects that’s been “almost there” for a looong time. Version 1.1 is a pretty solid product and deserves a big push to help it gain mindshare. A Mac version would help accomplish that, especially in a world where Apple is more and more willing to challenge Microsoft directly. I should think that gaining users for a new office suite should be easier in the Mac world than in the Windows world (since, after all, most Windows PCs come preloaded with Office, while for Macs it’s a costly add-on).

Hey Steve, you might want to contribute a couple developers to the OpenOffice team…