Google is opening up yet another front in its battle with Microsoft by backing a competitor to Bill Gates’ dominant Office software package.

The internet search and advertising company is set to hire programmers to improve OpenOffice, a freely distributed "open source" alternative to products including Word, Microsoft’s massively popular word processor, it was revealed today.

Microsoft and Google are already battling head-to-head in fields including internet search, instant messaging and e-mail.

"We want to hire a couple of folks to help make OpenOffice better," Chris DiBona, manager for open-source programs at Google, told news.com, the industry website.

"We use a fair amount of open source software at Google. We want to make sure that's a healthy community. And we want to make sure open source preserves competitiveness within the industry," he added.

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Google has taken part in open source projects before, which have been touted as an antidote to Microsoft’s grip over the software market. Recently, it has lent out staff to organisations such as the Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit software developer behind the Firefox internet browser.

Such moves have been closely watched across the industry – especially at Microsoft.

The company Bill Gates founded 30 years ago is still the largest software house in the world by some margin, but Firefox, which has been developed by a worldwide army of volunteers, has bitten into its share of the browser market. OpenOffice is widely seen as well-placed to inflict similar damage to Microsoft Office.

In the United States last month, the state of Massachusetts ruled that all the documents its employees create have to be, by default, in an open source format called OpenDocument.

Supporters of packages such as OpenOffice, which is being translated into 60 languages, argue that it is cheaper and less prone to obsolescence than commercially developed packages such as Microsoft Office. If the Massachusetts move were to set a precedent across the US, it could be extremely damaging to Microsoft’s business.

Governments and corporations who switch to OpenOffice are able to download the software for free, but have to pay for support and service contracts.

On its website, OpenOffice.org says it "probably has over 40 million users … But who's counting? Probably only Microsoft, and judging from its market behaviour it sees us as counting a great deal."

For more on OpenOffice click here.

• Shares in Google hit $362.88 in early trade in New York today, a record. The shares made their debut at $85 last year.

  Anthony Noto, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, estimates that Google will earn revenues of $6.1 billion from internet advertising this year, more than is sold by any single newspaper chain, magazine publisher or television network.

  The New York Times reported this morning how Mr Noto expects Google to achieve advertising sales of some $9.5 billion next year, which would place it fourth among American media companies in terms of total advertising sales after Viacom, News Corporation, the parent company of Times Online, and Walt Disney.

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