Office On A Stick
Office On A Stick
January 6, 2006: An entire Office suite on a U3 USB stick? That's what U3 brings in the form of Portable OpenOffice 2.01 and ThinkFree Office suites.
The U3 USB disk format - a collaboration between M Systems and ScanDisk - is gaining adhering applications by the month. The format is designed to enable applications to run directly from removable USB sticks.
While the ThinkFree suite of Office tools is a welcome addition, it's the Portable OpenOffice suite that will attract most attention as it is the core application to most business and home users' Linux installations. The fact that road warriors and globalised e-workers can now ensure that no matter where they are, their applications can come with them, will be a major boost to the OpenSource community.
The fact that a U3 user can now browse the Internet with FireFox while creating OpenOffice spreadsheets - and that this setup can be used on a relatively lowly-specified portable notepad could be a genuine boon. But whether it makes OpenOffice the "killer ap'" in terms of document formats going forward is, of course, open to question.
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