StarOffice nascent with appointment of first SA distributor

Sun Microsystems has announced that it has appointed Pytron Technologies as the first South African distributor of its StarOffice productivity suite.

An increasingly popular alternative to other office productivity suites, StarOffice delivers all the functionality expected in an office desktop environment at a fraction of the cost of its competitors.

Pytron Technologies is a black company that boasts a network of over 2 500 resellers around the country and has extensive experience in the SME (small to medium enterprise) market, which Sun is aggressively targeting with the StarOffice suite.

According to Daryl Blundell, solutions sales manager at Sun, it has selected a distributor outside of its existing base owing to its historical focus on the enterprise. "Sun is traditionally a company focused on the data centre; consequently our existing network of resellers are focused on enterprise computing. Pytron, however, is an ideal fit for the distribution of the StarOffice suite as the bulk of its resellers service the desktop environment," he explains.

Blundell says Sun is gearing up for rising demand for the StarOffice product suite. "The focus on technology is falling squarely on total cost of ownership.

"Putting StarOffice on the shelves of major retailers will give customers access to word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and database software at less than a quarter of the current cost," he explains.

The most recent release of StarOffice, Version 6, boasts the complete functionality expected of an office suite, while seamless compatibility with office documents from other vendor suites is built into the product, allowing easy collaboration with clients, partners and colleagues.

Gareth McNeill, managing director of Pytron Technologies notes that companies throughout SA are looking at cost-effective yet functionally rich alternatives in the office productivity market. "With technology budgets under pressure, broader availability of the new version of StarOffice puts a realistic alternative on the market without any loss of compatibility with other popular formats," he comments.

McNeill says Pytron is confident of driving sales of the suite through its strong partnerships with its reseller base and an established channel to market. "We also boast the technical know-how for end user support of the product," he adds.

"With the recent focus on licensing models and the resultant outcry from customers, there is an increasing demand for software alternatives. StarOffice has been designed to address this demand with an easy to use, widely affordable, highly compatible and well supported product," says Blundell.

"Pytron will assist in driving this demand through marketing the product to its established reseller base, putting StarOffice in front of the businesses and individuals that stand to benefit most from its attributes," he concludes.