staroffice

OpenOffice. org provides the structured engineering process that guides the evolution of the StarOffice applications.

StarOffice's open-source, component-based architecture "gives programmers and developers the freedom to do what they want, " Roth said.

StarOffice is available free of charge, and can be downloaded from the OpenOffice. org Web site.

Also noteworthy, Sun's StarOffice suite of productivity tools was added to the free Google Pack offering in August.

Another prominent example is the high adoption rate of StarOffice Suite in the local SME sector.

Essentially the same is true of the StarOffice(TM) commercially-licensed product.

Roth sees StarOffice as "leading the charge" in the trend towards using entire applications as components.

"Componentizing StarOffice was our big value-add to the product, " Roth said.

A FAQ addresses the changing differences between and StarOffice.

The source code includes the technology which Sun Microsystems has been developing for the future versions of StarOffice(TM) software.

For StarOffice, you can get e-mail and phone support, and longer-term service plans.

"The key thing to remember with licensing is that StarOffice is under [the GPL], " Roth said.

StarOffice 8 with product update 6 office productivity suite