Sun Microsystems has released the latest version of its StarOffice suite, adding support for the Mac operating system for the first time.

StarOffice 9.0 now has native support for Apple's Mac OS X, and widens the software's ability to deal with different file formats, including legacy and Office Open XML Microsoft Office files and PDF documents.

"The StarOffice engineering teams and OpenOffice.org community have come together to produce a first-class product," said Jim Parkinson, vice president of developer, tools and services at Sun.

"With the new features in StarOffice 9.0, businesses get an open standards-based, enterprise-class office productivity suite that is compatible with Microsoft Office, but costs significantly less. StarOffice 9 is a great option for companies looking to reduce their IT costs in these tough economic times."

StarOffice is Sun's enterprise version of the open source OpenOffice software, and costs $34.95 for an individual copy or up to $25 per head for enterprises. The price includes full product support from Sun.