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Sun to Charge for Star Office 6.0
biwillia writes: "According to
this
heise article (in German, or Google translated), free versions of Star Office will now only be available to Solaris users. Free versions for Linux and Windows users will no longer be offered. A homemade translation of the first paragraph reads, 'With version 6.0 of Star Office, scheduled to be released in May, Sun has changed the product politics of their Office package, which had been freely distributed since the aquisition of Hamburg-based Star Division. In the future, Sun wishes to charge license fees for usage of the Windows and Linux versions. Only the version for Sun's own operation system Solaris will remain free.'"
I can see why they might want to stop giving away Linux versions of Star Office, but I'd think they want to keep the Windows versions free. Think about it: If the Windows version is free, it gives more people the ability to use Solaris as their workstation, since they can now give documents to Windows users, and the Windows users really don't have an excuse not to read them. And you're sure they'll be able to see them right (as there are still some issues with saving to MS-Office format in Star Office). Besides that, it gets some Windows users using Star Office instead of microsoft office, so if they're ever able to transition to using Solaris, the switch won't be hard (yeah, there would still be a lot of other problems, but if you want regular secretary/office worker types using your system, that's a good thing). I can't imagine they'll make any money selling Windows versions of the software, will they??
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
5.2 already cost $40 for business use. Compare this to MS Office which is over $200 for any use. Charging say, $40-$50 for StarOffice isn't a bad thing, particularly if doing this means they are able to place more copies of StaOffice 6.0 on the shelf beside MS Ofice XP. I believe the only reason 5.2 isn't on %25 of the business desktop in the windows world is because everyone sees MS Office, while mostly the linux community only sees Star Office.
Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
StarOffice 6.0 is far better than 5.2. 6.0 boasts better compatibility with MS Office filetypes, a faster and cleaner interface (no more of 5.2's cheesy desktop shit), greater stability, and a bunch of super cool chart/equation/textart type plugins for all of the SO programs. I wouldn't call it an Office Killer, but it is definately pretty close.
Though it may seem strange, it is usually easier to market commercial software than it is free software. Most business customers still associate free software with shoddy shareware. By charging for StarOffice 6.0 and putting it in a nice pretty box Sun has a better chance of gaining marketshare than they would with a free download. Plus die-hard freeloaders who don't want to play still have OpenOffice, so everyone will be happy.
I wouldn't mind buying a copy if it's reasonable - considering that OpenOffice *IS* a good viable alternative to StarOffice, they'll need to bundle some good 'value-adds' but keep the price reasonable. $25/seat might be a good price point. $200 won't be - I may as well just use MS Office at that point. I'm just throwing numbers out as I haven't seen anything at all re: pricing on this.
Value-adds I wouldn't mind paying for if they're bundled: Professional clipart, professional templates, multiple language dictionaries - all those would be a good start.
creation science book
Does this essentially lead to a Mozilla-like 'split', where a commercial derivative with extra frills is available on top of a free version (both senses)?
:).
Not exactly. Although this is a good comparisson, the commercial version of Netscape is still free. The main difference are testing (Netscape stick to a mozilla version and do a lot of QA testing before moving to another, while mozilla keeps going), features (like that spellchecker) and some 'AOL integration'
In the case of Staroffice/OpenOffice, it seems to me that real reason behind the split is to 'force' people to use Solaris instead of Linux. If that's the case, I don't it was a good idea: people will still use Linux (as long as OpenOffice is still available), and the anger against Sun will increase with this move.
Bearing in mind that there is not exactly an overwhelming demand for Linux on the Desktop, charging for the Linux version will mean that they will basically get no money from that direction.
Given that they will make no money, and they won't be able to persuade new Linux users to use Star Office in future; and Linux is looking like it will be popular in future; they're losing lots of future profit.
If they had waited till it was popular then they would have been able to do the switch THEN, and have a way of screwing money out of most of the Linux users from that point on; they'll lose this.
Also, it's a bad idea because Sun is a competitor of Microsoft, and Linux is challenging Microsoft for the desktop, and your enemies enemy is your friend.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"No longer will any one company determine what is best for the market or the user, but the market will decide and users will choose.
No longer will files and documents wear the cement shoes of a single vendor or operating system, but standards will flourish and compatibility reign across platforms.
For the first time, a commercial grade, full-featured office suite will be opened up to the innovative input of the global developer community.
Free to be changed. Free to be improved. Free to adapt to meet the needs of any situation. Free.
Wait, I can't make money from free? Nevermind, we're gonna charge for it.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
I heard a talk with McNealy where he was frustrated that businesses wouldn't take up Star Office. He talked to some hot shots at other companies and heard the same thing a few times - We love it, it does what we need it to for most of our users but we just don't trust something that's free. Well, now we get to see if businesses will take a product more seriously if it costs some. I'm willing to bet that it will be very very cheap compared to MS products. This should be interesting. Oh, has anyone seen any info on how much it might cost?
Actually, this is a bit of a disappointment. While the general idea of setting a goal of getting to 1.0 is all good - witness what happened to the quality of Mozilla when they stopped feature creeping - I can't help but feel the Open Office crew are letting the side down a bit by admitting that their 1.0 release will really be about an 0.8.5 level release and will still contain bugs. It's all a bit, well, Microsofty.
:)
Still, I can see some interesting projects about to kick off - The Open Office wordprocessor as a KPart, for example
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
When you go to a manager and try to argue for free software over MS stuff, they can't get their heads around the idea that the one that is free has value. Managers just don't get it.
The only way to convince some people that this is quality software, is to charge them money for it.
Reality has a liberal bias
If we want Linux to become main stream then we have got to be willing to allow companies to make a profit by supporting us.
One of the main excuses that I hear for not running Linux on the desktop is lack of professional quality software. Sure, there is a lot of good stuff for Linux but it has a low visibility. No ads, not sitting on the shelf in software stores.
I would think that $40.00 for a quality office suite would be worth the money especially if the product gets advertising that mentions Linux.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
A pasted translation from the German page above quickly points out that Sun is doing it so they can provide a supported product to businesses.
I can confirm that my organization (Fortune 100) didn't give StarOffice a first look because it was "free". They don't trust free s/w and need to hold someone accountable if there are problems (I should point out that we don't really hold M$ accountable for much, but the exec$ feel goo about the possibility of maybe being able to hopefully do so if there are really, really, major problems).
I can also confirm that we would like to save megabuck$ and provide some productivity suite competition so we can stop getting royally soaked by mr gates & co.
And I can confirm that other large organizations expressed the same feelings directly to Sun (with us).
HOWEVER, Visio is the "killer app" that will stop us from using StarOffice. Without a Visio-killer (open source or otherwise), M$ will continue to dominate. Buying Visio was a very strategic move on Redmond's part and it will prevent alot of places from switching since they would be fearful that it would not "integrate" properly with StarOffice (ever try to embed a complex Visio diagram in a Word file? there are integration problems enough within the suite, let alone outside of it).
So, Sun will make some money in the small-to-medium sized orgs, but M$ will continue to rake in the dough from the big boyz.
Mind the gap...
There are other free or pretty damned cheap office suites on the market today. Koffice and 602 immediately come to mind. These days nobody is able to sell office suites because MS has a chokehold on the market. Wordperfect suite and lotus smartsuite cost less then office yet they have a miniscule percentage fo the market. Staroffice is MUCH cheaper and still nobody uses it. Openoffice is free and still not even the smallest dent in the MS stranglehold.
No matter how cheap your suite is, no matter how good it is, no matter even if it's free. Businesses won't use it because the PHB's are all stupid and people won't use it because they want the same thing at home that they have at work.
War is necrophilia.
Amazon's current price for StarOffice 5.2 Deluxe is ~$37 and for what I get out of StarOffice that I downloaded from Sun $37 is worth it... (6.0 Beta and 5.2 on my laptop) I'd even say $50 is fine... But if they intend to make this a $199 package... they're not going to get a second look from anyone in the Windows world... To pay 1/2 the price and get even 90% of the features and compatibility isn't going to sway the typical decision makers... To pay a tenth... Now we're talking! Best of luck to Sun, and I hope a lot of this money can go to helping OpenOffice... Which I'll probably have on the laptop while my business runs with Sun for documentation and tech support reasons.
The new arrangement is the same one that they are already using with NetBeans, as far as I can tell.
Sun will support a "commercial" version of OpenOffice called "StarOffice". The purchasers of StarOffice will get benefits (support, additional features, etc) that the users of the free OpenOffice version won't get. That seems fair and it provides an incentive for customers to help support OpenOffice financially.
Some people might be cynical, but I think that the NetBeans/Forte arrangement has worked out pretty well. The Sun developers working on NetBeans work hard to make NetBeans great. They have to work on the Forte-only features but I think that the development of the Forte-only features benefits NetBeans as well (any architectural improvements in Forte must get pushed down to NetBean in order to keep them interoperable). I think things will work the same way with StarOffice and OpenOffice.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
It's not an Office killer and Sun knows it.
What it is is a margin-killer.
Microsoft is using its HUGE profits in the Office arena to fund their drive into the enterprise OS market - which is scaring the bajeezus out of Sun's strategic planners. Sun must do something to level the playing field.
To win this battle, Sun doesn't need to capture much market share, all they need to do is give consumers a credible alternative. The bumper-sticker version of this strategy: If you can't beat your competitor, screw up his margin.
I've heard that Office makes up about half of MS's revenue - about 4 billion in the last quarter of '01, that would be about 16 million copies if they're going for $250 on average (I don't know this, I'm just speculating).
If Sun succeeds in forcing them to drop their price by even $10, they've scored a major victory - to the tune of $160 million per quarter. That's not chump change, not even to the beast of Redmond. Remember, Microsoft's profits are somewhat tied to their stock price (they pay their employees largely with stock options) and their stock price is sustained by GROWING REVENUES - which they won't have if they have to drop the price of MS Office.
If you read the preceeding and substitue IBM for Sun, you'll understand IBM's committment to Linux.
Textbooks and Open Educational Resources
Of course.
OpenOffice is meant to work with MS-Office (any version).
On the other hand, MS-Windows v.X is meant to not be exactly compatible with documents created with MS-Office v.(X-1).
It was very very obvious with MS-Office 97/95. And it was a RPITA to export from MS-Office 87 to 95 version.
This is what you get with closed file formats. They own your documents.