StarOffice 6.0

Lawrence Teo writes "News.com, Infoworld.com, and eWeek are all reporting that Sun's StarOffice 6.0, which will be released on May 21, will cost a measly $75.95. That's less than a quarter the cost of Microsoft Office. Details are also available at Sun's own StarOffice 6.0 website." Sun's press release mentions the new features, although if you're familiar with openoffice.org, you've got a pretty good idea of what StarOffice has to offer. An anonymous reader also points out that Sun has effectively one-upped Microsoft's various schemes to get its software into schools by making an unlimited donation of StarOffice to China's Ministry of Education.

Comments

$75.95

[Anonymous Coward]

A measly $75.95? Phew, surely there can't be a comparable office suite that's any cheaper than that!

hmm

[nomadic]

Wonder if they think charging for it will make people more likely to use it.

Everyone does know that the only reason Sun bought StarOffice was to have something to annoy Microsoft with, right?

But still no mac support..

[Anonymous Coward]

The openoffice team has *barely* got some kind of beta mac os x support.

Last i checked, the idea any flavor of staroffice would be supported on classic mac os was a joke.

So, your choices are: Go with MSOffice, and have no support for UNIX; or go with staroffice, and have no support for Macintosh. Lovely choices here.

I realize this isn't a problem, really, since you could just put openoffice on the unix/windows machines and msoffice on the macs, and use compatible file formats always, but that's still obnoxious, and i don't think that msoffice/mac can support openoffice's XML format at all, no? Is there a plugin that would let it?

Dammit, when's this XML DocBook standard or whatever going ot be something that all the major word processors can save in?

One problem

[Disevidence]

The only real problem i can see is this is going to be hard to get to the average masses. I know quite a few people who think that they need MS Office, mainly because they have an ME or XP.

If in they're advertising, say it works the same as MS Office, and supports all their documents etc etc, then they might see a little change. The problem is, MS has had such a monopoly, its hard to breakthrough to a non-technical users level.

$75.95 != Free

[qurob]

Sun's StarOffice 6.0, which will be released on May 21, will cost a measly $75.95. That's less than a quarter the cost of Microsoft Office.

If it's not free, the only way it will be able to compete with Office is if it is 10 times as good.

Re:$75.95 != Free

[Random Feature]

Wow. You guys are really all missing the point here.

The reason that Gartner expects StarOffice 6.0 to take away 10% of M$ market share in the productivity suite arena is because it's a paid product offered by a reputable, known viable vendor.

There are a whole lot of people looking to get out from under Microsoft's licensing/upgrading set to take effect this summer. Sun's offering may entice them to jump off the fence.

While open source is ready for the enterprise, the enterprise is not necessarily reader for open source.

What does that mean? It means that most enterprise class shops won't go for something that a) isn't supported by someone on the other end of phone and b) they aren't certain will be available in 5 years because of vendor viability.

Sun doesn't really give a damn about all of us - they are targetting a larger market that will provide a longer-lived revenue stream.

And take a bite of out Microsoft's chunky a$$ at the same time.

I don't like OpenOffice. Font support sucks and some of the compatability with MS Office products is less than acceptable. Given that I absolutely have to be able to read/edit MS documents, that is an imperative.

Will I pay for StarOffice? Hell yeah. I'd rather give it to Sun than MS any day.

StarOffice came first - open office is the release of the code into the open source community. StarOffice isn't originally Sun's, but was offered as early as 1996. Sun picked it up (to the dismay of many, myself included ) in 1999.

You can read about the acquisition here

OpenOffice did not come first, StarOffice did. Sun released an earlier code base to the open source community and continued with its own development.

Well if you really want to spend $80.00

[young jedi]

While StarOffice 6.0 is cheap, the same product is available for free in openoffice 1.0 which is the base. All Sun really did here is repeat what we have already seen in the netbeans -> forte4 java relationship. I say download the software(OpenOffice that is ;) ), install it, use it, and join a mailing list if necessary. I always thought real users could better recreate program errors than tech support.

Besides OpenOffice has been perfect for me thus far.

Missing PIM Functionality

[Trinition]

I still say they're missing PIM functionality. Figure out a way to get Evolution to work with it seamlessly. I run Windows and would glady switch away from Office if I could read/write Word documents, Excel spreadsheets -- and duplicate my Outlook PIM/e-mail functionality (and still synchronize it to my PDA).

XML-based.

[Anonymous Coward]

XML is just a method of storing structured data as a rooted tree. Nothing more. Nothing less.

It's become popular not becuase the technology itself is particularly revolutionary-- the technology is simple. It's become popular, rather, becuase of a number of very versatile, useful, well-done parser libraries that (for example) let you save and retrieve your structured data to and from XML without much fuss or work at all. As opposed to mucking about with file pointers and binary data and such yourself, and probably misusing a free() call somewhere and segfaulting. (There is also the associated neat ease-of-parsing technologies, like schema and XSL, but i won't get into that.) One such parser library was written by microsoft, and is part of ".NET". This is why microsoft is pushing XML right now; it's a development best practice. Or something of the sort. Not because they are moving toward XML as an "open standard".

(The fact it has a sexy acronym, and the fact that nebulous connections exist in people's minds between anything XML (no matter how useless) and the very useful technologies like SOAP and XSL that have sprung from XML, doesn't hurt.)

XML does not support interoperability in any way unless everyone agrees on common XML grammars for a specific task.

Unless Microsoft releases the XML schema for their new-office XML format, then the new MSWord format will be every bit as much unusable gibberish as the old MSWord format (except the new gibberish will contain a lot of > and < symbols, and begin with a standard tag identifying it as an XML document). Microsoft seems every bit as xenophobic as they'd ever been, and have given no indication they will release such a schema for any reason unless they are forced to as part of a court judgement terminating the current antitrust case with the states. And probably not even then, unless the court order is carried out by armed national guard members storming the Redmond compound.

Re:XML-based.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you make a really excellent point.

However, while XML documents are easier to reverse-engineer for the reason you give, it can still be plenty difficult or maybe even impossible to decipher.

If you were using HTML, which doens't take much to become valid XML, you can use any of the following to achieve the same purpose (my apologies if i haven't remembered the exact css attributes off the top of my head):

• <img align=right width=100 height=100 alt="local image" src="localimg.gif" />

or

• <table align=right><img width=100 height=100 alt="local image" src="localimg.gif" /></table>

or

• <img style="align:right; width:100; height:100" alt="local image" src="localimg.gif" />

or

• <style>img {align:right; width:100; height:100}</style> <img alt="local image" src="localimg.gif" />

And there is absolutely no reason, that if you were designing your own XML formatting system, that you couldn't make this valid:

• <align direction=right><img-entity><width value=100><height value=100><alt text="local image" /><img>localimg.gif</img>&lt ; / eight></width></img-entity></ali gn>

Look at all these different ways to do a single thing! And yes, we have a pretty clear distinction of what's a tag and what's data. But look at all those different ways of *conveying* data. Formatting (content) can be conveyed as parameters, as entities, as data within tags, as tags within tags, as header information elsewhere in the document, as parameters that serve as enumerated options just by showing up in a tag. If all those options above were gibberish acronyms instead of being in english, and if the "local image" and "localimg.gif" bits were being stored as huffman codes or something other than straightforward text (which *could* happen) i guarantee you'd have a really hard time determining in each example what was structural/logical division data, what was document-inherent/header data, what was style information, and what was content.

In an actual reverse-engineering environment this is much easier because you could make a bunch of MSXML documents and see what shows up frequently and what's different in every document-- thus telling you what's enumerated formatting and what's data-- and you could disassemble the Word executable itself and try to find the place where the XML-parsing program logic is. But it's still possible a couple of rare but crucial implications of certain innocuous-looking parameters or tags that your tests just didn't happen to touch on could slip through the cracks..

Re:"Next-gen" office from Microsoft, also XML-base

[tzanger]

No way in hell that MS would make the office formats XML

Sure they would. They'd just do what they do now; embed the WMF data (perhaps as Base64) into <mstag> and <mstag/> tags.

XML doesn't mean shit, only that the data is organized in some kind of fashion. It does not guarantee that the data is open and accessible

I don't understand the difference, either.

[Futurepower(R)]

I don't understand the difference, either.

From the Star Office web site, "A single-user license lets you load the StarOffice office suite onto as many as five individual workstations or PCs..."

Nice licensing, but it doesn't compare with Open Office's unlimited multiple-user licenses for free.

Also, from the Star Office web site, "Through the OpenOffice.org Project, Sun has made full use of feedback from highly talented open source programmers. The StarOffice 6.0 suite shares a codebase with the OpenOffice.org 1.0 office suite, future enhancement to the base source code are planned to be available, providing the best of both worlds to users."

Sun has certainly done everyone in the world community a great service by open sourcing Star Office, but it has not explained the difference between its version and Open Office.

I just hate glib marketing writing like this. Certainly the web site writer knew what we wanted to know. Why not just tell us?

Re:but how?

[*coughs loudly*]

V. little of that is germane here; China is a Communist country in name only. Of course, that doesn't necessarily make it identical to any capitalist country you are familiar with--chunks of industry are owned and ran by the army, for example.

Here we go again...

[fmaxwell]

Of course, where OpenOffice is licensed under the GPL, those fonts and functions *could* be developed and distributed for free by another group. Hmm.. I smell another sourceforge project here.

Sadly, you are probably right. Slashdot readers sit around bemoaning Microsoft's virtual ownership of the PC software market. But when some other company introduces a supported, professional, competing product, much of the discussion on Slashdot centers around:

1. Encouraging people to download free software instead of buying the new product.
2. Creating open source projects to replace the package being discussed.
3. Getting the package without paying for it.

Today was just another great example on Slashdot. First the announcement of Opera 6 for Linux. I lost count of the number of times that people suggested the use of Mozilla or some other free browser to avoid paying for Opera. At least one person posted registration codes. Others posted ways to disable the ads that pay the bills for the ad-supported version.

Now we have the announcement that StarOffice 6 will be sold for a mere $75. Are Slashdot readers celebrating the fact that Sun is going up against Microsoft in the office arena? Nope. The discussion centers around using, and extending, OpenOffice instead of purchasing StarOffice from Sun.

Microsoft management is probably thrilled by what they see here. A major competitor announces a compatible office suite that runs on Linux, Solaris, and Windows. It's priced at a fraction of the price of Microsoft Office. And what do readers on Slashdot, a group that should be a prime audience for the new package, do? Look for ways to avoid buying it.

Re:Here we go again...

[jrp2]

. It's about having the ability to put it into a standard system image that's installed over the network to every machine in the department without any licensing hassles.

You bring up a very valid point. Is it easy to build into an image that can be deployed cookie-cutter style without an administrative headache?

My guess is they (Sun) are not going to be jerks about it, and probably not enforcing it with s/n's being entered, etc. Maintaining all the license paperwork for the BSA audits are also painful and expensive. That is what makes MS Office and Windows and many other apps so difficult, it is a royal pain to manage and deploy it all in an enterprise setting. If they take a laissez-fair attitude, take corp folks reasonable efforts to maintain legality as "good enough" and only go after companies that blatantly disregard the licensing, they will have achieved their goals and made a lot of friends. There are not likely to be too many companies in the blatant disregard category as they could just use OpenOffice if they want to be cheap.

Bottom line, it appears Sun is not in this office game to make a killing, but primarily to stick their fork in Microsoft's side and break their lock on the market a bit and trying to break even while doing it. I just can't see them making a fuss over licensing like MS does. As far as sharing with your friends, share OpenOffice, do you really need the extras? Corps do, you and your friends probably don't. I think this is going to work just fine.

Does anyone know what kind of licensing enforcement mechanisms are being put in SO? Are they "mass deployment friendly"?

Re:Why China?

[ender81b]

Yes, I was considering the fact that most don't have access to computers yet.

Re:$ == legitimacy in business

[Elias Israel]

"What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only that gives everything its value."
-- Thomas Paine

Year in and year out, the new cars that are rated the highest are the ones that cost the most money. Generally speaking, this is not because expensive cars are so much better than others, but primarily because those who pay are obliged, in their own minds, to evaluate what they received more highly, or call themseles fools for having made the bargain.

Support, Support, Support

[lindsayt]

Three buzzwords for the business world and software:
1) Support
2) Support
3) Support

If you buy staroffice, you have support. If you download openoffice for your business, you have to contract in support, which is probably as much per seat as staroffice.

If no money exchanges hands, especially when it comes to the almighty GPL, there is absolutely NO GUARANTEE WHATSOEVER that the software works. Sun stakes its very life and reputation on the fact that StarOffice will work perfectly. True, the open source community produces good code, but there's no GUARANTEE of good code. Sun spent 8 months in semi-public beta of this baby (I've been using it since September).

Sun found that more companies would use StarOffice if they charged a bit for it than if it were free, for precisely this reason. Remember, the market for office suites is corporate, not personal, especially for Sun.

Re:Why China?

[Glytch]

Who's "us"? China sure isn't hostile to my country.

Re:Crescent Office!

[swissmonkey]

I understand it's for fun but please...

Avoid mixing "islamic world" with "Al-Quaeda" and avoid mixing Jihad with war/fight.

Al-Quaeda is a minuscule minority of the islamic world and does not represent it.

Jihad is an extremely broad term which sometimes means war, and most of the time doesn't.

Almost all americans and many europeans have a problem understanding these two things, and through this ignorance make wrong judgements of the muslim world and muslims, it would be good if you could avoid strengthening that by mixing these things together.

Re:Uncertain file filters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who compares Access/FileMaker/Adabas D/etc with MySQL/Postgres/MS-SQL/Oracle/etc is disqualified. Different types of apps.

Re:Crescent Office!

[pirhana]

Its absolutely true that Islam is a "backward" religion. Islam was always in war with science. As has been the case in europ and rest of the world in past centuary. "Islamic" church persecuted Galilio and various other scientists .Islamic "church" is even now involved in all sort of sexual abuse and harassments as its coming out in US press. The international capital of Islam, namely vatican is busy with settling out compensation claims against its priests. Lastly "Islamic countries" are engaged in war around the world. Its not an irony that the leading "Islamic country" of the world , US has engaged in many of the most brutal wars of the history in Latin america and many other parts of the world closely followed by another "Islamic country" namely Soviet Russia. Its also not irony that leading war symbols of the last centuary were all "Islamic fundamentalists" born out of "Jihad" called like Hitler, Mussolini etc. Worst of all "Islam" has contributed two major world war two the world in the last centuary. If world is to be made a peace haven , then this "backward" religion is to be controlled.

Re:Crescent Office!

[Dazza]

Sort of like how Christianity was a bastardised form of Judaism ?

Or how Judaiam was based upon more pagan-like polytheistic ( eg, worshipping a wife of Yahweh ) religions that came before it.

btw, look up the etymology for the word 'zealot'...