Hyperventilating, Much?

Via Slashdot, we see that nerds can write overblown headlines as well as the next CNN intern:

Google formally declares war on Microsoft

We will fight them on the breaches
By Nick Farrell: Thursday 06 October 2005, 07:05

GOOGLE HAS confirmed that it will launch free spreadsheet and word-processing software online and take on Microsoft in one of its biggest markets.

Under the deal, Google will allow web users to access Sun's OpenOffice from a toolbar.

I've used OpenOffice for all of my writing at school, and enjoyed it. Having recently acquired a copy of Word, I've used that for one or two assignments this year, but if I get a printer at Christmas (hint, hint family members) then I'd happily go back to OpenOffice. For the time being, the printers at school only run on Word, and I've occasionally lost data in conversion.

That said, if you don't use MS Office for any particular heavy lifting, I'd really encouage people to download OpenOffice and check it out. It already has features that Word is waiting for, like exporting to PDF.

About the story in specifc, I think it has the potential to be really huge. I mentioned a few days ago that most information technology spending growth has been in the government and business sectors, and not in the home. If Google's brand can help spread OpenOffice to the business world, that's a much bigger deal than if home users adopt it.

Ah, the Open Source battle spreads.