“St.John’s comment comes as a result of Sun’s announcements to
acquire StarDivision, developer and publisher of StarOffice, and
release the product free, placing the product in the open source
environment. “In January of this year I surprised some less astute
industry observers by stating that Windows had reached its high
water mark. I think Sun’s announcement may be a key component in
hastening that,” St.John stated.”
“This does not mean Windows is disappearing. “Still a lot of DOS
out there,” quipped St.John. “But you have to look at what’s
happening. Gartner Group has said that in 1998 65% of the
developers identified Windows as their primary target platform. In
2000, GG is predicting that number goes down to 40%. Why? They want
alternatives to a shrinking Windows base…”
“According to St.John business users should now take a hard
look at how they justify the expense of staying on Microsoft Office
“because StarOffice runs Windows, and Java, and Linux, and Unix,
and OS/2. So, once off MS Office … businesses can really start
asking where they want to go today and get some different answers
for a change.“