Sun announced the availability of StarOffice 9 and its Asian language counterpart StarSuite 9 with new versions of word processor, presentation, spreadsheet, database and drawing software.

This update to Sun’s productivity suite comes with native support for Mac OS X, delivers significant enhancements and provides advanced, extensible productivity tools for all users.

With Mozilla’s Thunderbird email client and Lightning extension for calendaring as part of its distribution, StarOffice 9 software provides a simple, comprehensive solution for businesses of all sizes, from small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to large enterprise customers. The suite includes many extensions that make it easier to perform common tasks such as editing PDF files, creating reports, blogging, and publishing wikis. Additionally, Sun Services can provide enterprise tools to assist customers who are migrating from Microsoft Office to StarOffice 9.

“The StarOffice engineering teams and OpenOffice.org community have come together to produce a first-class product. With the new features in 9.0, businesses get an open standards-based, enterprise-class office productivity suite that is compatible with Microsoft Office but costs significantly less. With its ability to read MS Office Open XML files, support for MS Access 2007 .accdb files and improved VBA macro support, StarOffice 9 is a great option for companies looking to reduce their IT costs in these tough economic times,” said Jim Parkinson, Vice President, Developer, Tools and Services at Sun Microsystems, Inc.

StarOffice 9 is completely open sourced, with the same binaries as OpenOffice.org 3.0. In this release, StarOffice has a fresh new look, with a new start center, new icons and a host of usability improvements. Many new features - multiple page editing in Writer, an optimization Solver tool and 1024 columns in Calc, native table support in Impress, and effective handling of poster-size graphics in Draw - increase productivity and make StarOffice 9 very easy to use.

StarOffice 9 and StarSuite 9 are available for download for $34.95. Volume pricing for the enterprise starts at $25 per user and is immediately available from Sun and its authorized resellers. The new subscription model includes license and support, comes in one- and three-year terms, and the customers can choose between standard or premium support.