 | |
| Company type | Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer software |
| Founded | 1985; 40 years ago (1985) inLüneburg,Germany |
| Founder | Marco Börries |
| Defunct | August 5, 2000; 24 years ago (2000-08-05) |
| Fate | Acquired bySun Microsystems |
| Headquarters | , Germany |
| Products | StarOffice |
Number of employees | 170 (1997) |
Star Division (also written asStar-Division) was a German software company best known for developing the now discontinuedStarOffice suite. It was founded in 1985 by 16-year-oldMarco Börries inLüneburg as a garage company.[1] After a neighbour denounced the operation of a business in a residential area to theOrdnungsamt, the company moved toHamburg.[1]
As its first product the company distributedStarWriter, aword processor application developed by friends.[2]
Positioned as a cheaper alternative toMicrosoft Office, StarWriter later becameStarOffice, for which the company became famous.[1] The software had sales of over 25 million worldwide, and at its peak it had a market share among other office suites of about 25% in Germany.[1]
Caldera, Inc. supported the Linux port ofStarOffice 3.1 with ca. 800.000 DM in order to offer the product with their forthcomingOpenLinux distribution in 1997.[3][4][5][6]
In 1998 Börries released StarOffice free of charge for private use.[7]
Star Division was acquired by the software and hardware vendorSun Microsystems on 5 August 1999 for a higher double-digit million amount in US dollars.[8][nb 1] Sun reintroduced the software asStarOffice 5.1a, and for the first time also free of charge for commercial use.
The StarOffice suite has since been further improved by Sun Microsystems and theOpenOffice andLibreOffice communities.
Sun Microsystems became a wholly owned subsidiary ofOracle Corporation on 27 January 2010.
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| Discontinued and merged derivatives | ||
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