Google Pack Adds StarOffice
Google Pack, the collection of applications recommended by Google, includes a new software: StarOffice, an office suite developed by Sun. In 2000 Sun released StarOffice's source code, which became the foundation of OpenOffice.org, an open source project sponsored by Sun.
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes a loop Google opened more than a year earlier: after InformationWeek reported Google's plans for a long-awaited office suite in August 2006 and bloggers floated a Google-powered StarOffice build for Dell machines, Google has instead chosen the quieter route — adding Sun's existing suite to its disclosed office-suite effort's delivery vehicle, Google Pack. The lineage matters: Sun released StarOffice's source code in 2000, which became the foundation of Sun-sponsored OpenOffice.org, so Google is now distributing the commercial twin of the most credible free challenger to Microsoft Office.
The move also fits Google's week: days after shutting down paid video rentals on Google Video and confirming work on server-side storage services, Google is doubling down on controlling what gets installed on the Windows desktop while it builds out what lives in the cloud.
First-order effects
- Sun gains mass-market distribution for StarOffice through Google Pack's installer and updater, putting a Microsoft-compatible office suite in front of Windows users who would never seek one out themselves.
- Google extends its role as gatekeeper of recommended desktop software without writing an office application of its own yet.
Second-order effects
- OpenOffice.org, built on the same code base Sun opened in 2000, gets an indirect credibility boost as its commercial sibling reaches Google's audience — raising switching costs pressure on Microsoft Office at the consumer and small-business end.
- Microsoft faces a two-front squeeze it did not face when the threat was only free downloads: a bundled, Google-endorsed desktop alternative plus Google Apps pulling collaboration into the browser.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, software distribution consolidates around whoever controls the install-and-update channel — Google Pack as a control plane where placement, not product quality alone, decides which office suites reach mainstream PCs.
- A hybrid desktop-plus-cloud office stack becomes the plausible endgame, with vendors like Sun supplying the installed layer while Google builds the hosted one — a template later entrants in cloud office would have to answer.
The trend: Office productivity is shifting from shrink-wrapped suites sold on their own merits toward bundles distributed by platform gatekeepers, with Google using Pack to assemble a desktop foothold ahead of its own cloud applications.