"In a significant win for open source desktop productivity suites, Sun Microsystems Inc. today announced that the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) would implement up to 25,000 units of its StarOffice 5.2 software." http://news.excite.com/news/zd/010625/17/department-of-defense "Customers are finding StarOffice appealing for many reasons, including cost control and the fact that it offers an alternative to the Windows platform. Many users are also very angry over Microsoft's ever-changing licensing programs," Grabau said. StarOffice was able to be deployed side-by-side with Windows, and its file formats appeared fully compatible with all versions of Microsoft Office, from the recently-released Office XP backwards, she added." "Sun is also on track to release StarOffice 6 later this year. Iyer Venkatesan, the senior product manager for StarOffice, told eWeek in late April that StarOffice 6 would include the recently finalized XML file format specifications, which would make file sharing far easier. "Files will now be able to be saved in either an XML format or in the current binary format. The lets users easily share information across applications, and will simplify the importing and exporting of files from different programs while greatly improving file sharing and readability," he said.
