Sun Microsystems Inc. will release the first beta of StarOffice 6.1 next week, further heating up the competitive war in the office desktop productivity market.

News of the upcoming StarOffice 6.1 beta, which is focused on the corporate and enterprise customer, follows that from Corel Corp., which on Wednesday unveiled the first beta of WordPerfect Office 11, expected to be available in North America late next month.

For its part, Microsoft Corp. next week is expected to release the second beta for Office 2003, formerly code-named Office 11, which is due for final release by mid-year.

Sun's product line manager for StarOffice, Iyer Venkatesan, told eWEEK in an interview Thursday that the first StarOffice 6.1 beta will be available as a free download for the general public, but will be limited to 50,000 participants. "We are screening participants in the first beta to make sure all the platforms and languages are fully represented.

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