Demand outstrips supply for OpenOffice

OpenOffice 3.0 has been in such high demand that the company's servers have struggled to keep up

Demand for the OpenOffice 3.0 suite has been so high that it has taken down the company's servers.

At time of going to press the OpenOffice.org web site was reduced to a text-only page and direct downloads were impossible. The site does, however, include links to BitTorrent sites where the software can be downloaded.

"Apologies – our web site is struggling to cope with the unprecedented demand for the new release 3.0 of OpenOffice.org," said a statement on the web page.

"The technical teams are trying to come up with a solution. Thank you for your patience."

The software was launched on Monday, and for the first time included a version of the suite for Apple users.

OpenOffice is based on source code released by Sun in 2000. While similar to Microsoft's Office suite in some ways, the code is free and has proved very popular among open source enthusiasts and, increasingly, companies and individuals.