Sun Microsystems' StarOffice 6.0 will go on sale May 21 with a price of $75.95, the company will announce Wednesday, in a more concerted effort by the server specialist to take on Microsoft's overwhelmingly dominant Office. StarOffice 5.2 has been available as a free download since Sun acquired the StarOffice product line in 1999, but Sun said earlier this year it would charge for the new version and provide better support for customers using it. It may not be free, but it's still less expensive than Microsoft Office, which overwhelmingly dominates the office software market with a 95 percent share, according to Gartner Dataquest. The basic version of Office has a retail cost of $479, with an upgrade cost of $239 and an educational version for $149.
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