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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.
The actual text from the article:
.Net My Services, would also be available separately for Office copies sold at retail or on new PCs, sources said.
For the next version of Office, the company is considering an optional subscription version tied to Web services based on Extensible Markup Language (XML). Those services, which could include some of the online calendaring and collaboration features envisioned for
No way in hell that MS would make the office formats XML, instead they are planning on selling a seperate add-on pack that includes Calender + collaboration features based on XML. They are also planning on selling these 'web services' as a subscription plan. The file-save format will not be XML which is what would really be a shock.
On a side note, this is kindof cool. I am half tempted to buy this from Sun - I like Open Office and use it regularly but it would be nice to have some support from sun to back it up. Not that I would probably use it but you never know. I am also wondering if they are going to offer an educational type discount.
I work for a university library and they are considering migrating over to Star Office but... I'm not holding my breath. The users just don't want to 'learn something new' and the tech people don't want to have to train them. Nonetheless with state-wide budget cuts it might become a reality since the current MS contract they have is getting more and more expensive and MS is become more and more annoying. The other day a MS representative was down in the computer offices trying to sell something or another and when he noticed that all the server-side of the library (web site, cataloging, etc) was run on Sun systems or unix boxen he became hostile. 2 weeks later the library got audited by MS. Luckily enough, they had all their shit together and nothing happens but it is this type of behavior that is driving people towards Star Office - as well as the fact that it is an excellent program.
{meta name="MSOfficeApplication" value="Microsoft Word for Windows XP v 10.5"}6 5"}
{document author="os2fan2" author_grandmother="granny" authorAuntPetDog="Spike" authorBankAccount="blah blah blah"}{section orientation="landscape" pagewidth=11918 padgeheight=16854 pagesize="A4"}
{page number="1" facing="right"}{para font="Venderra" size="12" colour="ffffff"}Hello world!{/para}{para font="Venderra" size="12" colour="ffffff"}A second line.{/para}{/page}{/section}{/document}
{meta name="OperatingSystemVersion" value="Microsoft Windows XP Subscription"} {meta name="Expires" value="2003.07.05"} {meta name="Account" value="1284568-255466987-1125584-2145411156-25461
Output is:
Hello world!
This is a second line.
Leave any punctuation out, and word will show the source code like this, after briefly showing your document how it would have looked if it had worked properly. Word 97 does that :(
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.