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A coming Google sponsorship?

If Google pushed OpenOffice, and integrated with OpenOffice, it might hurt Microsoft, which would greatly please Sun.
Written by Dana Blankenhorn, Inactive

I hesitate to speculate on Google's announcement later today with Sun, given how all the speculation over the second Bush Supreme Court nomination turned out.

But sometimes the obvious move is the move. And the obvious move in this case would be for Google to sponsor OpenOffice.

OpenOffice has a new version. Sun has long wanted greater distribution for it, but has been unable to make inroads. Google offers great distribution.

Jonathan SchwartzIf Google pushed OpenOffice, and integrated with OpenOffice, it might hurt Microsoft, which would greatly please Sun. Sun President Jonathan Schwartz hinted at such a move on his blog just last week. Corporate blogs are seldom head fakes. (And for playing the blog game so well, let's give Jonathan, right, some Google-love. Seems like a good day for it.)

Of course it could be simpler. Google, worth nearly $89 billion, could easily buy Sun right now, given Sun's market cap of $14.6 billion. But what would that give Google that Google needs? Google doesn't need Sun's headaches, nor Sun's servers, nor Sun's operating system. T'would be silly.

Feel free to add your own speculation below. I'm certain it's better than mine. Then, after the announcement, we'll be back with analysis. And I hope you will be too.

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