Sun tunes up StarOffice Slurpee in Japan

Big Gulp of productivity

By Ashlee Vance in Chicago • Get more from this author

Posted in Software, 16th January 2004 05:10 GMT

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Sun Microsystems is taking StarOffice to the true heart of the Japanese consumer market - 7-Eleven.

Next month, Sun's open source productivity suite will be sitting alongside Ho Ho's and Ding Dongs, as part of a large StarOffice rollout across Japan. Sun has teamed with distributor SourceNext to sell StarSuite - the Japanese version of StarOffice - at up to 15,000 retail locations, convenience stories (7-Eleven) and book stores.

Customers can purchase StarSuite on an annual subscription model for just under $19 or pay close to $100 for free and clear use. Under the year license model, the software will expire and be unusable until the subscription is renewed. Stores will sell the software either on disc or via downloads.

StarOffice - aka OpenOffice - is a key part of Sun's Java Desktop System operating system. Don't let the tricky name fool you. It's just SuSE packaged with a host of other open source programs and aimed at business users. ®

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