Sun Microsystems

27.September.2005 - The world's leading office productivity suite on the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) and Linux--and the leading alternative office suite on Microsoft Windows--just got even better.

The StarOffice suite and OpenOffice.org, its open source sibling, have been downloaded more than 52 million times [1]. Now, the new StarOffice 8 Office Suite adds a host of new features that make it even more advantageous:

• Seamless compatibility with Microsoft Office (Office)
• New multipaned user interface
• Support for the new OASIS OpenDocument file format
• Support for XForms, a W3C standard for XML-based forms
• Dozens of new ease-of-use enhancements

Get it Today

The StarOffice Office Suite is a comprehensive, cross-platform office productivity suite that comprises five powerful components--Writer, Impress, Calc, Draw, and Base.

Join the ranks of those who have broken free of proprietary solutions while preserving their investments in legacy documents by downloading the StarOffice 8 software today for just $69.95--or try it free for 90 days. For enterprise customers, the StarOffice 8 software is priced on a tiered, per-user basis, starting at $35/user and $25/user for upgrades.

If you are looking for the StarOffice suite in Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, get the StarSuite software. It offers all of the functionality of the StarOffice suite plus some custom features for Asian languages.

Seamless Compatibility with Microsoft Office

The StarOffice 8 Office Suite software delivers extraordinary interoperability with Microsoft Office, preserving your company's investment in legacy documents. New areas of interoperability include:

• Enhanced import and export filters for word processing files, spreadsheets, and presentations
• Support for a row limit of 65,536 in the StarOffice Calc spreadsheet application lets you create more elaborate spreadsheets and import larger Excel files
• Improved transition effects and animation in the StarOffice Impress presentation application synchronize with PowerPoint effects
• Extended set of drawing shapes matches AutoShapes in Office documents
• Macro Migration Wizard in the StarOffice 8 Enterprise Edition converts Visual Basic macros in many Word and Excel files to the StarOffice Basic macro language

More Productivity Enhancements

The StarOffice 8 suite also has a new look, with enhanced toolbars and menus that help boost productivity and make the switch from Microsoft Office easier then ever. With the StarOffice 8 release, you can also:

• Convert files directly to PDF format
• Create XML Form documents with the new editor
• Set up a new database or connect to mySQL, ADO, Oracle, ODBC, and JDBC (Java DataBase Connectivity) software databases with the new Database Wizard
• Merge form letters with address book information, and then print or e-mail merged documents with the new Mail Merge Wizard
• Manage presentation slides more efficiently with the redesigned StarOffice Impress presentation tool
• Perform advanced data analysis in spreadsheets with DataPilot
• Copy and paste formatting information within the StarOffice Writer application documents using the new Format Paintbrush

OpenDocument File Format

The StarOffice 8 release's default file format is the open standard OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument), underscoring Sun's ongoing commitment to open source standards. OpenDocument, which saves files in an XML-based format, reduces vendor lock-in for your company and makes it easy for users to access, read, and process document data. The OpenDocument format ensures your data is not bound to a single product, now or in the future.

Learn More about why it makes sense to upgrade, and how customers are already benefiting from using the StarOffice 8 Office Suite software.

1. In August 2005, a cumulative total of 52 million downloads for StarOffice, StarSuite, and OpenOffice was reached.