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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.'"
Is it free if you roll your own?
Open Office will remain free though.
Alright sun just took some awesome software, made it only available by cost and is now running it up against a free version from the same orginal tree. I like this, I'd like to see who ends up better... star office or open office. Of course star office seems alittle more polished but... how many non geeks used it? i use it because it was the best alternative to microsoft office (it had all the feautures... even the massive ram needed). This seems kinda like mozilla vs netscape 6 now... personally i don't like netscape as much as mozilla.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
I don't use either - was looking forward to trying Star Office 6 as I'd heard it had removed the custom desktop. Now it looks as if I'll be trying out OpenOffice instead.#
Cheers,
Ian
I have a colleague that's a fairly heavy wordprocessor user. For a while she used Star Office 6.0 beta and liked it. After a minor disaster (crashing HD), we helped her get her machine reinstalled. Just to try it out, we installed Open Office instead. Turns out it's at least as good as the 'real' StarOffice, and she has been happy with it.
So, StarOffice for a branded package with support and feel-good factor for people unsure about this newfangled OPen Source thing; and Open Office for all the rest of us. Fair enough.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I didn't understand why Sun was removing access to StarOffice 6.0 beta in December (I think). They had some reason like they've gotten enough feedback so they are closing down the beta. I found the beta to be very stable, so perhaps they were worried that the beta version would compete with the final version.
Sun has said for some time "Linux is Unix, and we're a Unix company". However, that only really extends to how much Linux can damage Windows NT or boost application support for Solaris. Sun still has a vested interest in making Solaris on Sparc the preferred platform.
Anyway, we'll always have OpenOffice.
Regards
I like teamwork. It's easier to assign blame that way.
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
How is Sun supposed to make money from Star Office if they don't eventually charge for it? I, for one, would be willing to pay a small fee to use Star Office on my two desktops. $35/computer seems reasonable to me. The license shouldn't be tied to an OS, but rather a computer.
Given interoperability, I may purchase one commercial copy of Star Office for my main desktop use, and use Open Office on every other computer, it depends on how well each is distributed.
In some ways, charging for Star Office may be a good thing. Charging for software in the business world gives it some degree of credibility - that software has value if one must pay for it. I'd be even more happy if Sun offered free education and/or personal licenses to try to gain market share, while charging a fair fee to businesses.
I eagerly await Star Office 6 and Open Office 1.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
OK, I know you're a troll, but...
Without a WYSIWYG document editor Linux is in big trouble.
There are several other WYSIWYG document editors for Linux - both free, Free and commercial. Star Office seems to be destined to become closed and commercial. It will still be available though and Open Office is basically Star Office.
What advantage does Linux have over Solaris?? None, they are both free Unix
Solaris is neither free nor Free.
Gnulix - the choice of a Gnulixed generation.
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.
What don't they "get"? They tried giving away something to compete against MS Office. It didn't work. Rather than get nothing for it, why not charge for it, and maybe get a few bucks.
normal person: How can you make money giving away software?
Open Source advocate: Volume.
is said to be one of the differences between OpO and StO. No spell check? Aaargaarghaarg...
Everything is mainstream now.
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.
What are the major differences currently between OpenOffice and StarOffice?
I remember a DoD procurement elated to StarOffice, has the price remained the same? (Are they running it on Solaris anyway?)
e4 e5
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!"You're seeing the 'academic' version of Office XP all over the place for relatively cheap? Businesses actually might take a shrinkwrapped SO with a bill attached seriously, so MS is low-balling (for them) Office to keep their hooks in the population.
Just a thought.
Is this Scott McNealy's revenge for having to wear some stupid penguin get-up?
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-832463.html
I'm very suspicious about the accuracy of this article. Sun have just announced that they'll be releasing their own Linux distribution (I think that they should call it 'Polaris'). My guess is that they'll provide a free downloadable version and charge for boxed CDs with documentation.
HH
Why not adopt RedHat's marketing model?
By selling it at the store for $$ and making it available by download for free.
I'm still buying RedHat CDs despite downloading various rawhide. I can't be alone on this.
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 wonder if this is really a bad thing... when we look at the big bad Microsoft, it's amazing how much copies they sold of Office, especially when you look at their price.
If some Linux distributions started shipping with the full version of StarOffice (official of course, including books etc), I think people won't really care about this move. I mean, even $50 for a fully-fledged Office suite isn't much, is it?
The true 'geek' users among us (you know who you are) can then in turn use OpenOffice, which is probably less foolproof than StarOffice will be.
So, the bottomline is, do we really lose anything? If you want the top of the notch, just pay those $50... but if you will settle for the same without very fancy booklets and such, OpenOffice will be good, and it's free...
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.
yup. i believe staroffice had a proprietary spellchecker and database functionality. openoffice has made enough progress to eliminate most of those extensions however...
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
Of course, 10 * 0 is still 0, so I say raise the price to 10 million times the current price! It's bound to impress market analysts and other creatures of the night
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
The sun is giving away neutrinos, free of charge. (sorry, couldn't resist)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Most people only used it because it was free. I don't suppose they'll get a significany market share and will decide to drop it soon enough.
Sig is taking a break!
Probably the biggest difference will be the lack of support for the Sun ONE WebTop(whatever, exactly, that is) in OpenOffice.
the main problem is that sun shoots itself in the foot. examples :
1. Microsoft releases C# with large amounts of adverts. Sun goes off and releases Java 1.4 with non blocking i/o and ssl support (both advertised loudly) and then ensures that the ssl stuff doesnt work with the non blocking i/o due to the bugs present in java 1.4 which was rushed to the door too early... Result? people look at C#.
2. Ximian goes off and announces Mono which is the open sourced C# clone. Sun proceeds to piss off the apache group in a very public way who then complain loudly that java is a proprietary language. Result? people look at C#.
3. Sun announces linux support on an expanded cobalt line and drop x86 solaris in favour of linux. Sun then decides to have their cheif competitive officer write a very anti linux article. Result? linux community is pissed. sun customers look away from the cobalt line. sun customers are confused. sun customers start looking at ibm.
4. Sun announces that it is open sourcing staroffice. Linux community is really happy. sun customers start to look at replacing NT with linux and staroffice on PCs. Sun decides to charge for startoffice for linux. Result? sun customers go - huh? linux community hates sun and starts using the open source LGPLed code and ignores staroffice and sun.
The reason they sell Forte and give NetBeans away is cost of support (or so they say) and a few "enterprise" add-ons. With Forte you get guaranteed support, with NetBeans you get community support.
At least this is how I see it...
I'll admit to being concerned about a charge for SO 6.0, but I'm not too upset yet.
If the charge is reasonable, and I get appropriate value / support, I will be willing to pony up. I rely heavily on my Office software and don't begrudge Sun the chance to make a few dollars -- if they are making my life a little better.
It's hard for me to get too upset knowing that Open Office remains free and available if I don't like the deal Sun offers.
from http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/mostfaqs.html#7
Differences between StarOffice and OpenOffice.org
o The source code available at OpenOffice.org does not consist of all of the StarOffice code. Usually, the reason for this is that Sun pays to license third party code to include in StarOffice that which it does not have permission to make available in OpenOffice.org. Those things which are or will be present in StarOffice but are not available on OpenOffice.org include:
+ Certain fonts (including, especially, Asian language fonts)
+ The database component (Adabas D)
+ Some templates
+ Extensive Clip Art Gallery
+ Some sorting functionality (Asian versions)
+ Certain file filters
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!
Its not like this was a succesful product on either windows or linux, and the windows population (which doesnt even know this program exists) wont buy it, and with free solutions that are much cleaner and feature rich (AbiWord, Koffice, Gnumeric) why would a linux user (who doesnt like to spend money on software anyway) buy it? I am sure that Sun knows this and are essentially pulling out of the mainstream office suite market.
For me, it's real simple. If Presenter is without major bugs and reads/writes PowerPoint files adequately in 6.0, I'll pay. There's plenty of decent-quality free solutions out there for WP, spreadsheets, drawing, painting, etc, and 5.2 isn't bad. But as an instructor, PP/presentation is crucial for me; 5.2 does not do too well here, and there are no usable free alternatives I'm aware of...
I'd bet that way more people use Star Office on Windows and Linux than use it on Solaris. It's not very profitable to start charging the people who use it on Solaris since these are so few. They're also Sun's most loyal customers so it doesn't hurt to give them the occasional freebee.
People are willing to pay for Star Office on Windows and Linux. It would be nice to make some money so that more money could be invested in advertising and marketing. Maybe you could hire some new developers with the cash as well. Then maybe SO could be a real competitor to Word.
Basically, it's nice to work at a company where customers buy your products and the executives really care about making money.
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...
Timemto start looking at AbiWord and KOffice
You can download StarOffice 6.0 Beta here
... but it works:
"First, let's clear up some major misunderstandings: OpenOffice.org build 638C does print, does save to PDF (*) , does have online help, and does have a working spellchecker. Having said that, let's see now in detail some of the major features."
Its on the Features page. Im downloading it now to check it out, and because i figured id try to prolong the slashdot effect.
Did you just grab my ass?
Not at all. Read again. A commercial split - if you want the extras Star Office gives, pay. If you don't, use OpenOffice. Same for Netscape and Mozilla. My comment was actually to head off such hysteria - seems to me that Sun have taken a reasonable course of action here, promoting their goods to their customers, but leaving a free alternative available for everybody else.
What if it was $80? $60? $20? $5 shareware registration?
Possibly alone in the Slashdot universe, you will find that every piece of shareware on my PC is registered, and every commercial piece of code I use is paid for. I run a one-man company, and license fees are really the last thing on my mind. If code is worth it to me, I pay.
Still, if a free version exists that satisfies my needs, I don't see why I should shell out for a commercial thing instead.
Cheers,
Ian
However they are missing a critical observation in deciding to charge Linux users: There are very strong complementarities between Linux and Solaris. Furthermore, Linux does not now own a substantial portion of the desktop market, though it certainly has a substantial advantage over Solaris in this arena.
So if the Sun executives were a bit more farsighted, they would continue to make StarOffice free for Linux, FreeBSD, other free Unix-like operating systems users. (At least until they know whether or not Linux will capture a significant portion of the desktop market in the future.) After all, it will be far easier for them to take market share from a large installed base of Linux users in 5 years than it would be to steal market share from Windows users.
-- My choice of computing platform is a symbol of my individuality and belief in personal freedom.
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.
I was looking back at previous Star Office related stories on Slashdot and found this one Link. It seems funny that Sun was trying to promote itself as the leading open source "corporate" company, and now, just 8 months later, it is changing the licence back.
In one hand we have Sun Increasing [its] Commitment to Gnome, and yet on the other it's abandoning a critical product in its battle against MSFT and professing that Linux on the Mainframe [is] Not a Good Idea. Microsoft are regularly raising the bar when it comes to talking to their client operating systems from non Windows Servers (eg the infamous Kerberos PAC), so surely having your own office suite appearing on Windows clients can't hurt, especially as everything starts to look like a big (.NET centred) communications network. I wonder what IBM thinks about all this? I get the feeling they're closer to the mark than Sun, and if nothing else they've decided their direction and are throwing their whole weight behind it, which is commendable (certainly preferrable over this wishy washy floundering from Sun). And what's with bashing Linux *and* pulling Solaris for Intel architectures. Ok, so you're a hardware vendor, but how's anyone meant to know their way around Solaris with uni labs migrating to Linux left right and centre and with you revoking any chance a hobbyist had of playing with it without parting with arms and legs for Sun hardware? Why don't you just let go of Java so we can stop concerning ourselves with what direction you've chosen for today and get on with ensuring J2EE retains its position in the web services market.
I have no problem with Sun charging for StarOffice. What bothers me however is the fact that Sun keeps changing strategies and never sticks to anything. This company will bite the dust sooner or later if it doesn't wake up.
There already is OpenOffice, which is dual-licensed under the GPL and Sun SISSL licenses. So it is Free Software, which I think meets your request for "open sourced under the GPL". This is the code base that StarOffice 6 is based on, so Sun deciding to charge money for their release is no big deal.
There are other Free Software office applications and suites available.
You can call me a troll, but I'm serious: does Sun really think that people will continue using Star Office if they have to pay? The only time I can recall people recommending it is to someone who was looking for a free alternative to MS Office.
Personally, I've only used older versions of Star Office on an older machine (200 MHz Pentium, 32MB RAM), but the startup time was horrendous -- I literally had to wait 5 minutes to start it in KDE 1, and it was worse with Gnome. (No other app was this bad, except maybe Netscape 6.) The same went for Windows before I wiped it off and installed Red Hat. Star Office is about last on my list of applications that I'm eager to go back and give another whirl, especially now that there's a free version.
I always thought this was Sun's Staroffice strategy - deprive MS of income from MS Office, which provides around 40% of their revenue, by providing a quality (quality is a new feature they added in StarOffice 6 beta and up) office suite for $free on Windows, Linux, and Solaris.
This also makes Staroffice a gateway to other platforms - customers using StarOffice 6 on Windows can install Linux desktops or Suntone's and not be without their critical productivity apps.
I don't know of too many office suites that are truly cross platform and usable. Koffice is OK, but KDE is painfully slow relative to a Windows box (same hardware). I can't force myself to use Linux/KDE/Koffice for everything all the time - I need to use both Linux and Windows. I also need to read MS Word and Excel files. StarOffice6/OpenOffice is the only thing I've used that is
:)
1. Pretty stable
2. Doesn't completely suck
3. Is cross platform
4. Can read the basic MS Office files I need to
Yes, MS has a stranglehold, but they don't have ANYTHING that competes on Linux or Solaris. Yes, it's a miniscule desktop scene right now, but I see it changing little by little.
I think I tried 602 once, but haven't heard much about it, and it's still not a cross platform product, so there's not much point. If I'm only EVER going to use Windows, I'll stick with Office. Since I use both Linux and Windows, I need something that works on both platforms. A Mac OpenOffice would be really nice too, but I digress...
creation science book
seems like nothing to get worked up about. cool by me. heck maybe other companies might do something like this. open something then close it. we get source for some great software to start from (why reinvent the wheel) and they get to make money down the line.
-
I don't know about building it, but I've been using their binary release builds for the better part of a year now, and have been quite pleased.
As any project in active development, it has crashed a few times, however every time the crash recovery reopens every document I had open, right down to where the cursor was. Pretty damned slick.
Not to mention it's opened every MS Office document I've thrown at it without a problem. Definitely not complaining.
So, nobody uses Solaris for mission-critical applications, then?
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
then ensures that the ssl stuff doesnt work with the non blocking i/o due to the bugs present in java 1.4 which was rushed to the door too early
java.net.ssl is distinct from java.nio.* libraries, and it was known months ago that Sun was not going to provide an SSL nio library. See this article.
Hint: it's from last September.
Of course it will be worst than StarOffice 6.
Only if you consider Mozilla "worse" than Netscape 6. Because that's really all we're talking about here. The same codebase, but a commercial version that has extras that, when you get right down to it, just aren't necessary.
Every half-competent IT staffer in the country understands the value in free products
But said half-competent IT staffer doesn't get to determine what Mary (the CEO's private secretary and coffee-carrier) will use to type the boss's very important letters.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Most business customers still associate free software with shoddy shareware.
Unless, of course, the free software comes from Microsoft. In which case, its the best software in the world.
"Of course it's possible Microsoft will bail them out, too. :)"
:)
MS is for software what the US is for countries
The particle store had a sale last week.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I work for Sun, and submitted this story more than a month ago when we received internal email about the plans to charge for StarOffice.
FWIW, here's the original email that was sent out on Friday, January 11:
New Business Model for StarOffice/StarSuite 6.0
I am pleased to announce some significant changes to the StarOffice marketing strategy and corresponding business model. Along with our top goals of enabling desktop sales for Sun and being a critical component of the Sun ONE software stack, StarOffice is moving to a revenue based model. The major changes to the business model are:
Two products available to the market: (1)StarOffice/StarSuite 6.0 (Enterprise Edition) -- Sun sells & supports, (2) OpenOffice (Community Edition) -- free from OpenOffice.org and other sites outside of Sun
Other changes will include:
- Removal of the full function, no-charge downloads from Sun
- StarOffice 6.0 and service offerings available on GSO prices list at FCS (per copy, site license, OEM and channel pricing)
- Global distribution channels: GSO, OEMs, Retail, Sun Store
The goal of this new business model is to generate revenue by providing a low cost, full featured office productivity alternative to the market place. Feedback from the market validates that customers are placing an economic value on StarOffice that is significantly greater than zero. This model allows Sun to generate new revenue from these customers willing to pay for StarOffice as well as creating pull for new systems, software and services revenue.
For those customers that would like to use a basic office suite at no charge, a "Community Edition" will continue to be available via the OpenOffice.org project and other download sites outside of Sun.
This is an exciting time for StarOffice as customers, partners, press and analyst community are eager for a viable alternative and highly supportive of our efforts.
Over the next 90 days, SSG will be focused on delivering:
Stay tuned for more details on the specific programs and pricing to be available soon.
Pat Sueltz
EVP and GM, Software Systems Group
As I understood it, Sun's reason for acquiring Star Office was to attack Microsoft's cash cow - MS Office.
I know alot of people who'd start using Star Office 6 right away (I was planning on migrating them as soon as it came out) because, what the heck, it's FREE and the compatability is good.
Thus, several dozen people that I know will probably keep on using MS Office 97 for a few more years before biting the bullet and buying Office XP...
Open Office is still available, but what makes me curious is the "lack of file filters"... I'd suspect that these filters are the all critical MS-Word filters.
This, then, shoots my whole migration plans in the foot. Now, at $40 per copy, I have to get these companies to agree to spend money they don't want to.
Perhaps when Sun can't sell it, they'll wise up and go back to giving it away?
Sun can be frustrating - half the time they "get it" and the other half they are CLUELESS!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
(And for the record, I think this is great. If you aren't happy with OO, then pay your $35 and get a supported version. As long as SO and OO use the same code base, like Mozilla and NS, I think it's a good move by Sun.)
I'm deploying computers at my school for kids who cannot afford computers normally. Unfortunately they will not let me install Linux (which I don't get because most of these students used computers THAT much that it wouldn't be hard for them to use linux as their first OS anyways) but I am installing the computers with Star Office 5.2. Is there any improvements to OpenOffice 641? Or is their any limitations to it compared to StarOffice 5.2?
I would try it myself, but the server I'm downloading OpenOffice is downloading at something like 16.6k. And I would like to know other people's experiences with OpenOffice. Thanks.
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.
People (especially business people) think that high cost = high quality. Package the same product two ways: one all glitzy and expensive, the other in a plain box and cheap, and the glitzy one will outsell by a high margin. Don't believe me? Go to the grocery store and start checking the generic foods against the 'good' stuff. Same ingredients. Same order. Same nutritional info. Same patent numbers. Same parent company. If Sun charged $200 for StarOffice, it would sell to the business people.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
I have seen business analyses of StarOffice. It was rejected because they figured that since it was not a money-maker, Sun would drop it as soon as Sun ran into financial trouble. I understand people not liking the change, but I think they are wrong: step back and think. Would you pay a small sum ($50 probably) for a good office program that ran on linux, windows, and solaris, tell your friends about it, and add one more brick in the Linux wall against MS? Office is 75% of hte reason a lot of people run windows. This, in my opinion, can only be a good thing - provided Sun doesn't charge $300.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
As another poster replying to you said, he has every right to do this.
People can scream about him being a , but the GPL'd version of Smoothwall that's already out there can always be used for free. All he can do is restrict future releases. If the free one does everything you need, what's to complain about? (Or do you just feel the world owes you some free labor because you're so special?)
If you want my take on the whole Smoothwall thing, I think it boils down to Richard Morrell originally having this idea that the free Smoothwall project would/should lead to a large number of donations to the charity of his choice. (He seems to be personal friends with a lady in England who runs this home for deaf children, and hoped to use Smoothie as a vehicle to get some funding directed her way.) When he found out that most people downloading and using Smoothie weren't willing to send a voluntary donation to said charity, he got irritated and started in with the name-calling and accusations of people expecting something for nothing.
People *do* want something for nothing. It's human nature. Is it "right"? I dunno... it just *is*. Richard probably should just start developing commercial software at this point. Perhaps it will put less stress in his life, and allow him to contribute directly to the charities he'd like to see money going towards.
That's not quite the same. First, a web browser isn't as complex as an office suite. Second, vendors earn money when people use their browser (because it is linked to the vendor's web portal). Third, people do pay money to Microsoft for their Windows licenses.
With StarOffice, the situation is quite different: it's more complex, Sun doesn't profit when people use the product, and if you're installing it on a Windows desktop, you usually haven't yet paid any money to Sun.
gcc cannot really be compared to an office application: the "costs of user training" argument doesn't apply, since C and C++ are standards. Source code is exchanged with other companies less often, and even if it is, the file formats are not incompatible, so the "stick to the standard formats" argument also doesn't apply. Also note that gcc is not developed by a commercial entity, so the question of how they earn money with the product is easily answered with "they don't want to." Sun on the other hand is a commercial company, so wondering how they'll profit from StarOffice is a very valid question.
BTW, regarding gcc's competition to commercial compilers, it should be noted that gcc is available for Windows as well, but many people still purchase Visual C++ or other commercial compilers.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
I said "imagine, for a moment" for a reason. If Office was offered on Linux for US$1000, but was free on Windows, which system would the end-users buy? That's right, they'd all buy the Windows box, even though the OS costs way too much and isn't necessarily as good.
People make their decisions based on the applications, not the OS.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Umm, unless I'm mistaken - isn't OpenOffice missing an Access database clone? I recall a database being included in StarOffice.
That, alone, might make it worthwhile for some people to pay for StarOffice.
Do they have meetings over there? Does one group know what the other is doing?? Do they plan **anything** or just react to everything.
Is linux good (e.g. penguin suit McNealy rah rah - they buy cobalt rah rah) or bad (witness their idiot VP's article slamming Linux instead of IBM)
Is Apache good or bad??? Is Java open or closed.
Oh by the way what color and logo is associated with Sun now?? Does Sun == purple or that puky brownish green stuff on their home page these days. Perhaps it's time to scrap the old logo and introduce something unrecognizable
Is the stress of constantly playing reactoid marketing to MS catching up with you? What does Sun stand for? Have a meeting people and decide for gawd's sake?
Maybe they could have had a "Business Version" or something that cost money and had extra business features or something. Maybe :).
KOffice.
I haven't worked too much with the other components yet, but the word processor is a lot more powerful than its StarOffice equivalent.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Amen ...
However SGI retains its dignity (and has a nicer web site) - or at least is regaining it after commiting to NT and becoming an expensive version of Dell for 6 months.
What??? This is absurd. An office suite doesn't have to try to keep up with rapidly migrating standards and feature demands, security for third-party executable code, or handling a great deal of otherwise native functionality (at least in Windows) in the UI.
Now a direct comparison with a definitive answer you aren't going to get, but browsers are complex enough that any problem you experience in the code for an office suite you will see in browser code.
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.
Then I guess none of the managers use IE (or condone its use in the office because its free...or any IM clients.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
They buy it for the Visual Studio development tools, not simply the compiler itself.
As soon as Sun becomes a monopoly, then the same laws will apply.
OpenOffice is the biggest "open source" scam that Sun has pulled to date. I would be tempted to put it in the same fiasco category as Netscape when the unbuildable source was first released to the public, but I just can't believe that Sun dosen't know any better, or that they wouldn't allocate developer resources to making it work.
This is flat out FUD.
-- MarkusQ
You made a really strong point there but I would say that mozilla is actualy "best" then netscape 6... hmm...
a. There is never any tag along software that I didn't want. It has nearly all the same features (and will have a spell checker soon), has been consitently more stable, and bugs are fixed and new versions released nightly... I don't know why we would complain.
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
Sun has dibs on key components and a report here on slash dot just a few months ago indicated they were optioning them. Further, CNet has an article going up monday morning about Sun serving the OpenOffice project team legally with a cease and desist writ.
Sad day indeed.
Isn't that kind of like giving a wealthy person preferential treatment that a poor person would not get in a similar situation? Or letting a white guy off while you put a black guy in the slammer for the same crime? Shouldn't the same rules be applied all the time?
The agenda I'm hinting at is not Microsoft's but yours: in your calls for "freedom," you do nothing but attempt to take it away from others, rather than giving it to those who are lacking. As the underdog, people may root for you, and people may sign on to your cause, but does that make you right? Does that make success wrong? If so, to what end are you endeavoring?
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Actually, the one thing that will prevent StarOffice from being adopted is Outlook, specifically the scheduling and calendering features.
It's not Visio. Kivio is almost as good as Visio for all but the most fanatic Visio power users. And Visio user usually make up a tiny minority of corporate users. Outlook is the one thing that everyone uses and the only way to get it is to buy Office....
Chris.
-- I don't have a cool sig.
Why is it that Netscape is so promoted as "the great thing" because it supports Mozilla, and then does Netscape as commercial (and makes BIG money modifying it internally for specific corprate needs).
Mozilla is a MONEY MAKEING MACHINE for Netscape. They know it. AOL, the parent company knows it. The code base grows, and users benifit. The code base grows, and serves as the BASE for future Netscape and AOL ventures.
Yet, Netscape is a HERO, and SUN want's to do the same with an OFFICE SUITE, and everyone is pissed off? It seems like the same thing to me, only differance I see is that for some reason SlashDot Loves Netscape and Hates SUN.
While the hard-core tech community may understand the value of 'free', the rest of the world often believes "You get what you pay for".
By way of example, my folks once tried to get rid of an old refrigerator. They put a classified ad in the paper that said, "Refrigerator w/ freezer. Works well. Free." Nobody even called. They ran a second ad that read, "Refrigerator w/ freezer. Works well. $20"
It was gone the next day.
This
OpenOffice is unusable
I use it DAILY. That IS a troll and a half! Come on, anyone that goes to OpenOffice.org TODAY and downloads it can install a binary and use it. Is someone afraid of Sun here? This is SUCH a LIE, SUCH A TROLL.
I can easily imagine Sun diverting its developers to improve StarOffice only, and leave OpenOffice to the rabble of volunteers. If this had happened with Mozilla (say, when Netscape got bought out), it wouldn't even be a contender today. I know that the GPL prevents blatant variants of this strategy, but it still allows them to add closed-source "modules" which could eventually become a big chunk of the whole system.
Yeah, i didnt either. I was at the booth with them talking about it. The girl i listened to obviously didnt want people to know. She was touting 6.0 saying how great it would be, handing out the cds for 5.2. When asked when 6.0 would be out, she talked for a bit then (under her breath) muttered it would be available for "a small fee". Once those words passed her lips, about 3/4 of the people listening to her just walked away.
I would also like to add that after having used many of the Gnu utilities for so long, I had no idea how spoiled I was by all of the options they give me until I got some exposure to Solaris 8.
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
Star Office won't never become main stream. You get MS Office almost for free with a PC (when you work at a company, it's licensed in bundle, when you buy from DELL, it's not much more and usually people select the option.) So why on earth, should people pay to obtain something they don't need?
Don't get me wrong, anything I can use that doesn't have an MS logo is fine. But people will need more than the anti MS mind and will want to see some sort of advantage to shift to something else. Price was a big reason until now, that is.
Also, does that mean that volunteer work from the open office developers will get converted to $ by Sun? It's not a secret to anyone that open office source base gets heavily used by the Star Office dev team. Come on, that doesn't sound right. Even MS have the decency to pay for their development team. It would seem really dumb for people to put efforts in a project that is used for profit by a corporate which recently licensed a bunch of people including friends developers of mine.
I don't trust Sun. I don't trust MS. They are both evil. So is Oracle and IBM btw.
PPA, the girl next door.
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
Every half-competent IT staffer in the country understands the value in free products ranging from IE to gcc.
True. Too bad most IT Staffers don't make buying decisions. Business people do. And in the rest of the non-IT world, you get what you pay for.
I remember reading an article back, (one linked to from sun.com) that said they liked to call staroffice a "no-cost" download, not a free download, basically meaning that it's costing sun mega bucks to even offer the download (and we all know that sun dosent like to mirror stuff, they want everything to go threw them so that they can control it)
anyway, in the article they said they were thinking of chargeing a small fee for staroffice 6, mostly to cover their costs, not to make a profit.
so i would expect maybe $20 for the download version, and $50 for a box set?
not really that big of a deal
This looks like the sendmail or covalent approach to profiting and i find it very encouraging for Open Source in general. It's a Good Thing(R) to have a paid version with extra support and backed up by a real company. I mean, some people just WANT to pay and have something BETTER than average, even if it's not worth the price.
I like it. If i could have a GIMP as good as Photoshop and a Pantone + CYMK plug-in at $100, great, for example...
Software is fine as long as i am not locked into it. I don't feel locked if i can have the source and have the right to modify it myself and sell/use/extend it...
unfinished: (adj.)
So StarOffice is now going seriously commercial. No more free StarOffice.
Good!
This means that from now on, I can try to convince people to switch to StarOffice because it is less expensive. No longer do I have to worry about management taking me out of the bonus pool because I suggest switching to that free stuff, which is always:
- Unsupported (Not that Microsoft's pay-per-incedence support is any better than Ms. Cleo.)
- Promoting communism.
- Hurting the economy by taking jobs.
Seriously, Sun tried very, very hard to give StarOffice away (Though it could have done better.), and people just didn't catch on. Maybe now that StarOffice is the product of a big-name American computer company, and not just a free app by a little german company, I can finally convince all those asshole PHB's to switch.
5.2 already cost $40 for business use.
Nope.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
from http://www.softwareforresellers.com/productivity.h tml, for the naked OEM CD. While this is grey market and there's no support included (but as with most software these days, you'll find better support in the newsgroups anyway), you can't beat the price for a full-blown, fully-mature office suite. (Minimum order from this supplier is 5 units -- sell the extras to you friends for $20 each and you're still ahead.)
Run the WP Suite in M$ mode, and it looks/acts/produces document formats just like M$Office. Minus some of the more annoying bugs, like the "nuke your file because we forgot to close it on disk" problem that Word/Excel has had since the DOS4 era. (As of Word97, bug upgraded to the ability to nuke the entire partition.)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Sun intentionally terminated the free version of Star Office for all OS's except Solaris. You don't need an MBA to understand the rationale. Sun is trying to pump up Solaris and destroy Linux.
Sun knows well that the major threat to Solaris is not Windows. The major threat is Linux.
It is becoming immensely clear that Sun is intending to hijack the open-source movement by seizing control of Linux. I fully expect that Sun will create its own version of Linux, say "sLinux".
Maybe this is a silly analogy... But take two other examples: Microsoft and AOL...
An issue of contention in antitrust litigation against Microsoft was that their licensing with OEM's forced consumer's to purchase a copy of Windows even if they had another OS installed on the system... Windows was being sold on 98% of the systems anyways, but there was no point in making money of the last 2% because in the grand scheme of things, they wouldn't make any money off it and it does way more harm than it's worth...
AOL kinda realized this when they purchased NaviServer... AOL could have charged what NaviServer charged to get copies of AOLServer and AOLPress, but they gave it away for free... why? there was no point in selling it... they were going to develop it anyways... might as well make some friends and give it away for free...
In this case, Sun's not basing the financial health of the company on StarOffice... bet you they use it internally... bet on every Solaris box within the corporation and every Solaris box they sell, they want a powerful office suite, and so they'll develop StarOffice anyways... it's not that much effort to do the porting (lord knows they don't use native code from the different OS's)... so what's the point in charging for it when you could give away a useful thing and make friends in the meantime?
http://starboard.flowtheory.net/
;(
Darnest thing is, a bit more work and the desktop replacement could have become a good feature in the pre-XP era for the windows users.
Could've prevented some money from getting to MS's coffers at least. Ah oh well, too late now.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
"Usually, the reason for this is that Sun pays to license third party code to include in StarOffice..."
Before we bash Sun too much, is it reasonable to expect them to pay others for features in StarOffice and offer it for free? I know for instance that the StarOffice filter for Wordperfect costs Sun $$ which is why it was not provided with the code turned over to OpenOffice.
So I read this as "if I am happy with the stuff that is free, I use OpenOffice. If I want some of the extras that Sun has to pay for, I pay Sun, or start programming for OpenOffice"
I can't complain about that (but I need the Wordperfect filter so I will gripe if it is >$50)
Companies will like this - it adds credibility. If they are giving away this for free - how do they earn money on this? Can we be sure that they will continue to develop on this? (this is what companies are thinking!).
As a student or normal user, you can just download Open Office and use that instead or maybe Staroffice will still be free for personal use - I could easily imagine that.
No matter what, it would be cool to have Staroffice to replace MS Office. I'm not talking about the fact that it is open source, although that is great too, but it is *not* the most important thing IMHO. The greatest thing would be the open document format! It removes the possibility of lock-in and that is what currently binds people to MS Office and makes it difficult for companies to drop it.
I had this application form for a job sent to me in MS Word 2000 format and the person who designed the template obviously could not resist the temptation; the document crashed StarOffice beta (did not have OpenOffice on hand at that time) and only partially opened on KWord.
So I bit the bullet, used MSWordViewer under CrossOver and found out... that it could not even Copy-n-Paste the whole document. Bummer. Had to use someone else's computer to open it.
And what causes this? Oh, the document had.. believe it or not.. radio buttons, and drop-down lists. To select simple things like titles, etc. Even the columns for names are text boxes.
Quite sad that some companies seem hell-bent on using all available features just because they can. Now I understand why Office is said to be a viral software (must be why they don't like the GPL competition).
Michel
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
This indicates the cardinal danger of non Open Source licenses. In pulling the mother of all bait and switches Sun has sapped resources and attention from projects like Open Office.
It seems highly unlikely that companies would ever rely on a free (as in beer) piece of software (without tech support, yada yada).
Really IE being "free" is seen as an asset, without free software there would be no internet either.
Well,
IMHO it is *easier* to integrate Visio-Drawings
into a StarOffice document, because StarOffice
supports EPS !
One of several reasons why I like StarOffice is that instead of useless and annoying fluff like animated paperclips and "I think you are writing a letter"-shit, they implmenented support for fileformats like EPS.
That's what I call software for professional use !
BTW: Thanks for reminding me of this, importing Visio drawings as WMF or JPG into Word was really pissing me off !
cheers,
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Absolutely. Ironically a lot of customers won't adopt something that is free of charge. It suggests the company providing it has no commitment to the product. You're not going to migrate 10000 desktops form MS Office to StarOffice if you don't believe that Sun are serious about supporting it. OpenOffice will be free, StarOffice will be branded and supported.
Sorry, but i can't see "all" /.ers jump at sun for this, most seem to have the opinion that it's legitimate for sun to slap some pricetag on StarOffice, even though the /. story omits a lot of details from the Heise-story, especially the reasons Sun gives for doing this:
- they claim many customers want professional support managing their licenses.
- apparently many corporate customers don't want to use free software, out of fear it will be discontinued in the near future.
Also neither the slashdot editors nor the person who sent in the article lost a word about OpenOffice. This will still be free and is mostly identical with StarOffice. OpenOffice lacks the spellchecker and the database, which sun licensed from others.
Although all these omissions let it all look worse than it really is, apparently not everyone is pissed off or hates sun, at least not as far as i can see.
--
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Business is amoral. (Not immoral or moral; amoral).
Yes, I expect there would be some issues; but Sun would end up with more money; and would be sticking the knife into Microsoft in the meantime.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"How can you make money selling something that nobody wanted when it was free?
Sun can't market StarOffice6 unless you can buy it from somewhere. There will be loads and loads and loads of home users and small businesses who will come to StarOffice because it is being marketed. They will see the adverts, and then the next time they're wandering round PC World with a few quid burning a hole in their pocket, they'll cough for a copy.
Having bought it, they'll install it. Then they'll start boring their workmates about it - they're not clever enough to experiment with GNU/Linux, so they'll show off to their colleagues about how clever they are to be using StarOffice. (These are the same people who bore you about the processor speed of their new machine, but don't know what chipset is running on their mobo).
You'll hear them in the office "blah blah blah blah StarOffice blah blah blah really very good, only $50 blah blah blah Microsoft better buck their ideas up blah blah blah".
And you can feel smug about having sent them a document which you wrote on OpenOffice on GNU/Linux, and they think they're clever to be able to read it (because they pressed "Next" a few times).
Never foget how stupid, vain and banal the people are that Sun are aiming at.
Dunstan
PS a quick word on the Solaris version being free - this, of course, isn't aimed at Solaris workstation users, rather at businesses who are considering deploying Sunray solutions, so after buying the servers, network infrastructure and appliances, you don't have to pay software royalties for running an office suite. Add in a Tarantella infrastructure, and you can work on the same desktop on the SunRay in the office, or in a browser at the internet cafe.
It's all starting to come together.
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
But it's the same principle. Laws are based on the principles, not on who will currently get most/least screwed.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Thusly your argument is null.
Thusly is not a word. Thus, your argument is null. Oh wait, using your logic against you will work as poorly as using against me.
I was not debating the words of the law, I was arguing what the principle of the law should be, and you admit to agreeing that it should be different. I do not pretend to argue the letter of laws, but I do say that if a law is wrong, it should be changed or disobeyed. I raise a philosophical issue, not a legal one.
Philosophically, is it not wrong for Sun to get away with something for which Microsoft would get hammered? And it goes vice versa, of course, because any good philosophy is reciprocal. Just as Sun shouldn't get away with something like this, neither should Microsoft, but they should both be equally opposed in their approach.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
ActivePerl is also included on most every Microsoft "resource kit" and it's "services for unix". I'm also fairly certain it's available for free with any level msdn subscription. So while still being "unFree" it's certainly cheap. Maybe not winzip cheap, but cheap enough. (I could also bet you could find it(maybe not the most modern version) for free on Microsoft's site if you looked around)
AFAIK the only other version of perl available for windows until late was the one bundled with Cygwin. Cygwin itself was unfortunately a little buggy and kludgey until about a year ago, but is now very very nice, and welcome on my machine.