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Sun Microsystems Inc.'s future offering of a Web-based Microsoft Corp. Office-type product may not make Bill Gates lose any sleep, according to one analyst. But the workstation and server manufacturer finally has a credible alternative product to compete with MS Office, according to Greg Blatnik, vice-president at Zona Research Inc.

Sun announced at a news conference in New York last week that it is buying Fremont, Calif.-based Star Division Inc. In the process, it is offering Star's StarOffice product suite free for users over the Internet.

Blatnik, though, said he isn't sure why Sun spent money to buy a company that has a product that it will give away for free. "It doesn't sound like the business model I learned in school," he said.

Sun also said in the fall it will launch its "StarPortal" system, which will Web-enable StarOffice's various capabilities, which include word processing, presentation graphics, spreadsheet and other software tools similar to MS' Office suite.

Ed Zander, president and chief operating officer of Sun Microsystems, said Sun is "dot-comming the office" with its new strategy.

The StarOffice software is completely compatible with MS Office product family, including Word and Excel, and is designed to make the transition from Microsoft's product to Sun's product much easier, Zander also said.

Sun's StarPortal is a Web-based version of StarOffice that combines a Java-based client with the software to enable browser access to office productivity tools. Through StarPortal, users will be able to access their office desktop and synchronize changes from any Web browser.

StarOffice and StarPortal are also multi-platform capable, Zander said, meaning the products can run on Solaris, Linux, OS/2 and Windows. StarPortal is also Java client-ready, he said, and is scalable so it can run on "thin" Web clients and Web applications that cannot handle "fat" clients like MS Office.

Zander said that Sun is not going after Microsoft Office with StarOffice/StarPortal. "This is a network play, this is a service- distributed play, this is a Net economy play. This is a play to enable users to get easy access to simple office productivity applications from the network."

The new strategy fulfills Sun's "anyone, any time, anywhere from any device computing" strategy, Zander said. "It's building Webtone and datatone that's synonymous with dialtone."

Until today, Sun wasn't known for its personal products business, as it has made most of its money from servers and workstations, Blatnik said.

At the same time, Sun has been trying to build itself as "anti- Microsoft," he said, especially with the attacks on the software giant by Sun chairman and CEO Scott McNealy. But so far, Sun hasn't been able to make any inroads into Microsoft's markets, he said. "Sun has tried to create and will continue to create a 'parallel universe' to Microsoft."

But will Bill Gates lose sleep over (Sun's announcement)? "I don't think so," Blatnik said. Sun's core business is still workstations and servers, while these "secondary products," as they are called, "have more public relations value than influence in the market."

Sun's failed attempts to establish other secondary products, like the JavaOS (operating system) and Java-based microprocessors have hurt the company's credibility, he said. But Sun's introduction of StarPortal could help it to regain credibility, which is part of what's behind today's announcement, he added.

A Microsoft spokesperson said that the company believes Office 2000 - the latest version of the Office family - has significant value. "We think that people will continue to pay for the value of Office 2000," the spokesman said. While not specifically mentioning Sun's offering, the Microsoft spokesperson said some "free" software products do have ongoing maintenance concerns with them. "Just because they're free doesn't mean they don't have any costs associated with them."

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