Sun's newest StarOffice versions take to the Web

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June 21, 2000
Web posted at: 11:15 a.m. EDT (1515 GMT)

by John Cox

(IDG) -- Sun is set to release two new versions of its desktop productivity software as part of an effort to convince enterprise users that its Internet applications are a better deal than Microsoft Office.

Sun's StarOffice suite was originally built by Star Division Corp. of Germany as a group of object-oriented programs for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation graphics and the like. Sun acquired Star Division in August 1999 and began offering the software as a free product.

The new stand-alone desktop version, StarOffice 5.2, will feature better performance and greater support for file formats used in the market-dominant Microsoft Office, the company says. Another major push has been to make the software more reliable and stable, according to Sun executives. Version 5.2 will support files formatted with XML, a standard way to share data in Web documents.

But most of the attention on this StarOffice release will be focused on the second version, called StarPortal. The portal version is designed to run on servers, instead of individual desktops and be accessible with a Web browser.

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"The vision for StarPortal is that you are now freed from lugging around your laptop," says Tony Hampel, director of marketing for Sun's Webtop and Applications Software group. "You can have accessibility to your data and files from any device."

Whereas the stand-alone version is being aimed at home users, the portal version is designed for businesses and application service providers.

"We're talking to many service providers," Hampel says. "Some of the top-tier vendors [in this market] have approached us about this." He declined to name them.

Microsoft is working on a similar server-based plan for Office. And a California start-up called ThinkFree.com is offering a Web-based office suite that is written in Java and mimics the features of the Microsoft software.

With the Sun product, users log on to StarPortal and through a browser view the documents they're authorized to use. Still within the browser, they can open a StarOffice document, or, for example, an imported Microsoft PowerPoint slide or Excel spreadsheet. They can download a StarOffice applet to edit the document.

Both new versions are written in C++, not in Sun's heavily promoted Java language. There are no plans to change that, but individual StarOffice components can be written in other languages, says Oliver Petry, technology manager for Sun's Webtop and Applications Software group.

The portal includes a group of device templates, which can be thought of as a set of directions on how to present StarOffice documents, or parts of them, to specific devices such as a Palm V or cell phone screen that use the Wireless Application Protocol. Using the templates, the server can read an incoming browser request, select the relevant documents or data, and format them to match the client's screen.

In the future, StarPortal will import and export documents formatted in XML. One benefit of XML, Petry says, is that it will let the portal move parts of a document, instead of the entire file, back and forth between client devices and servers.

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