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Google and Sun Microsystems (Quote, Chart) will hold a press conference on Tuesday at which they're expected to announce a collaboration to bring StarOffice productivity applications to Google users.

StarOffice is Sun's suite of integrated word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing and database software based on the OpenOffice open source project.

StarOffice or OpenOffice users can add their own browsers and e-mail applications, while Sun offers Sun Java Communications Suite for customers that want to add messaging, collaboration, calendaring and scheduling tools.

[...] But the ramifications go far beyond free, online apps for consumers, Edwards said, because StarOffice is far more than just an alternative to Microsoft Office. StarOffice -- or OpenOffice -- is based on standard XML, so it can act as the transformation layer between any application that can read the XML file format and legacy applications.

[...] Google already offers Gmail users plenty of storage for their e-mail archives. If it extended that storage to other kinds of documents that were generated in conformance with the OpenDocument standard, and then combined that with a Web-based productivity suite to connect users to their stored information via any browser, the result would be a platform that could transform business collaboration as well as consumer communications.

"Imagine StarOffice running on the desktop, and Google perfecting the [file synchronization]," said Edwards. "Then you have your collaboration space carved out immediately for you, and Google is hosting it."

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