Sun Delays StarOffice 8 Until September

According to media reports out of the U.K., Sun executives there have pegged September 12 as the new release date for the long-awaited suite. Sun in the U.S. was not immediately available for comment or confirmation.

StarOffice 8.0, which will include a word processor, spreadsheet, database, and presentation maker, has been in the works for most of the year. A beta of the suite, for instance, was first released in February, http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/60400572 and the test was closed down in late April. In May, Sun said it was shooting for a July launch of the final.

The free-of-charge OpenOffice 2.0, which is based on the same code as StarOffice 8, will also be delayed. The open-source suite has been mired in beta testing, and currently is at 1.9.m122, http://download.openoffice.org/680/index.html which can be downloaded from the OpenOffice.org site.

According to the organization's Web site, http://development.openoffice.org/releases/OpenOffice\\_org\\_2\\_x.html a second beta of OpenOffice 2.0 will appear this month, a release candidate possibly in September, and a final sometime after that.