China's Evermore Office suite takes off

Evermore attributes the increased consumer interest in its office productivity offering to a backlash against Microsoft's aggressive "black screen" anti-piracy feature that the company launched on October 21st.

Microsoft's measure turns the computer user's screen black if it detects that they're running a pirated software copy.

Prominent Chinese computer experts including Ni Guangnan, an official with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, have called for Chinese computer users to use China's homegrown Evermore and Kingsoft office software instead of unlicenced copies of Microsoft products.

Evermore's Office 2009 product integrates word processing, spreadsheet and presentation functions within a single 30MB program, according to Cao Can, an Evermore VP. He claims the software is equivalent to Microsoft Office, can run under both Windows and Linux, and comes with free long-term support services.

Evermore Office 2009 reportedly sells to individual users for US$99, which is much less than the cost of Microsoft Office.

Then again, Open Office 3.0 implements the Open Document Format (ODF) international standard, has both simplified and traditional Chinese language versions, runs under either Windows or Linux, and is available for download free of charge.

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