OpenOffice.org is based on the codebase of StarOffice, an office suite developed by StarDivision (acquired by Sun Microsystems in August 1999).
The source code of the suite was released as an open source project in July 2000 with the aim of breaking the market dominance of Microsoft Office by providing a lower-cost, high-quality, and open alternative.
Originally developed as proprietary office suite StarOffice by the German company StarDivision, the code was purchased in 1999 by Sun Microsystems.
The Micro Edition (J2ME) is used to build software for devices with limited resources, such as mobile devices.
In 1999, Sun acquired the German software company StarDivision and with it StarOffice, which it released as the office suiteOpenOffice.org under both GNU LGPL and the SISSL (Sun Industry Standards Source License).