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>> this announcement is also available online at http://s.apache.org/4BL

Leading Open Source office application and personal productivity suite
for Windows, Mac, and Linux reaches a major adoption milestone

17 April 2014 --Forest Hill, MD-- The Apache Software Foundation
(ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of more
than 170 Open Source projects and initiatives, announced today that
Apache OpenOffice™ has been downloaded 100 million times.

Apache OpenOffice is the leading Open Source office document
productivity suite, available in 32 languages on Windows, OS X, and
Linux. OpenOffice includes a word processor ("Writer"), a spreadsheet
("Calc"), a presentation editor ("Impress"), a vector graphics editor
("Draw"), a mathematical formula editor ("Math"), and a database
management program ("Base").  As Open Source software, Apache
OpenOffice is available to all users free of charge; the C++ source
code is readily available for anyone who wishes to enhance the
applications.

Originally created as "StarOffice" by StarDivision and after further
development as an Open Source product under the name "OpenOffice.org",
OpenOffice entered the Apache Incubator in 2011 and graduated as an
Apache Top-level Project in October 2012.

"I'm extremely pleased to see us reach this major milestone in less
than two years," said Andrea Pescetti, Vice President of Apache
OpenOffice. "This is a testament to our community volunteers: the
hundreds of talented individuals who make Apache OpenOffice what it
is, who write the code, test for bugs, translate the user interface,
write documentation, answer user questions and manage our servers. We
remain committed to offering the successful combination of reliability
and innovation that so many users appreciate."

Official downloads at openoffice.org are hosted by SourceForge, where
users can also find repositories for more than 750 extensions and over
2,800 templates for OpenOffice.

"By continuously improving Apache OpenOffice Extensions and Templates
sites we show how committed we are about providing projects with what
they need most," said Gaurav Kuchhal, General Manager for Slashdot and
SourceForge. "We are happy to help open source projects to grow, no
matter where they are hosted or developed. We have been serving over
122 Million downloads for the Apache OpenOffice project, with daily
peaks of about 250,000 and we are committed to providing products and
services that demonstrate our dedication to technical excellence."

"Apache OpenOffice reaching 100 million downloads is a remarkable
achievement in the project's 29-year history and testament to the
power of successful Open Source communities," said Shane Curcuru,
Apache OpenOffice mentor and ASF Vice President of Brand Management.
"We extend our gratitude to all the volunteers and users whose
contribution, feedback, support, engagement, and enthusiasm keeps us
focused on delivering great software. We couldn't celebrate this
milestone without them!"

Some Trends and Fun Facts about Apache OpenOffice
 - OpenOffice supports Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X and Linux
 - Top downloads by operating system, in order: Windows, Mac, Linux
 - Top downloads by browser, in order: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome
 - Top 10 countries for OpenOffice downloads, in order: United States,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, Spain, Russia, Canada,
and Poland
 - OpenOffice supports 120+ languages --those that are 100% translated
and maintained are officially released. Latest languages released
include Asturian, Basque, Danish, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Scottish
Gaelic, and Swedish, thanks to the work of new translation volunteers
 - Apache OpenOffice features integrated improvements from IBM Lotus
Symphony (a previous fork that has been closed and donated to the ASF)
to bring better compatibility with Microsoft Office documents
 - OpenOffice 4.0 debuts a major change to its user interface with the
introduction of the Sidebar, developed by the Apache OpenOffice "dream
team" in Hamburg in close cooperation with hundreds of community
members
 - OpenOffice 4.0 reflects 500 bug fixes, advances in Microsoft Office
interoperability, enhancements to drawing/graphics, and performance
improvements, among many others
 - The new logo for OpenOffice was chosen after a long selection
process that saw over 5,000 votes cast. The winning proposal was
submitted by community member Chris Rottensteiner from South Tyrol
 - Demand for Apache OpenOffice 4.0 averages 1 million downloads per week
 - The Apache OpenOffice 4.0.1 maintenance release fixes critical
issues and improves the overall quality of the application, including:
additional native language translations, bug fixes, performance
improvements, and Windows 8 compatibility enhancements
 - Apache OpenOffice successfully supports the Microsoft Active
Accessibility (MSAA) and IAccessible2 interfaces, enabling screen
readers and other assistive technologies to work with Apache
OpenOffice, improving productivity for users who are blind or with
low-vision
 - The new accessibility support makes OpenOffice even more attractive
for use by governments and public institutions, such as the
administrative region of Emilia-Romagna, Italy, that recently
announced a migration to OpenOffice, among many others
 - Ports and distributed versions of Apache OpenOffice include a
portable version for Windows, the German PrOOo-box software
collection, and AndrOpen Office, an Android port of Apache OpenOffice
 - The most frequently used channel for user support is the 60,000+
user-strong official Apache OpenOffice Forum that averages over 100
posts per day and features over 270,000 posts about Apache OpenOffice
and all derivatives

Availability and Oversight
As with all Apache products, Apache OpenOffice is released under the
Apache License v2.0, and is overseen by a self-selected team of active
contributors to the project. A Project Management Committee (PMC)
guides the Project's day-to-day operations, including community
development and product releases. To learn how to become involved with
Apache OpenOffice, visit
http://openoffice.apache.org/get-involved.html.

Downloads and Resources
Apache OpenOffice 4.0.1 -- http://www.openoffice.org/download
Apache OpenOffice Extensions -- http://extensions.openoffice.org
Apache OpenOffice Templates -- http://templates.openoffice.org
Apache OpenOffice ports and distributions -- http://openoffice.org/porting
Apache OpenOffice Forum -- https://forum.openoffice.org
Apache OpenOffice Facebook fans -- https://facebook.com/ApacheOO
Apache OpenOffice Twitter account -- https://twitter.com/ApacheOO
Major OpenOffice deployments --
https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Major_OpenOffice.org_Deployments

About The Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
Established in 1999, the all-volunteer Foundation oversees more than
one hundred and seventy leading Open Source projects, including Apache
HTTP Server --the world's most popular Web server software. Through
the ASF's meritocratic process known as "The Apache Way," more than
400 individual Members and 3,500 Committers successfully collaborate
to develop freely available enterprise-grade software, benefiting
millions of users worldwide: thousands of software solutions are
distributed under the Apache License; and the community actively
participates in ASF mailing lists, mentoring initiatives, and
ApacheCon, the Foundation's official user conference, trainings, and
expo. The ASF is a US 501(c)(3) charitable organization, funded by
individual donations and corporate sponsors including Budget Direct,
Citrix, Cloudera, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Hortonworks, HP, Huawei,
IBM, InMotion Hosting, Matt Mullenweg, Microsoft, Pivotal, Produban,
WANdisco, and Yahoo.
For more information, visit http://www.apache.org/ or follow @TheASF on Twitter.

"Apache", "OpenOffice", "Apache OpenOffice", "OpenOffice.org", and
"ApacheCon" are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Apache
Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries. All
other brands and trademarks are the property of their respective
owners.

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