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StarOffice is, curiously, the paid-for cousin of the open-source OpenOffice, which has been selling for around $70 on Sun's website. StarOffice includes extra features, fonts and templates over OpenOffice. Sun also offers customers three free support calls during the first 60 days of ownership.

"Google Pack includes a free, non-expiring version of StarOffice 8 that includes all the major functionality of the paid consumer version, except for the Adabas D database," says a Google spokesperson. "We believe that users will benefit from access to a free, full-featured office suite for the desktop."

Whether Google's support will be enough to push StarOffice into the mainstream is debatable. The software has long been available for free download, but still resides firmly in the shadow of Microsoft's offering.

However, it poses yet another problem for Microsoft, which is struggling to match Google's vast range of popular online services.