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Sat, Nov 21, 2009 - 06:49 PM EST — AAPL: 199.92 (-0.59, -0.29%) | NASDAQ: 2146.04 (-10.78, -0.5%)

Sun releases StarOffice 9; adds with native support for Apple’s Mac OS X

Monday, November 17, 2008 - 03:38 PM EST

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced the availability of StarOffice 9 and its Asian language counterpart StarSuite 9 with new versions of word processor, presentation, spreadsheet, database and drawing software. This major update to Sun's productivity suite comes with native support for Mac OS X, delivers significant enhancements and provides advanced, extensible productivity tools for all users.

With Mozilla's Thunderbird email client and Lightning extension for calendaring as part of its distribution, StarOffice 9 software provides a simple, comprehensive solution for businesses of all sizes, from small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to large enterprise customers. The suite includes many extensions that make it easier to perform common tasks such as editing PDF files, creating reports, blogging, and publishing wikis. Additionally, Sun Services can provide enterprise tools to assist customers who are migrating from Microsoft Office to StarOffice 9.

"In the more than 25 years that I've worked in the computer industry, I don't know when I've been as proud as I am today -- with the release of StarOffice 9.0," said Jim Parkinson, Vice President, Developer, Tools and Services at Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the press release "The StarOffice engineering teams and OpenOffice.org community have come together to produce a first-class product. With the new features in 9.0, businesses get an open standards-based, enterprise-class office productivity suite that is compatible with Microsoft Office but costs significantly less. With its ability to read MS Office Open XML files, support for MS Access 2007 .accdb files and improved VBA macro support, StarOffice 9 is a great option for companies looking to reduce their IT costs in these tough economic times."

StarOffice 9 is completely open sourced, with the same binaries as OpenOffice.org 3.0. In this release, StarOffice has a fresh new look, with a new start center, new icons and a host of usability improvements. Many new features – multiple page editing in Writer, an optimization Solver tool and 1024 columns in Calc, native table support in Impress, and effective handling of poster-size graphics in Draw -- increase productivity and make StarOffice 9 very easy to use.

StarOffice 9 and StarSuite 9 are available for download from globalspecials.sun.com for US$34.95. Volume pricing for the enterprise starts at $25 per user and is immediately available from Sun and its authorized resellers. The new subscription model includes license and support, comes in one- and three-year terms, and the customers can choose between standard or premium support.

More information about features, extensions and languages can be found here.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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Nov 17, 08 - 04:02 pm Comment from: Cubert

Anything but Office.

Nov 17, 08 - 04:12 pm Comment from: CourtJester

Phew! What a spec. Way too powerful for me!

Nov 17, 08 - 04:14 pm Comment from: Jubei

For 35 bucks and its as powerful or more than Office? Why would companies buy Office then. Move to this format people.... buy it!

Nov 17, 08 - 04:17 pm Comment from: $35 ???

why not just get openoffice for free instead? what does staroffice do better than openoffice?

Nov 17, 08 - 05:12 pm Comment from: Jersey_Trader

Anything that can damage the foundation under Microsoft's hold on corporate IT is great!

Good luck Sun.

Nov 17, 08 - 05:13 pm Comment from: chaz

Sorry guys, enterprises have lots of spreadsheets apps with macro's, custom add in's, etc. They aren't going away any time soon.

Nov 17, 08 - 05:42 pm Comment from: freebeer

Open Office, Start Office, what the F? The difference between Apple and Sun cannot be more apparent than this pointless exercise. Sun is obsessed in beating MSFT by imitating it but with the ever changing projects and efforts and unfocused direction. On the other hand Apple just focus on a few things it does well, and is doing very well. Sun should spend more effort on keeping Dell from eating its server biz completely and forget the enterprise software which no major enterprise needs since few major enterprise runs entirely on Sun.

Ironically now Open Office has great VBA support MSFT just about given up VBA in MS Office. All it really takes is a couple of top IT mangers or sysadmins with the balls to say enough and switch users off the Windows crackpipe, but rarely does any of them dare to incur the wrath of their Windows-addicted users or bother to get off their lazy butts to learn a new way of doing business. You wonder why the economy is in such as disarray.

Nov 17, 08 - 06:32 pm Comment from: Military Police

Anyone care to elaborate on the difference between this and OpenOffice.org 3.0?

Nov 17, 08 - 09:35 pm Comment from: anaknipedro

The difference is that you get a support team with staroffice. With openoffice you are stuck with searching through forums. For personal use, just use openoffice. For business use, I would recommend getting staroffice.

my $0.02

Nov 17, 08 - 10:11 pm Comment from: ken1w

If it uses the same binaries as Open Office 3.0, why pay $34.95? I guess that money buys some level of customer support services from Sun, which may be important for business customers with multi-seat licenses.

I tried Open Office 3.0 the other day, and I thought it was pretty nice.

Nov 17, 08 - 10:36 pm Comment from: iDon't

OpenOffice works quite well on a Mac. But I prefer MS Office. The only app in Office that I use is MS Word. I must have an addiction similar to crack. I just can't stop using MS Word. Pray for me folks. I need help.

Nov 18, 08 - 09:57 am Comment from: since1985

Is it Java based? I really don't like Java-based OS X apps.

Nov 18, 08 - 10:22 am Comment from: elgarak

Hmmm... no trial version? Sorry, Sun, no deal...

Nov 18, 08 - 12:14 pm Comment from: fatal

openoffice.org 3.0.0 is not available for OSX PPC only for Intel

OSX PPC must use v. 2.4.0

Nov 18, 08 - 01:36 pm Comment from: Macdaddy

I hate to say it. But, MS Office has the free programs beat in several key areas. Don't get me wrong. I use NeoOffice and it works fine for most stuff. I appreciate their work. But, the max columns and rows for Excel are 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns. Max columns in NeoOffice is 256 and version 3.0 is 1,024. Granted, how many times do you need more than 1,024. But, I have run into that wall a few times. Also, I need UTF-16 file formats when working with Yahoo. It is annoying that I have to load Excel when I am doing account updating. It would be extremely helpful if this file format was available. Also, I am not sure why the semicolon had to be used as a separator in formulas instead of the comma. After years of using the comma, it is an inconvenience to have to edit a formula. I figure I will get 100% proficient at it in the future. At this point, it is a pain.

So, it is the little things that prevent me from jumping of MS completely...though I would love to do so.

Nov 18, 08 - 07:55 pm Comment from: ken1w

@ fatal

> openoffice.org 3.0.0 is not available for OSX PPC only for Intel

There seems to a version for both PowerPC and Intel.

http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua.html

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Sat, Nov 21, 2009 - 06:49 PM EST — AAPL: 199.92 (-0.59, -0.29%) | NASDAQ: 2146.04 (-10.78, -0.5%)

Sun releases StarOffice 9; adds with native support for Apple’s Mac OS X

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Sat, Nov 21, 2009 - 06:49 PM EST — AAPL: 199.92 (-0.59, -0.29%) | NASDAQ: 2146.04 (-10.78, -0.5%)

Sun releases StarOffice 9; adds with native support for Apple’s Mac OS X

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