The question remains, however: can a free productivity suite really compete with the de facto corporate standard? LibreOffice nows ships as the default office suite application on most Linux distributions and the dominant open-source productivity software. They forked the code and created their own project called LibreOffice. Differences of opinion within the Apache OpenOffice community led to many Apache OpenOffice developers forming a new organization called The Document Foundation. They struck a deal with the Apache Foundation, and Apache OpenOffice was born. By 2011, Oracle Corporation was looking to offload the open-source project. In 2010, Oracle Corporation acquired Sun Microsystems. There were many competing office suites-from companies such as Lotus, IBM, and Corel-but none came close to repeating the success of Microsoft Office. It was released in November 1990 and included Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and PowerPoint. The package office suite that rose to dominance was Microsoft Office. Costing less than the sum total of a mixed set of similar packages, the office suite took off and never looked back. Instead of a set of unrelated standalone packages, an office productivity suite had a consistent look and feel, with easy integration between those packages. Office productivity suites completely changed the software landscape for the corporate PC. Notably, Microsoft even made a word processor for kids called Creative Writer.

The dominant programs at the peak of the pre-suite period were the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, the WordPerfect word processor, and the dBase database program. Gone were the days of running a disparate collection of software on your desktop. These bundled the most-used types of office software into coherent families of software.

The office suite came hot on the heels of the success of the earliest word processor and spreadsheet programs. But can a free product go toe-to-toe with one of Microsoft’s flagship applications? How Office Productivity Suites Began LibreOffice is the premier open-source office suite, and it’s the default office package on most Linux distributions.

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