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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (49088)	5/20/2002 7:51:37 PM
From: DRRISK	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

OPINION: <br>Look to Sun and Stars for Office Suite Competition May 20, 2002 (NewsFactor.com via COMTEX) -- Those looking for software competition to help push the envelope of innovation need only look to the sun and stars: Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) and StarOffice, that is. Last Wednesday, Sun Microsystems announced the highly anticipated re-release of StarOffice version 6.0 (under the Sun corporate umbrella rather than as an open source project). This newly updated productivity suite will run across multiple operating systems, including Linux, Solaris, Windows and Apple's OS X (via X Windows), and can be had for a mere US$76. Things Have Changed Most of us first came to know StarOffice as the free, open source download that Sun made available shortly after acquiring the product line in late 1999. However, open source developer support was somewhat lacking, and the company pulled some legal strings and brought the software back under its control. While StarOffice is no longer free, the software is much more refined than it was as an open source product. And support for new platforms, such as Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) Mac OS X, is being offered. Bitter Rivalries Even before the product release, Sun and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) -- already fierce competitors -- were trying to deemphasize the significance of each other's product. For example, Sun has repeatedly touted its software's low price compared to Microsoft's relatively expensive office suite. Microsoft executives countered, "You get what you pay for." Microsoft reportedly launched its own grenades against the low-price office suite developer by touting Gartner (NYSE: IT) reports stating that companies switching to StarOffice would have to bear a $1,200 productivity and retraining expense per employee. While Sun executives acknowledged the retraining and productivity costs, they countered by saying that users of Microsoft Windows 95 and 97 operating systems will have to bear similar productivity and retraining expenses when they upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Office. New Ball Game Although it seems that the two companies face equally difficult tasks -- one to maintain and the other to grow its market share -- Microsoft reportedly has come up against a difficult problem: Many of its customers apparently are resisting adoption of Microsoft's latest licensing plan. The new license calls for consumers to adopt a subscription plan that requires them to pay an annual fee for Microsoft's software. Essentially, Microsoft's new plan is to make you upgrade your software every year. Many might instead choose to keep using older software, as they would have under the older licensing plan. These issues may create big opportunities for Sun's rival product. It will be interesting to see whether customer opinion will create dramatic shifts in market share for each of the two companies. Author's background: Jim Banahan can be reached for response to this column by replying in the osOpinion.com forums. Contributed by Jim Banahan URL: sun.com apple.com apple.com microsoft.com osopinion.com w3t4/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=talkbackforum&Number=33132&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5 osopinion.com Copyright (C) 2002, NewsFactor Network. All rights reserved