SUN Announces New Pricing Scheme For StarOffice

Sun is going to change the pricing scheme for its StarOffice suite, in response, it claims, to corporate customers’ demands for a more conventionally priced and supported product.

As you probably know, Sun’s StarOffice, acquired by Sun from the German StarDivision in 1999, was offered as a free download for many years.  Recently, Sun offered a successful beta download (now concluded) for its soon-to-be shipped Release 6.0, to be available in the May timeframe.

On March 20, Sun announced that the StarOffice 6.0 product would be sold, through the retail channel, at an individual price of $100, including one bundled support incident (technical support for additional incidents or packages of incidents are available at additional fees). 

Corporate customers will be able to buy StarOffice at discounted prices, depending on volumes, with support priced separately.  It is the corporate customer demand for support, training, and the assurance of an ongoing commitment to the product that Sun says convinced it to go to this new pricing program.

Educational institutions, who have been enthusiastic users of free versions of StarOffice (and who might be less eager to buy priced copies) will continue to get StarOffice for the cost of the media.

All versions of StarOffice (Windows, Linux, and Solaris) are included in the announcement.  However, Sun will continue with its policy of including a copy of StarOffice bundled with Solaris systems, so new buyers will continue to get the software “free.”

It will still be possible to get a free download of StarOffice via the OpenOffice.Org website.  StarOffice is developed from the same OpenOffice.Org code base but includes some licensed elements not available in the OpenOffice.Org version including a spelling checker and dictionary, more fonts, clip art, and the Adabas data base.

We also want to update you on the fate of WebTop, formerly StarOffice Portal, a server-based version of StarOffice first previewed by Sun in 1999.  Currently, the product is available only as part of a Developer Subscription to Sun’s Enterprise Edition tools and not as a separate product.  This fit with Sun’s initial notion that WebTop would be used by Sun customers and partners to build web-based applications, typically offering more than just productivity applications-on-the-wire.  (You will find several European case studies on WebTop's site of implemented solutions like this.)  Eventually, Sun plans to offer WebTop as a web-based product, ready to be implemented, but still accessible for further customization, integration and development.   You will find access to an architectural overview on WebTop at the SunONE WebTop site.

References:

The Home Page for StarOffice is http://www.sun.com/staroffice/ OpenOffice.Org:  http://www.sun.com/software/star/openoffice/

SunONE WebTop: http://www.sun.com/products/staroffice/starportal/ 

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