14 DAY TRIAL // Singapore Airlines Limited, the national airline of Singapore announced yesterday it would be offering access to StarOffice 8 office productivity suite to all passengers on board of the new Boeing 777-300ER plane.
StarOffice is Sun Microsystems' proprietary office suite software package, based on the free and open source OpenOffice.org package and containing also some new features. Starting with the 8 version, StarOffice also supports the OpenDocument standard. According to Sun's officials, StarOffice will run on the aircraft's Linux server and it is accessed through a seat-back terminal placed at each passenger's seat. The armrest of the each plane seat is equipped with an embedded USB port that will provide the possibility of accessing their USB storage devices in order to check their spreadsheets, documents or presentation files from software that runs on the plane's Linux server.
"With heightened security, access to laptops during flights can sometimes be restricted. The availability of StarOffice ... offers Singapore Airlines' customers the opportunity to work on and access their information in an open, secure and freely available fashion independent of any vendor or file formats during their flights." stated Wong Heng Chew, managing director with Sun's Singapore division.
According to Sun officials, the StarOffice software is a full, feature-rich office productivity set and takes in powerful word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, database, graphics, photo editing, drawing and web publishing applications. It is also compatible with the MS Office standards and benefits of a built-in PDF export. Additionally, it supports XML, Flash, and HTML.
The Boeing 777 is an American long-range wide-body twin-engined airliner built by Boeing's Commercial Airplanes division. It can carry between 301 and 368 passengers in a three-class configuration and has a range from 5,210 to 9,420 nautical miles (9,650 to 17,450 km). Distinguishing features of the 777 include the set of six wheels on each main landing gear, its perfectly circular fuselage cross section, the pronounced "neck" aft of the cockpit, and the blade-like rear tailcone. The first of the new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft entered the commercial services on the Singapore-Paris route in December 2006.