StarOffice is offered free to schools and has made significant progress as an alternative to Microsoft Office. But Windows remains "entrenched" in schools, so children have no opportunity to get to know alternatives. Vendors on the panel gave mixed responses about their companies' interest in introducing open source technologies into schools. Brian Green, director of Linux at Novell, said that it intending to unveil a spectrum of initiatives to push Linux, adding that details will come later. But Adam Jollans, worldwide Linux strategy manager at IBM, said that Linux on the desktop is still leading-edge.

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