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StarOffice 5.1 released
Thomas Leineweber writes "Stardivision has just released the new version 5.1 of its StarOffice. You can download it as usual for free for non-commercial use. "
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Well, hmmm ... I am an MBA, a CPA, and a CMA, and have managed a number of projects with >200 people in the oil business for the last twenty years. I have about 200 people in my department. I report to the CFO here. So I think that I know my way around the "management decision meeting" business. I have one question: What's the weather like on your planet?
"Other side?" What "other side?" The only side that I am aware of is the "how much does it cost us" side. Try the "other side" crap at Phillips, Shell, Mobil -- er DoubleCross --, BP, or any of the other majors and your ass will be out the door that afternoon. Did you learn that in "Business School" -- that sounds like the stuff that kids these days keep trying to pull in interviews. I have been wishing for one of those hooks to come out and drag them out of my office when they say stuff like that (my secretary is not interested and claims osteoporosis) because when they start talking about "other sides" and "third options" and "new paradigms" the interview is basically over. It means that they cannot add or subtract and/or have never met a budget in their life. And they think that they know something about real technology. Which is even more dangerous.
The only thing that is important is the bottom line, son, and I think that you have never been responsible for one on your life. AIX stays up for 1000 days at a time. Solaris is almost as good. Even HP-UX and OSF will do 200 days. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick -- IRIX will do more than 30 days. NT won't stay up for two weeks under load. Office is a pox and is restricted here because of the support budget that it alone uses up. We restrict the availability of Powerpoint (what the technicians refer to as "Powerpointyhair") for the same reason. As far as I can tell, Linux is just another UNIX, just a lot smaller. I have been working with UNIX for years (and Linux for the last four years on the advice of some of the younger staff members), and I have never seen an advantage to NT and Office and Windows before that (and OS/2 before that, and Macs on and off -- lately IMacs). Perhaps it is the CPA in me coming out -- it's all about ROI and cost of ownership and it doesn't get any better than UNIX and mainframes (more so now with IBM's price cuts). It is amazing (and reveals your fundamental lack of experience) that you would actually suggest that NT/Office is a good value proposition! I have tried Star Office once. I wasn't impressed -- a lot of the machines here are older Pentiums with 32MB and Star Office would not run well on them. But as a value proposition you are suggesting that a system that runs us about $6500/seat in support and licences PER YEAR EVERY YEAR costs less than one that would be free+$300 (last I checked) once. ONCE. That is why we are seriously considering Applix (smaller) or a freeware suite (LyX, GNUmeric, and some others -- but that is enough and exmh is quite nice -- we have menus for setting up procmail automatically) for the new systems as we replace them and/or using X as X terminals on the old systems (with new monitors and video cards). All of this is driven by cost. Period.
"Other side?"
You shouldn't have slept through the accounting classes -- they were part of your curriculum for a reason.
But hey -- I know who we have (I hired most of them) and I know that you aren't working for me -- I only hope that you are working for one of our compeditors.
STAR OFFICE 5.1 Download Sites:
FTP SITES:
Sun SITE UTK at University of Tennessee - Knoxville
TU Clausthal - Germany
Sun SITE Central Europe at RWTH-Aachen - Germany
Sun SITE Finland at the Tampere University of Technology
Sun SITE Switzerland - cnlab & SWITCH - Rapperswil & Zurich
Star Division - Germany
Star Division - Germany
AARNet Mirror Project - Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
HTTP SITES:
Sun SITE USA at University of North Carolina - UNC Chapel Hill
Sun SITE UTK at University of Tennessee - Knoxville
Sun SITE Central Europe at RWTH-Aachen - Germany
Sun SITE Finland at the Tampere University of Technology
Sun SITE Nordic at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan - Stockholm
Sun SITE Belgium
Sun SITE Northern Europe at Imperial College - London
Sun SITE Switzerland - cnlab & SWITCH - Rapperswil & Zurich
Looks like it works with my Debian potato (glibc2.1) based system. There is also an AppIcon in wmaker, which was missing in 5.0.