StarOffice Sales Surpass One Million in Germany
Sun has eclipsed its recent announcement of a 10,000 seat contract with the United India Insurance Company. Sales of its StarOffice productivity suite in Germany through OEM software distributor Markement have now exceeded one million units. Markement distributes PCSuite, a software bundle, to OEMs and retail chains.
The StarOffice suite is billed as a value-priced alternative to Microsoft Office and features word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation, and drawing functionality while supporting Microsoft's file formats, Adobe PDF and XML. StarOffice is the retail cousin of the OpenOffice.org open source project.
"StarOffice productivity suite has proven to be one of the most popular applications in PCSuite, and therefore serves as the cornerstone of our offering," said Stephen W. Keck, managing director, Markement. "Our success further validates that StarOffice software is ready for the global mainstream market. We expect millions more copies to be sold through our distribution channel."
Although Microsoft dominates the industry with a 90 percent market share, Sun has been achieving international success. Recently, the Indian State of Haryana standardized StarOffice as its primary desktop office solution throughout all state government offices.
Additionally in Asia, Japanese computer products distributor SOURCENEXT Corporation is selling StarOffice 7 at over 15,000 retail locations in Japan.
Haryana's move to drop Microsoft Office indoctrinated the state into a troupe of countries including Brazil, England, Germany, and Israel - all of whom have adopted StarOffice for their own internal use.
The success of its productivity solution is important to Sun; StarOffice is a centerpiece of Sun's Java Desktop system. Java Desktop is a Windows-like desktop user interface powered by either Solaris or a Linux-based operating system featuring printing interoperability with Linux, Solaris and Windows environments.
Like StarOffice, Java Desktop is experiencing growing momentum. The People's Republic of China has selected Java Desktop for use throughout its territories. Domestically, Wal-Mart is expected to partner with Sun to sell the software.
StarOffice 7 is priced at US $79.95, and includes 60-day support.