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Sun takes on MS Office
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August 31, 1999: 3:05 p.m. ET
Sun Microsystems offers Web-based office application system
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Sun Microsystems Inc. took the wraps off of a Web-based business software applications package Tuesday it hopes will steal market share from Microsoft's Office software suite.
Sun unveiled the product at the same time it announced its acquisition of Star Division Corp., which develops StarOffice applications and is based in Fremont, Calif.
Sun calls its new initiative StarPortal, a Web site that will allow users to access software tools from any browser on any operating system.
Sun is offering the StarOffice suite software free for download and is selling a CD-ROM for those who don't want to wait for the mega-megabyte download. The actual StarPortal office productivity service won't be available until the fall.
The initiative will offer users word processing, presentation graphics, spreadsheet and other office tools as part of an effort to take on MS Office on the Web, although Sun CEO Scott McNealy said he doesn't want to make it a Sun vs. Microsoft match.
"I don't look at this as a battle between two companies," said McNealy. "I look at this as a battle between the service provider and the systems administrator."
Sun has pinned its hopes on the "thin client" model, where every computer on a network accesses a main server that holds all the applications necessary for the job.
This is different from the prevalent PC model, where each computer gets its own version of a particular application, such as MS Office, on the individual hard drive.
Companies like Sun believe the thin client model will gain increasing acceptance because with it, the system administrator can make one upgrade to a particular application and all network users will access the new version.
Conversely, with the PC model, each computer user's version of that application must be upgraded individually.
The StarPortal plan is Sun's next extension of its model. It believes the Web is the ultimate thin client model as users access Web pages and other products that are updated by the one who maintains the server.
Works like e-mail
Sun believes its StarPortal system will be familiar from the outset to many Net users, especially those who use Web-based e-mail.
Portals such as Yahoo! (YHOO) and Lycos (LCOS) offer free e-mail services to their registered users. These users can access their e-mail from any Net-linked computer through a familiar browser.
The StarPortal offering is cross-platform, meaning it can be accessed using Windows, Linux or OS/2. In addition, it can handle documents created with Microsoft Office, WordPerfect or other familiar applications.
Sun (SUNW) is betting that the service will lure small-business users, because it's available free -- albeit with a lengthy download -- but it hopes corporate and educational institutions also will use it.
McNealy touted its efficacy especially for companies with workers who are on the road or who work in far-flung offices, since they'll be able to access documents from different computers.
Security concerns
While Sun hopes Net users will flock to StarPortal as they have to Web-based e-mail, they'll also have to battle concerns about the security and privacy of the applications.
On Monday, Microsoft's Web-based e-mail service, Hotmail, was hit by revelations that a security breach allowed anyone to access any of its 40 million members.
It took more than 10 hours for Microsoft eventually to repair the security problem, and only after it had shut down the service.
It was a high-profile example that could underscore users' lingering fears that personal and financial information sent over the Internet is being seen by some third party.
The possibility of such security breaches could be even more alarming to companies seeking to use services like StarPortal, especially since company secrets and vital financial information might be transmitted.
McNealy downplayed the threat, saying the alternatives are far more dangerous, and challenged anyone to get his encrypted electronic mail.
He said company information is much more at risk from lost or misplaced floppy disks or stolen laptop computers. Today's encryption processes, he said, make it much more difficult for StarPortal users to have problems.
Still, promoters of systems like Hotmail and StarPortal, which are free, sometimes are seen as treating security as a secondary concern, according to Ira Winkler, president of Internet Security Advisers Group.
"Traditional systems are meant more to protect their dollar invested in making sure they deny unauthorized users access because that saves them money," said Winkler.
"With free e-mail, the more accesses there are, the more money they potentially make from advertising sales, so they don't put that much thought into the design of the system for security."
The bottom line, said Winkler, is "You get what you pay for." 
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Sun Microsystems
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