ZDNet: Sun Expands StarOffice Giveaway

“Sun Microsystems will give away its StarOffice software to
ministries of education in Europe and Africa, the company is
expected to announce Tuesday, in an effort to undermine rival
Microsoft.

“‘Sun is committed to giving the global education community
access to the StarOffice productivity suite at no cost,’ Kim Jones,
vice president of global education and research, said in a
statement. If each copy of the software were purchased separately,
the value of the deal would be more than $5.7 billion, Sun plans to
announce.

“Sun in March donated StarOffice to China’s ministry of
education earlier this year. That deal, plus similar ones with Hong
Kong, Taiwan and Chile, meant that about 200 million students could
use StarOffice, Sun said. The new deals could add about 24 million
students to the total…”

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