Microsoft Office is the most popular comprehensive bundle of productivity applications in the world. It contains word publishing, spreadsheet, presentation, e-mail, and database software and is most often used with the Microsoft Windows operating system. It can also be used with the Apple Macintosh. The Microsoft Office suite enjoys almost universal worldwide familiarity. The most recent version of MS Office is Office XP, which is designed specifically to be compatible with the Windows XP environment.

Functionally, Sun StarOffice is very similar to Microsoft Office. The chief difference is that it is written using open source code and may be altered by programmers to match their specifications. It is the most popular system for Linux and Unix-based computers and utilizes an XTML-based interface. It is considered an 'alternative' to the Windows system because it is popular with developers, who often criticize Microsoft for the fact that the source code is unavailable...
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