Rob Enderle, an analyst for research firm Giga Information Group, said Sun has the potential to steal a bit of market share from Microsoft. But the real loser as Sun advances is financially troubled Corel. "In the first half of the year, we saw a lot of moves by Corel," he said. "Now Sun seems to be collecting all that non-Microsoft activity." "This positions Sun directly against Corel," Enderle added, "and Sun's in a much better position to fight this battle. Sun really has to push Corel out to take a good shot at Microsoft. They need to get all of the alternative business." A Corel representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Enderle said Sun is succeeding by marketing StarOffice as a fresh alternative to Microsoft. "Especially in areas like Europe, where you've got a lot of people torqued at Microsoft, it comes across as something that's trendy as opposed to just cheaper." Sun faces competition from itself on the price side, however. OpenOffice, the free, open-source software StarOffice is based on, is already offered on some low-end PCs and is likely to spread, said Illuminata's Eunice. "I absolutely believe that just as server vendors have driven their software costs to near zero by bundling (open-source server software) Apache, the PC makers will start to decide that OpenOffice is good enough," he said. "The economy-driven vendors have already made that jump, and that's going to encourage other PC makers to take a look." Phipps said that while OpenOffice is a good option for certain segments of the PC market, mass-market PC makers will still want the support options and proprietary add-ons that come with StarOffice. "A company like Sony would rather that we join the open-source community for them," he said. "With StarOffice, they get all the benefits of open-source, without the burdens of having to join the open-source community."
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