StarOffice
StarOffice is Sun Microsystems's commercial office suite software package. It was originally started in the mid-1980s by Star Division, a German company, founded by Marco Boerries. The company and the rights to StarOffice were acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999.
Sun soon offered StarOffice 5.2 as a free download for personal use. But they then went through a similar exercise to Netscape's release of Mozilla by open-sourcing most of the StarOffice code-base. The resultant open-source codebase is developed as OpenOffice.org and is contributed to by both Sun and the open source community. Sun then takes a "snapshot" of the OpenOffice code base, integrates proprietary and third-party code modules and markets the package commercially.
Added proprietary components include:
- Certain fonts (especially Asian language fonts)
- Adabas B database
- Some templates
- Clip art gallery
- Some sorting functionality for Asian versions
- Some file filters.
Traditionally, StarOffice licenses have been sold for around 70 USD, but in 2004, Sun planned to offer subscription-based licenses to Japanese customers for about 1,980 JPY (19 USD) per year (Becker, 2004). P. Ulander, a desktop products manager for Sun, acknowledged that Sun planned to expand subscription-based licenses to other countries, as well.
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Referenced By
Closed source | Closed source movement | Closed source software | GNOME Office | Integrated Offimatic Program | Java Desktop System | Lighthouse Design | MS Office | Microsoft Office | Office XP | Office applications suite | Office software | Office suite | Offimatic suite | Open-sourcing | OpenOffice | OpenOffice.org | Open source community | Open source movement | Open source movements | RedHat Linux | Red Hat Linux | SUNW | StarBasic | StarOffice Basic | Sun Microsystems | Sun workstation | VBDOS 1.0 | Visual BASIC | Visual Basic programming language | Word processor | Word processors
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