OStatic

Here on OStatic, we've made the point many times that open source software often outdoes proprietary competitors. That said, if I see a good piece of freeware, or a fee-based commercial product, I'll still get it if it's best-of-breed. In this post, I'll flesh out a complete suite of software applications that can compete with and work seamlessly with the Microsoft Office suite, where a combination of open source titles, and one single $39.95 application will keep you totally competitive with--and compatible with--the Office suite.

Earlier, Lisa talked about Funambol's addition of non-intrusive advertisements to their myFUNAMBOL portal, at least for a few phone models.Being the somewhat reluctant owner of a new Blackberry, and a Linux user, I had heard of Funambol. I knew it was open source software, and I knew that Funambol was one of a few applications that had reasonable success syncing BlackberryOS, and a few other platforms, with Linux.

MyFUNAMBOL portal has a few hiccups to iron out (it is still in beta), but it seems to be truly useful. The operating system used on the desktop could become a non-issue for most.