More migrations to Free software are seen in Germany and setbacks are spotted elsewhere in Europe

If you've ever tried opening or converting .docx and other Microsoft Office 2007 file formats outside of Office 2007 itself, you've likely pounded your head against more than a few walls. That should be a thing of the past with OpenOffice 3.2.

earthweb.com: The concept of an office suite, with word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, is one that is well understood by users, which is also why it's often difficult to improve them. Users already expect their office suites to do certain things, making the job of office suite developers often one of fit and finish.
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The OpenOffice team have made version 3.2 of the open source office suite for Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Solaris available to download. It offers numerous enhancements over its predecessor which offer both stability and speed benefits. Writer and Calc, for example, should now start twice as fast as in version 3.1.1.

The community outcry over the removal of OpenOffice from Ubuntu Netbook Edition has seen developers reaching for a rethink over the controversial decision.

New figures from webmasterpro.de show surprisingly high market share for OpenOffice.org around the world - peaking at 22% in Poland and Germany. Has the rise of OpenOffice.org to become a true rival to Microsoft Office begun?

According to Webmasterpro.de, a German IT service provider, the open source OpenOffice suite and its derivatives, such as StarOffice or IBM's Lotus Symphony, are installed on more than 21% of German PCs.