Office suite

In computing, an office suite, sometimes called an office software suite or productivity suite is a collection of programs intended to be used by knowledge workers. The components are generally distributed together, have a consistent user interface and usually can interact with each other, sometimes in ways that the operating system would not normally allow.

The currently dominant office suites are Microsoft Office, which is available for Microsoft Windows and Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, and OpenOffice.org, a free software / open source alternative available for many operating systems. Microsoft Office's binary file formats have been the de facto default, but are being supplanted^{[citation needed]} by the open standard ODF, OpenOffice.org's (among other programs') native format. ODF is becoming the standard choice for governments, educational environments and businesses seeking neutral document formats for information exchange or seeking to save money. There are numerous office suites attempting to challenge Microsoft and OpenOffice.org.

Typical office suite components

Multi-platform office suites

Proprietary suites

• Kingsoft Office (Chinese version known as WPS Office) — a native Chinese-language office suite. English and Japanese versions are currently available also. For Microsoft Windows and some versions are available also for Linux.
• SoftMaker Office 2008 — a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation graphics program, provided by a German company. For Microsoft Windows and Linux.
• StarOffice — an office suite from Sun Microsystems. Originally developed by the German firm Star Division, which Sun acquired. Early versions shared code with OpenOffice.org project, which Sun funded and continues to support, but there has been separate development of the two packages. For Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris.

Freeware suites

• IBM Lotus Symphony — based upon an older version of OpenOffice.org. Its components include Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. For Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Open source suites

• Go-oo - OpenOffice.org variant with a number of enhancements similar to the Novell Edition but freely available. It has better support for Office Open XML (MS Office 2007) file formats than the official OpenOffice.org releases produced by Sun Microsystems, and other enhancements that have not yet been accepted into the upstream Sun version.
• KOffice — free and open-source office suite.
• OpenOffice.org — an open-source software project upon which Sun's StarOffice is based. The initial code was provided by Sun Microsystems, based on the Star Office package by German company, Star Division, which it had previously acquired. Sun has provided much of the labour for its development since. Its components include Writer, Impress, Math, Draw, Calc, and Base. Releases are available for Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris.
• OpenOffice.org Novell Edition — features the Office Open XML translator add-on. Based upon OpenOffice.org. Its components include Writer, Impress, Math, Draw, Calc, and Base.^[1]

Office suites for DOS

Proprietary suites

• Breadbox Office — A word processor, spreadsheet, address book and drawing program. It is part of a broader software package called Breadbox Ensemble which also includes such programs as email, web-browser and html editor. Breadbox Ensemble runs under what is known as the GEOS (16-bit operating system) and which basically requires some version of DOS and associated hardware.

Office suites for Microsoft Windows

Proprietary suites

• Ability Office
• Breadbox Office — it is a DOS software, but has been successfully tested with Win3.x, Win95/98/98SE/ME, WinNT4.0, Win2000 and the 32bit-versions of WinXP, WinVista and Win7.0.
• Celframe Office — supports Microsoft Office and other popular file formats, with a user interface styled on Microsoft Office 2003.
• EasyOffice
• EIOffice[2] (Evermore Integrated Office) — a Chinese / English / Japanese / French language integrated office suite. Available for Windows / Linux operating systems
• Framework — historical but also still supported for Windows by the present developer, Selection & Functions Inc.
• Gobe Productive — Originally written for BeOS by developers of the original ClarisWorks, GoBe Productive is a lightweight integrated Works-like office suite with a generous "Hassle-Free License."
• Ichitaro JUST Suite 2008 — a full Japanese-language suite from JustSystems, the most direct competitor to Microsoft Office in Japan. For Windows only.
• Kingsoft Office (Chinese version known as WPS Office) — a native Chinese-language office suite. English and Japanese versions are currently available also.
• IBM Lotus SmartSuite — For Windows 2000 and XP only
• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Works
• SoftMaker Office 2008
• StarOffice
• WordPerfect Office

Freeware suites

• IBM Lotus Symphony — Freeware word, spreadsheet and presentation suite.
• SoftMaker Office 2006
• WPS Office — The Chinese version is available for free if used non-commecially.of the computer suite

Open source suites

• GNOME Office
• KOffice — free and open-source, native for Windows since version 2.0
• OpenOffice.org
  • OpenOffice.org Novell Edition^[1]

Office suites for Mac OS X

Proprietary suites

• iWork — Apple Inc.'s Mac-only office suite. Includes Pages, for word-processing, Numbers for spreadsheets, and Keynote, for presentations. iWork replaces the now-discontinued AppleWorks suite.
• MarinerPak — MarinerPak includes Mariner Write, a fully-featured word processor, and Mariner Calc, a fully-featured Spreadsheet application.
• Microsoft Office for Mac — Microsoft's office suite for Mac operating systems. The current version is a universal binary that supports both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs. Prior editions ran on PowerPC systems and Intel based systems using Rosetta^[2].
• Microsoft Works — 4.0 is the last version for Mac.
• StarOffice — Sun's supported version of OpenOffice.org added support for Intel-based Mac OS X systems with StarOffice 9.

Freeware suites

• IBM Lotus Symphony 1.2.1 — freeware word, spreadsheet and presentation suite.

Open source suites

• KOffice — free and open-source, native support since version 2.0
• NeoOffice — NeoOffice is a Mac-specific free/open-source software development project, to integrating OpenOffice.org with native features of Mac OS X such as Quartz and Aqua, and by so doing giving the suite a more "Mac-like" look and feel.
• OpenOffice.org runs on Mac natively in an Aqua version.

Office suites for Unix/Unix-like operating systems

Proprietary suites

• EIOffice (Evermore Integrated Office) — a Chinese / English / Japanese / French language integrated office suite. Available for Windows / Linux operating systems
• SoftMaker Office 2008

Freeware suites

• IBM Lotus Symphony — freeware word, spreadsheet and presentation suite.

Open source suites

• AUIS — an office suite developed by Carnegie Mellon University and named after Andrew Carnegie.
• GNOME Office — includes AbiWord, Gnumeric and GNOME-DB data access components. It is a part of the GNOME environment for the X Window System (on Linux, the BSDs, and other Unix-like operating systems).
• Jambo OpenOffice — a Swahili version of OpenOffice.org.
• KOffice — free, open-source and cross-platform, integrated office suite for KDE.
• MagyarOffice and EuroOffice — Hungarian and European multilingual commercial office suites based on OpenOffice.org
• Siag Office — a free office suite for Unix systems. Primarily written by programmer Ulric Erikkson, with contributions from other authors. Includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, and an animation program.

Online office suites

• Google Docs — an AJAX-based online office suite from Google, Inc. The suite includes a word processor, a spreadsheet program, and a presentation editor. Available free and as an enterprise service.
• OpenGoo — an open source, fully featured online office suite. The application can be downloaded and installed on a server.
• ShareOffice — a Web-based office suite from ShareMethods. This suite utilizes separate word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications from other vendors. It is distributed through Salesforce.com's AppExchange program.
• Simdesk — an online office suite from Simdesk Technologies, Inc. This suite offers partial compatibility with the Microsoft Office file formats (Word, Excel, and Powerpoint). With a monthly subscription to Simdesk Services (costing $3.50 – $20 per month), one is allowed to install the application anywhere.
• ThinkFree Office — an office suite written in Java, from ThinkFree, Inc. It includes a word processor (Write), a spreadsheet (Calc), and a presentation program (Show). For Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
• Zoho Office Suite — a free online office suite from AdventNet, Inc. Includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, and collaboration groupware.

Comparison of general and technical information

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of office suites. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. The table only includes systems that are widely used and currently available.

General information

* Microsoft Office offers technical compliance with ODF standards, but in practice offers poor interoperability with existing ODF implementations.^[12][13]

Operating system support

The operating systems the office suites were designed to run on without emulation; for the given office suite/OS combination, there are five possibilities:

• No indicates that it does not exist or was never released.
• Partial indicates that while the office suite works, it lacks important functionality compared to versions for other OSs; it is still being developed however.
• Beta indicates that while a version of the office suite is fully functional and has been released, it is still in development (e.g. for stability).
• Yes indicates that the office suite has been officially released in a fully functional, stable version.
• Dropped indicates that while the office suite works, new versions are no longer being released for the indicated OS; the number in parentheses is the last known stable version which was officially released for that OS.

Please note that the list is not exhaustive, but rather reflects the most common operating systems today.

Main components

Offline capabilities

Online capabilities

Unicode support

Not all office suites support Unicode; some have restricted Unicode support or, like Corel WordPerfect Office, use their own encoding standard.

Historical

• AppleWorks (previously known as "ClarisWorks") — an early Mac Office suite. It has morphed and branched into AppleWorks and GoBe Productive. When the original developers split up, ClarisWorks continued as AppleWorks after being bought by Apple, and GoBeProductive was redeveloped from the ground up using ideas from the original. Apple discontinued this suite after the release of iWork '08 in August 2007.^[23]
• IBM Works — was an office suite for the IBM OS/2 operating system. It included word processing, spreadsheet, database and PIM applications.
• Island Office was available in the 1990s on many Unix platforms. This included Island Write, Draw, Paint, Presents, Calc, Chart, Table and Equation. Island Draw was, at the time, an extremely powerful PostScript editor. The company that created this software was/is called Island Software.
• Lotus Symphony — Following the popularity of office suites made by competitors, the makers of the wildly popular Lotus 123, tried their hand at a suite for DOS. (Name resurrected by IBM in September 2007 as a free OpenOffice based suite)
• Lotus Jazz — Mac sister product to Lotus Symphony.
• LotusWorks — DOS and Windows suite containing a word processor, spreadsheet, database, graphing tools and telecommunications (modem terminal) module.
• Open Access — Integrated software by Software Products International (SPI).
• Q&A (software) — Featured a database management system, "intelligent assistant", and integrated word processor.
• WindowWorks — Successor to LotusWorks above.
• Xoom Office — Historical but still available on eBay and elsewhere. Produced by the former makers of WordStar.

See also

• List of collaborative software
• List of online spreadsheets
• List of word processors
• Online office suite
• Office Open XML software
• OpenDocument software
• Web desktop
• Web operating system

References

External links

• DMOZ / Office Suites
• Comparison of online office suite with reviews and cost
• Free Web-based Office alternatives
• Review: Open-Source Office Suites Compared