The long awaited version of OpenOffice, namely v2.0  has been released. It includes  many new features and better support for Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint document formats. OpenOffice has impressive visual themes and database add-on similar to Ms Access.

Wİth the release of OpenOffice v2.0, OpenOffice has finally become a real threat to Microsoft's dominant position in the market. The most important advantage for OpenOffice is the use of the recent  OASIS OpenDocument which is also proposed as an ISO standard. Microsoft seems reluctant to support OpenDocument and will only support Adobe PDF format in the upcoming Office 12.

Among other news,  Google has pledged to help distribute OpenOffice. US Massachusetts has required support for OpenDocument.

OpenOffice runs on Windows, Linux, Sun's Solaris and FreeBSD. PA version for Mac OS X's native user interface is progressing.  The following are the main features for OpenOffice :

• Documents can be digitally signed.
• Wordperfect files can now be imported.
• Password protected Ms Office documents can now be opened.
• The user interface has been enriched with multipane views.
• Mail merge wizard will enable you to create and send different versions of the same mail.
• Calc spreadsheet supports as many rows as Microsoft Excel.
• HSQLDB database is inclueded.