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Sizing Up StarOffice 6.0 357

Posted by timothy from the words-and-white-space dept.
Over on NewsForge, Roblimo has taken a look at Sun's new StarOffice 6.0 (due out in April for retail purchase), and comparing it to OpenOffice build 641C. I installed StarOffice on a new Toshiba laptop, and since my Mandrake 8.2 ISOs are still trickling in, have StarOffice 6.0 running instead under Windows XP. (I have just a few additional notes on this, below.)

The installation was dead simple, and therefore better than most software: I popped in the CD, and with about 10 minutes of point-click-whirrring, the software was installed. The only notable aspect of this process is that the CD included (and popped onto my hard drive, with prompting) a new Java runtime environment (Sun's standard JRE, version 1.3.1). The helpful timer that accompanies the install is conservative, which is nice -- it started out estimating 14 minutes for the "transferring files" portion, but quickly dropped down to less than five.

Having not touched StarOffice for a while, it's nice to see the features in OpenOffice trickle in -- most importantly, getting rid of the monolithic desktop makes it actually usable to those of us who hate screen-hijacking software. And at least on this 1 GHz, 256MB laptop, even "bloatware" features like auto-correction are snappy enough not to be bothersome.

Two small notes on Roblimo's review for anyone curious about using SO under Windows: The Windows version does claim to open "WordPerfect (Win) 6.0-7.0" documents, which is at least a start toward WordPerfect compatibility. And under Windows, the nice X-Window style one-click text transfer isn't an option. One more note for 6.0 Beta testers: you can download a patch from Sun to extend the life of the beta from March 31 to June 3 2002.
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Sizing Up StarOffice 6.0 More

Sizing Up StarOffice 6.0

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  • No problems... (Score:3, Informative)

    by justletmeinnow ( 315504 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:08PM (#3222875) Homepage
    I never had any problems at all with 6.0 beta... In fact, I'm still using it! Not a single crash, and much better than 5.2
    • Another item on my StarOffice "wish list" would be the ability to create and edit .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) files, something that is readily available for MS Word and Corel WordPerfect. Give me this feature, even if it's a plugin that costs $50 over and above whatever Sun decides to charge for StarOffice, and they'll get my money.

      StarOffice 6 beta has this feature, and I'd be very surprised if the final didn't have it either. I think Roblimo just missed the menu option.

  • StarOffice 6.0 *is* available... (Score:4, Informative)

    by joestar ( 225875 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:11PM (#3222901) Homepage
    It's just been announced [linux-mandrake.com] at Mandrake Linux website:



    "The much anticipated StarOffice 6.0 for Linux is now available for download to Mandrake Linux Club Members. We are proud to announce that Club members will be among the first Linux users to have the privilege of using the newest version of this premiere Linux Office Sui
    te. Since StarOffice 6.0 has a new licensing model (it is no longer free as were previous versions), MandrakeSoft is currently offering the download service to MandrakeClub "Silver" members (and above). To provide Mandrake Club members the opportunity to reach Silver status, MandrakeSoft has set up a simple upgrade procedure.

    StarOffice 6.0 is comprised of five distinct components:
    StarOffice Writer is a professional wordprocessor; StarOffice Calc is a spreadsheet application; StarOffice Impress is a multimedia presentation tool; StarOffice Draw is a 3D graphics and special effects designer; StarOffice Adabas is a user-friendly database.

    The new features include a new XML-based document format that results in dramatically reduced filesizes (compared to StarOffice 5.2), improved file filters and support for OLE objects that provides excellent compatibility with Microsoft Office documents, new font rendering, an improved user interface that makes StarOffice 6.0 more intuitive and friendly than ever, better system integration with other applications that allows, for instance, the ability to send office documents with an email client directly from StarOffice, and more!

    StarOffice 6.0 is supported under the following Mandrake Linux versions (x86 only): Mandrake Linux 8.0, Mandrake Linux 8.1 and Mandrake Linux 8.2."


    There should be a story on Slashdot soon since it mentions the recent controversy about the Mandrake Club Silver membership...

    • Can anybody provide information or point to a reference that would delineate which of these new features can and cannot be found in the latest stable OpenOffice?

      I know there's no Adabas in OpenOffice, but other than that?

      • Re:StarOffice 6.0 *is* available... (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The fonts in OpenOffice.org (don't forget the .org, Sun owns the rights to OpenOffice) are shit, as is the speed compared to StarOffice 6.0. Spell checking also isn't included, and printing support is minimal.

  • 641C is nice (Score:5, Informative)

    by Platinum Dragon ( 34829 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:16PM (#3222941) Journal
    I've been running OO 641C since it was released. My machine is a PII-266 with 224 MB of RAM, so it tends to lag at times. However, SO 5.2 was never usable on this box. OO has replaced 5.1a.

    I'll add my voice to those cheering the death of the SO 'desktop'. What a worthless feature, a waste of everyone's time. Now I get right to the good stuff... after about 20 seconds of startup.

    MS document compatibility seems much improved. Strangely, I recently had more trouble with Word users opening a 95-formatted file as opposed to a 2000/XP-formatted .doc. I don't know if this is a good thing, a bad thing, and whether it's a reflection on the OO programmers or MS and its moving-target document formats.

    Font detection seems *greatly* improved under X. OO appears to use X's own fonts as well as its internal fonts, meaning no more headaches and hacks to install TrueType fonts under SO. Printing hasn't been a problem at all, although North American users (guilty) may want to make sure the page size is set to "Letter" before printing; A4 seems to be the default.

    Spell-checking is a bit loosy-goosy in detecting misspelled words, as it will sometimes stop at words with double quotes on one side or the other, but it works.

    I still tend to warn people when I send them .docs in case things look screwy, but I hear fewer complaints than in the past.

    I'm eagerly awaiting the next release of OO. I'm not sure if I'll buy Sun's StarOffice 6.0, since I'm not sure the value-add will be there, but I'm satisfied with the program the OO team has produced.

    • Re:641C is nice (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cavemanf16 ( 303184 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @04:16PM (#3223454) Homepage Journal
      I too like the Open Office 641 release very much. Although I have seen some really goofy conversion between OO and MSWord2k when using tables in a Word document.

      OO runs nearly as quickly on Windows once you get it up and going, although because it's Java, some of the menu's and other 'buttons' are sluggish to respond.

      But Mandrake 8.2 - WOW! Open Office 641 is included as an installable component in the 3 CD ISO set that you can download for free, and it is quick! Once loaded in KDE 2.2.2, it just seems to fly - faster than MS Word on my particular machine (dual-boot Win2k/Mandrake8.2 AMD Duron @986MHz and 256MB 133SDRAM). Given the cross-platform compatibility, I'm going to be using OO at home from here on out for all of my 'Office' needs.

      Now I know not all of you have a good broadband connection to download Mandrake 8.2, but it's definitely a stable improvement upon the 8.1 release.

      Now the only hurdle left is convincing people that don't play complex DirectX video games that Linux does everything for them and more when properly configured (which took me only 2 hours - Win2k took 4hrs BTW, and I've been using it longer than Linux).

      I hate to sound like a buzzworthy press release, but I've been messing around with Linux long enough to see how annoying it can be. Fortunately, I finally have found a Linux desktop I can recommend to my non-computer literate friends. (And if I buy the gaming version, maybe I can convert my fiancee to Linux, OO, and The Sims on Linux ;) ).

    • Re:641C is nice (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Dave_bsr ( 520621 )
      thought: is it better to "warn" people that OO might make things look a little funny, and then be able to discuss how capable your _very_ inexpensive OpenOffice product is...
      ...or is it better to never even tell them, because they probably will never realize that your formatting problem wasn't just a problem with MS Office...

  • This is not a review. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stuce ( 81089 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:18PM (#3222958)

    This is an anecdote about installing it. There was no mention of how it handles Office200/XP document importing and exporting. There was no mention on how stable it was. There was no mention of how well it integrates with the KDE or Gnome desktops, cut and paste, drag and drop. There was no mention on how it's usability has evolved.

    There are MUCH bigger issues with Start Office than does it install quickly or does it hog the screen. How about, can it gracefully replace MS Office for a MS Office user and if not why not?

    The big three apps are Outlook, IE, and Office. We have Evolution, Mozilla and ???? A contender for the missing piece of the desktop puzzle deserves a better review than this.

    • Re:This is not a review. (Score:4, Informative)

      by moeman ( 11668 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:25PM (#3223029) Homepage
      You need to read the actual review [newsforge.com]. The little blurp here on slashdot is worthless.

    • My Two Cents:

      If you have users that use Word for small memos, letters and two page layout - they can easily use OpenOffice/StarOffice/AbiWord/KWord.

      If you have useres that use Excell and stick to one sheet and have a graph or two - they can easily use OpenOffice/StartOffice/KSpread

      Access is a joke and should be replaced by somthing, anything, of your choosing.

      The trouble is when you have users that use Word for a cappy replacement fror PageMaker, and Excell useres that treat the thing like a database.

      They need to be migrated over to LeX, and PostgreSQL - and not a competing 'Office' product.
      • If you have useres that use Excell and stick to one sheet and have a graph or two - they can easily use OpenOffice/StartOffice/KSpread

        And gnumeric

        They need to be migrated over to LeX

        I don't know what you mean by LeX, but I assume you meant Tex/Latex or lyx/klyx (which are WYSIWYG frontends to tex/latex).
    • Correct. This is not a review. But if you follow the link over to NewsForge, you'll find the review there.

      I think the clue was in the phrase "Over on NewsForge..."
    • Not sure if you realized this (I hope you did) but the first link in the Slashdot blurb [newsforge.com] goes to the actual review. He doesn't address everything you've asked (good points, btw) but he does talk about who should buy it and why, as well as potential cost savings.

    • Re:This is not a review. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Ravagin ( 100668 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:35PM (#3223115)

      Okay, I agree with you.

      Maybe two months ago, my laptop's win2k partition started getting scuzzy, and I decided it was time to reformat and reinstall (needed to repartition for WinMe (only for ie6, i swear) anyway). Before, I had had MS office, installed on a workplace license from the summer. but I didn't have access to that any more, so I decided to go with some form of StarOffice.

      5.2 was not desirable, so i ended up with the latest OpenOffice. I haven't looked back. The word processor is slick and responsive (128MB, 833mHz piii) and uses the formats I need. The powerpoint analog (forget the name; i use it rarely) served very well when a family member needed a laptop for a powerpoint (as in a .ppt file) presentation.

      I don't usually use many Office apps these days besides word processing, but when it comes to word processing, the latest OO is excellent. The only problem I've encountered- and I remember this from MS Word - is when pasting content from MS IE. OO makes it a bizarre formatted content block, but i'm used to filtering clipboard text through notepad. Heh, it's even replicated the ms word annoyances.

      So. OO word processing rocks. Nothing missing, that I've found.

      • Re:This is not a review. (Score:5, Funny)

        by emf ( 68407 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:43PM (#3223174)
        "Maybe two months ago, my laptop's win2k partition started getting scuzzy"

        Hey, your drive is either SCSI or not, it doesn't change.

        :)

        • your drive is either SCSI or not

          Ah, yes, that would explain why cdrecord operates IDE CD burners through the /dev/sgN (SCSI) device nodes...

          I also have a USB scanner which uses SCSI packets layered in PartPort (IEEE-1284) packets layered in USB packets because doing it with a string of converter chips was apparently cheaper than doing it properly.

      • WinMe (Score:2)

        by Pac ( 9516 )
        Windows ME is probably the sorriest excuse for a Windows operating system since Windows 2.0. You would be far better served sticking to 98 SE or going directly to XP.
        • You missed the parenthetical clause. I only installed it so i'd have access to IE6. Web development demands as many platforms for testing as possible.
      • Maybe two months ago, my laptop's win2k partition started getting scuzzy,

        They do that? The partition or the disk? I've got a bunch of eyedeeyee disks lying around that do with getting scuzzy.

      • I found I had the same problem, but, oddly enough, cutting and pasting from mozilla to openoffice works fine. Not surprising really.
    • Right. It's a pointer to a review, which would be obvious if you read more carefully:

      Over on NewsForge, Roblimo has taken a look at Sun's new StarOffice 6.0

      See ... the review's "over on newsforge", not here.

      What could be more clear?

  • "Bloatware?" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by EraseEraseMe ( 167638 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:20PM (#3222974)
    What exactly is considered bloatware? Auto-correction I would certainly not consider bloatware; however, an IRC client built into Office I would. Where's the line drawn? Usefulness vs usage? Popularity vs requirements?

    If Auto-correction is considered bloatware, what's next...Underlining? Bolding?

    • Re:"Bloatware?" (Score:4, Funny)

      by Junta ( 36770 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:43PM (#3223160)
      You would think especially with all the spelling errors that this feature would be essential to a slashdot 'editor'. Of course, them not using autocorrect explains so much...
      • Attention Editors(!) Provided here, for your convenince, is a handy translation of the post above:

        Jou wood tink ecpesially whith al the spealling erorrs that thish feauter woold be esential to a Slashdot 'editour'. Of coarse, them naught useing autokorekt explanes so mutch.

    • Bloatware is a term often used by people who still think in terms of statically compiled executables. However since about a decade, most operating systems feature so called dynamic link libraries and components. If for instance you have a component that enables you to render HTML, you can use that application in several applications. Microsoft has done that with their HTML rendering component and it is used in almost anything they ship. Some people call that bloat, others call that reuse. The availability of components makes it possible to implement new features at a relatively low cost.

      Konqueror on linux is another misunderstood application. People think of it as a browser or a file manager. However it is really a container for several components. Basically all it does is use features from different components that are available anyway to implement features. In addition it provides a few components of its own that can be reused outside konqueror. If you have a component that can provide browse a folder you can make a filemanager. Add a component that makes connections to http and ftp sites and you have nearly all the ingredients needed to implement an ftp client. Add an html rendering component and suddenly you have browser. It sounds simple but on most desktops you still need three separate applications, I would call that bloat.
      • Dynamic libraries don't change a single thing with over-featured products -- bloatware is not a product that has a lot of components and functionality but one that consumes large amount of resources because of that functionality. If relatively small component has extremely slow code because it has to be able to call everyone and his brother after the user clicked on a mouse, or if large number of loaded libraries make caching useless, the "component model" accomplishes nothing -- in fact, in those cases huge statically linked monster with hardcoded everything may have a better performance.
    • I don't draw the line in regards to functionality at all unless the functionality is clearly superflous. Where I do draw the line is ridiculous slow, memory and disk gobbling code implementing the functionality. We spend a LOT of resources in most "modern" programs per unit of functionality. This isn't specific to OO.

  • What about this bug? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Da Schmiz ( 300867 ) <slashdot@ELIOTpryden.net minus poet> on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:20PM (#3222975) Homepage
    As near as I can tell, the latest public build of OpenOffice still doesn't have this bug [openoffice.org] fixed. Since I need to be able to edit MSWord files fairly often, this makes it more or less unusable for me.

    So, for the time being, I'm using MSWord2k in VMware. If SO/OO can reproduce most of the functionality I need (which, for the most part, it does... I was using SO6b happily until I discovered articles going to print with typos because Word's spellchecker ignored them) then I'll happily switch.

    For me, the only substantial difference between SO6 and OO641C (last time I checked) was fonts... SO6 came bundled with a few extra fonts that made it easier to interact with MSWord users. If that's the only major difference, I'm happy to use OO and rip my own fonts...

    • The link you pointed us to claims that the bug is fixed. If you have evidence it hasn't been then you should resubmit it, because they clearly think it has been ...
      • It looks like the page is slashdotted now, but the bug is closed because it's been fixed in the latest internal revision (641C3 I believe). But the text at the bottom explicitly says that the current public release has yet to contain the fix. I haven't downloaded OO recently, so perhaps the 641C available for download now is different from the 641C I downloaded a couple of months ago. In any case, I checked the release notes for 641C that Timothy linked to and bug #2311 doesn't appear there.

        I may be wrong. It may be fixed. If so, I'd be happy to hear it.

    • Re:What about this bug? (Score:3, Informative)

      by mz001b ( 122709 )
      OO also has a bug where if you use 'focus follows mouse', the menus are completely unusable. This of course makes OO completely unusable.
    • As near as I can tell, the latest public build of OpenOffice still doesn't have this bug fixed.

      Yes it has. From your link....

      ------- Additional Comments From mru@openoffice.org 2002-01-17 07:12 PST -------

      Yes, works good in internal build 641c. Will reach OO with next public build.
      • The question is, is the build 641C in the article the same as the "next public build" in the message? Maybe there's another digit which I'm missing, but it seems that 641C has been the latest build of OO for some time now.

        When are they going to move to the new versioning scheme? It would make a lot more sense to be taling about, say, OpenOffice 1.0.0 versus OpenOffice 1.0.1.

        Just my $0.02.

  • Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:20PM (#3222980)
    In a stunning upset, a Linux user that never uses MS Office thinks that OpenOffice is perfectly adequate.

    That never happens. Certainly not on Slashdot.

    Gimme some reviews from people whose opinions actually matter and you'll start changing mindshare. Articles like this are just preaching to the choir.

    (And if you're going to compare StarOffice and OpenOffice, at least a rudimentary review of the additional features that come with StarOffice would be beneficial. Like, instead of just mentioning the database features are there, how about saying if they're any good?)

    • Re:Wow (Score:2)

      by judd ( 3212 )
      OK. I use MS Word 2000 every day to write technical documentation, reports and proposals - I work in a consulting firm where for better or worse, Office docs are standard.

      I have taken to using OO 641 with Linux at home. I have no problems importing docs both ways, and no one is any the wiser at work.

      As a substitute for Word, OO is just fine. And the autocompletion as you type is kind of nice.

  • New OpenOffice versioning scheme (Score:4, Informative)

    by abischof ( 255 ) <alex&spamcop,net> on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:21PM (#3222987) Homepage
    For those not aware, OpenOffice has adopted a new versioning scheme [openoffice.org]:

    But for purposes of general intelligibility, and to accommodate a general expectation of how an Open Source project should number its public releases, an "X.Y.Z" numbering scheme will be adopted around the time of the release of StarOffice 6.0 this spring. Instead of referring to OpenOffice.org by its internal number (e.g., 64x), people will be able to refer to it by the new numeration.

    [...]

    The first version number will be "1.0.0".

  • Cost of Mandrake Club & StarOffice 6 when in s (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gdyas ( 240438 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:25PM (#3223026) Homepage

    Cost to Join Mandrake Club at Silver Level to download StarOffice 6: $120.00

    Cost to upgrade initial membership to Silver Level to get StarOffice 6: $60.00

    Cost of a copy of StarOffice 6, Deluxe Version with documentation from local retailer: $40.00

    And I should join or upgrade my membership why?

  • Sarcasm?? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thesolo ( 131008 ) <slap@fighttheriaa.org> on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:29PM (#3223071) Homepage
    From the article:
    Sorry, there are no
    Smart Tags [glassdog.com] in StarOffice. If your company decides to use StarOffice instead of Microsoft Office, this is a feature you'll have to learn to live without.

    Is this sarcasm, or is Roblimo actually implying that Smart Tags are a good thing??

    In a comparison between MS Office, this should be a huge +5 for Sun. Smart tags are idiotic and intrusive, and should not be supported in Open/Star Office ever!
    • Yeah, I would say that was sarcasm. No need to get all excited. (Besides, "smarttags" aren't idiotic, they are intrusive, underhanded and evil, but the idea is very smart)
    • Yes it was sarcasm. If you follow the link, it doesn't point to Microsoft's smart tag page, or something similarly appropriate, but to an anti-smart tag page with a giant image at the top proclaiming "Smart Tags are Stupid".

  • I think charging will help. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) <bittercode@gmail> on Monday March 25, 2002 @03:39PM (#3223143) Homepage Journal
    I have been using SO for about a year now. I've been running the 6.0 beta since it became available on my SUSE box and on my NT box.

    I do a lot of volunteer work and whenever it comes time to shoot documents to different folks- some have office, some have works, some don't know.

    I'd tell people - "Get Star Office. It is a free office suite from Sun Microsystems."

    95% of them wouldn't even consider it. I think they were afraid of something free.

    If I can tell them "Yeah- you can go buy it for a 10th of what you would pay for office" I think they will be more apt to go for it.

    As a side note. I've never been able to get ADABAS to work on my NT box. And my attempts have just been out of curiousity as just reading the docs tells me that it cannot come even remotely come close to Access.

    I cannot tell you how many small companies I work with that use Access. I work with a collection agency that has up to 100 people working of a single access database.

    The price of Access looks small when you compare it to a real database. I'm not advocating this- but it is reality.

    .

  • First? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by boskone ( 234014 )
    The biggest surprise for me was that Sun will be selling this software for $49 or $99 per seat. This could be the legitimatization of Linux software. When someone can charge money successfully for a widely used peice of software, it will seem much more legit to many businesses and consumers, expecially if the quality is there too. I was waiting to dl it for free, but now I will be purchasing it when it's available and telling some of my contacts about it.

    Here's keeping our fingers crossed that this is successfull. Of course, there are plenty of free/free alternatives for those who choose them.

  • The Mac issue (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Scodiddly ( 48341 )
    Yeah, the Macintosh issue. Still no support for OS X, and last time I checked they were asking for people to help complete the partial port to X.

    Which sucks, because I recently got an iBook and love OS X (this is my first Mac and so I don't have a bunch of OS 9 apps to worry about) but really really really want StarOffice/Openoffice file compatibility. I've installed Linux, but it's not quite as polished as OS X on that hardware.

  • WordPerfect (Score:2, Interesting)

    by guanxi ( 216397 )
    WordPerfect kept essentially the same format from v6 (~1994) to now (v10). It's odd for SO to say they're only compatible with v6 and v7.

    WP introduced a 'compund document' format ~v8 which was not backward compatible, but hardly anyone uses it that I've seen (and yes I see a few WP users).

    Completely OT: Wouldn't WP's tagged formatting code method make it an ideal way to create low-end XML? It already has great word-processing features, and claims an XML format. WP could output SGML 8 yrs ago or more. Re: WP and XML, search google or see, for example:
    http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/05/31/word perfect/
  • Roblimo mentions something about creating and editing pdf files, and appears to implie this is included in Word and Wordperfect. To my knowledge it is not, it requires the purchase of a $200 piece of software from Adobe.

    Roblimo then goes off apparently comparing the price of retail editions of Office to Staroffice. Keep in mind, most companies already have Office from Microsoft, so they'd be paying upgrade prices. There are also various discounts available, especially on the Select license agreements, OEM bundles, etc. XP Standard is more like $200 and XP Professional around $300.

    But then he makes a claim that this substantial savings($100-200 per desktop) would prove you were "a company that respects its stockholders (or a government agency that respects taxpayers)". But what justification does he give for this? I don't see it.

    $100-200 per machine is really quite a small amount of money in the big picture. If I have staff that already knows how to use MS Office, sending them to a $500 training course to learn how to use Staroffice negates any cost savings from software licensing. Even if only half my staff needs training, that's still substantial. Then what about productivity gains? Will I be able to do the same work in Staroffice as MSOffice in the same amount of time? Will it take more time, less time, etc?

    If I give a project to someone and it takes them an extra day to complete because they used Staroffice, once again we've completely lost the $100 cost savings.

    Those are factors that come into play when making corporate buying decisions, and it is something that Roblimo clearly doesn't grasp or understand. The review he gives of StarOffice does not go into near enough detail to prove that it is a viable product.
    • Roblimo mentions something about creating and editing pdf files, and appears to implie this is included in Word and Wordperfect. To my knowledge it is not, it requires the purchase of a $200 piece of software from Adobe.

      Actually, this is one of my favorite comparisons between WordPerfect (my word processor of choice, though I haven't tried OO/SO 6.0 yet) and Word:

      WordPerfect 9 added a feature that let you export .PDF files directly from WordPerfect, without needing any third-party software.

      Word 2000 added a toolbar button that let you run Acrobat.

      Of course, you can always just use PrintMon to set up a virtual printer that pipes PostScript directly to Ghostscript, which can automatically distill it to a .PDF for you. But that requires a good bit of software knowledge and some tweaking.

    • For many small businesses the retail price is the only price that matters, and for large businesses that are interested in StarOffice Sun would almost certainly offer substantial incentives as well. Heck, for those users that don't need database capability you could even use OpenOffice, which is free software. This would allow you to get some of your less sophisticated users off of the upgrade treadmill altogether. Multiply that out over a few upgrade cycles and the switch to StarOffice makes a lot more sense.

      Not to mention the fact that StarOffice would allow you to ditch some of your clunky PC clients altogether. StarOffice would allow you to migrate from maintaining expensive PC clients to X terminals. Instead of hundreds of client PCs to administer and maintain you could have one server, and hundreds of X terminals. One commodity Intel server running Linux will happily support hundreds of users, and this sort of configuration is much less expensive to maintain. The clients are essentially disposable, and all configuration can be done on one centralized machine. The fact that Microsoft is changing the way that it charges for MS Office so that it is essentially twice as expensive in the average case makes the switch even more tempting.

      Most importantly switching to StarOffice greatly reduces a company's dependence on Microsoft, in a relatively painless way. Since StarOffice is available for Windows you can continue to use your existing software, and since StarOffice is mostly compatible with MS Office you don't have to worry about starting over from scratch with your important documents. Some of your most experienced MS Office users would need training, but StarOffice's user interface is similar enough to MS Office that most users won't hardly notice the switch. Microsoft has already proven that they have no compunctions against raising their prices, and they have a history of forcing their hand on their customers. While it is certainly true that Sun might attempt something similar, the fact that OpenOffice is available under the GPL makes it much harder for Sun to abuse its StarOffice customers.

      The cost of switching didn't save WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, and it isn't going to save Microsoft Office either.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • This is already very possible by using either Windows Terminal Server or Citrix -and MS makes price concessions to allow this to be fair economical. Also, I think you severely overestimate your shared user performance. 100 users clunky away slowly at a memo is one thing, 100 users working on spreadsheets, graphs, etc is quite another. Expect for a typical 1-ghz range dual processor server with 1-2 gb of RAM to support between 25-35 users. Thats much morerealistic.

          I think that you seriously overestimate the similarity between Terminal Server and X Windows. I have seen commodity Intel boxes support twice your 25-35 users using X Windows with comparable applications. In fact, much of the sluggishness of StarOffice goes away if you can count on the operating system already having a copy of the application in memory. Also the cost of licensing for Terminal Server or Citrix is hardly "economical." In fact, most folks simply deploy client PCs because of licensing issues.

          Second, MS Office is effectively more expensive only for certain cases. "Select" users are typically pretty big. Smaller users are usually in the Open Licensing program, which will not see this effective price icnrease. Also, not all Select users will see this price increase.

          Companies that automatically upgrade ever time Microsoft revs any application save money under the new Select agreement. Most of the rest of Microsoft's customers will pay more. Those companies that are currently on 3-5 year deployment cycles will pay a lot more. Imagine for a moment that you are one of the many enterprises still using Windows NT or Windows 98 with Office 97. These companies could drop the SELECT agreement altogether by switching to StarOffice. They would even get the added benefit of not having to pay for an operating system twice for their new machines. Since they need an upgrade any way you slice it, an upgrade to the less expensive StarOffice makes sense.

          The smaller the business the more attractive StarOffice/OpenOffice becomes. These businesses face a much smaller cost to migrate their existing documents, and they stand to save more per seat in licensing costs.

          Third, many places do not see MS dependence as a bad thing. Some places like it; some places are neutral to it, some places hate it.

          Now that Microsoft can't rely on PC sales to fuel their growth they are much more likely to leverage their monopoly status to the detriment of their customers. The price change for SELECT users and the new anti-piracy schemes for the rest of Microsoft's users are only the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft has to continue to grow, or the stock market will punish them fiercely, but Microsoft hasn't really opened up a new market in quite a long time, and they certainly haven't opened up a market that has the growth potential that Windows and Office afforded them. So Microsoft is quite likely to find that squeezing their customers is their only alternative.

          The cost of switching a large 500 or 600 user MS "Select" site to StarOffice would be very substantial. Tempting, but substantial. If you figure between $50-$100 per workstation, plus downtime, installation time (assuming you stick with Windows, btw) training time (if any, not all will need it), conversion time, etc you'd probably have a hard time justifying the case.
          I actually agree with your assessment. Switching to StarOffice is likely to be expensive and difficult, and it probably isn't in the cards for many customers. On the other hand, those businesses that have historically maintained longer cycle times on their software will almost certainly see StarOffice as a viable alternative. For these folks the cost of switching is definitely smaller than the cost of maintaining a SELECT agreement.

          I'd consider the switch to OpenOffice for an organization as such, but for almost all cases Sun hasn't made this deal attractive enough to create a rush to abandon MS. 10% market share wouldn't be unreasonable, but my guess is 3-5% after 2-3 years.

          Yes, I agree. StarOffice is probably not going to create a "rush" to migrate unless Microsoft seriously overplays their hand. StarOffice will keep Microsoft honest, however, and that's definitely a good thing. If Sun could get StarOffice (or even OpenOffice) preloaded on PCs then it could really do some damage.

    • Gartner has a brief analysis [gartner.com] of StarOffice's viability in the corporate work place.

      They see it as a potential replacement for non-power users. I their analysis, they anticipate a retail price of $100 and licensing at $25 - $75. The key to the savings that could be made seems to be Microsoft's recent changes to volume licensing. Some firms, according to Gartner, are about to see their Office license costs double.

      Gartner's iffy prediction (0.6 rating) is that Star Office will take over 10% of Microsoft's Office market unless Microsoft make significant changes to their price structure.
    • "$100-200" ?

      I think the cost will be many times that when you consider the endless upgrade cycle you are on. Typical corporate desktop has a licence for windows, one for NT server, one for SQL server and one for office. That's much more then 100 to 200. If you add terminal server they you are paying more on top of that. Not to mention the outragous per processor internet connect fees for the database server.

  • Gotta love the anecdotes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by yesthatguy ( 69509 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @04:02PM (#3223343) Homepage
    The psychology of pricing is interesting. Sun may be better off going with $99 than $49. Many years ago, in Guadalajara, Mexico, my grandmother met a street artist selling paintings for a dollar or two each. My grandmother told him to include nice frames (that he could buy for less than one dollar apiece from fellow half-starved locals) and up his prices to $50 or more. He thought she was nuts, because no one he knew could afford to pay that much for a small painting. Annie (my grandmother) fronted him money for a dozen frames and helped him with the repricing, and sales soon took off -- not to locals, but to American tourists who thought $50 to $100 was a great value for an original painting of a pastoral Mexican scene enclosed in an attractive, hand-carved wooden frame. A year later the artist had his own gallery and a house with indoor plumbing -- and Annie got some of his best work for free and had a friend for life.

    That's really a very beautiful story, and perhaps the best part of the article. It almost has strains of JonKatz in there, while remaining just on this side of probable. Even though it's pretty much unrelated to the review/comparison, it's a nice touch. Well done!
  • Does anyone know if StarOffice on Windows can:
    a) Print to PDF?
    or
    b) edit PDF?

    This is undoubtedly not a new, point, but worth repeating: printing to PDF is a really key capability for Star Office, in that it would provide users with an easy way to send documents they know most people can read (I'd love to say they could send it HTML, but we all know the perils of print-based formatting in HTML).

    If StarOffice had something as simple as a little checkbox when you used File->Send to email the current document to someone that said "Also send a copy of this document in PDF, for maximum compatibility", StarOffice could make a the state of document formats. Even more so if users could then fire the PDF up in their word processor and change it back.

    Viva la PDF.

    • Making PDFs : not perfect, but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by twilight30 ( 84644 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @04:22PM (#3223490) Homepage
      Both StarOffice and OpenOffice *can* create PDFs in both Windows and Linux: I've been using this method [godandscience.org] for about eight months with no major difficulty.

      In a nutshell, the applications rely on farming out the task to Ghostscript. It's not perfect -- TrueType fonts will sometimes result in uncorrectable errors (most often with apostrophes), and of course you may lack the ability to generate indexes and searchable documents, but for the most part, it's more than workable. It's been a godsend for me.

      Finally, both Star/OpenOffices include (on the Linux side, anyway) instructions on how to do this yourself. Use the HTML reference above as a guide, and you should have no difficulties.

      As far as I can tell using this solution is not an option for commercial services, but I am no legal expert, so use this at your own risk if this is the case.

      Good luck.
      • I just checked in SO6 and it supports print to file for both PS and PDF. Even if it's PDF output sucks you can always run ps2pdf which works fairly reliably.


        If for some reason that doesn't work, save to HTML and have Mozilla print to PS or PDF instead, and again potentially use ps2pdf.

        • Yup, this is the method I use as well (inna overview-stylee). I should mention that all the methods described by sheldon & DeadMeat above, as well as tweek's comments in this thread, work pretty much the same way (DeadMeat's proviso that WP does it internally notwithstanding).

          Another point. Once you shovel on Ghostscript and a generic printer PS driver (I use Adobe's own myself on Windows) on either OS, pretty much *any* application that has a print option should be able to create a PDF.

          Last point: As to electroniceric's original question on editing PDFs after the fact, that I don't know. I suspect there aren't such things around. Please post if you know differently.

          Thanks.

    • Re:Open document formats (Score:2, Interesting)

      by tweek ( 18111 )
      heheh I actually posted a reply on the newsforge article about how to do this.

      Here's a link to the article on my website

      Quick and Dirty PDF Printer [lusis.org]

      You'll need samba, ghostscript, mpack and a decent postscript printer driver.

      hope it helps.

  • I would pay for a grammar check (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Paul the Bold ( 264588 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @04:21PM (#3223481)
    My biggest complaint about this product is the lack of a grammar check. This is the one thing that distinguishes MS Office from most other software. From what I have seen, only WordPerfect has a grammar checking routine.


    Why is this important? My wife depends upon a grammar checking program. On average, it brings up her score on term papers by a letter grade. The only product with a grammar checker for Linux is WordPerfect. I purchased a copy of Corel Office 2000 and installed it under Mandrake 8.1, but it is extremely unstable (sometimes it silently crashes, allowing her to enter text but saving only empty files). Since Corel sold their Linux OS division, they also nuked their online Linux help for Corel Office (which seems to be a violation of their EULA, since they still own the Office for Linux division, but that's another story). The only place this help exists is in Google's cached pages. I would purchase Star Office if it had a grammar checking program.


    Has anybody heard a rumor about plans for a grammar checking program in the next version of Star Office? Does anybody have any hints on making WordPerfect 9 more stable under Mandrake 8.x? Is it worth the money to upgrade to WordPerfect 10? Does anybody know of a stable word processor with a grammar checker for Linux?

    • Your wife will be much better off if she actually learns grammar instead of having a computer correct her all the time. I suggest The Chicago Manual of Style [amazon.com].

      My wife suffers from the same problem. I correct her when she says something the wrong way, and I explain why. She learns, and so can your wife.

    • Grammer checkers generally stink.

      From the Jack Lynch Guide to Grammar and Style [rutgers.edu]:

      A fun experiment is to take some great work of literature and feed it to a grammar checker, and then to see what mincemeat it makes of it. Here are some mindless tips on the first sentence of Milton's Paradise Lost [dartmouth.edu]:
      "Consider revising. Very long sentences can be difficult to understand."
      Avoid contractions like "flow'd" in formal writing ("consider 'flow had'").
      Avoid the use of "Man" ("Try 'he or she'").
      "One greater Man restore" has subject-verb agreement problems.
      "In the Beginning" should be "at first."
      "Or if Sion" should be "also if Sion."

      Milton's style is judged appropriate for a 98th-grade reading level. (Well, okay, that seems about right. But the rest is silly.)

  • Abandonware risk (Score:3)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @04:33PM (#3223574) Homepage
    The trouble with StarOffice not being free and open source is that Sun may dump it. Sun tends to do stuff like that. I have two paid-for, boxed, commercial Sun Java development environments that are abandonware.
  • From The article:
    One place StarOffice falls down -- and falls down hard -- is its inability to work with WordPerfect files,

    Maybe a hard pill to swallow for the desktop users who "fell" for the whole WP for Linux thing a year or so back (when in reality it was more akin to WP for Windows running under WINE -- than a native office suite..) Needless to say, if they were able to get a few documents created with the whole WP thing -- then chances are they would want to open and work with them in Star Office, right??? I hope they get this worked out. OTOH -- it is nice to see some commercial software making a go for the linux Desktop. (I wish IBM would dust off some of the old Lotus stuff and give it a run :)

  • MS Office filters (Score:3, Informative)

    by magi ( 91730 ) on Monday March 25, 2002 @06:43PM (#3224770) Homepage Journal
    Having good MS Office filters would be enormously important for OpenOffice and StarOffice.

    Word file format is the de facto standard in most companies and institutions. Most internal and external communication and documentation is done with Word and Excel, and you need to import , edit, and then export MS Office documents. Without perfect, 100% compatible filters, you simply can't use OpenOffice in such an environment. If even one word wraps differently, a table can go useless. Not that MS Office itself is totally free of these problems, but they are much worse with OO/SO.

    OpenOffice export filter to MS Word breaks very easily. Sometimes even basic formatting is lost. Some images disappear. Bullets turn into strange symbols. Tables of Contents and Indexes break. Pages with complex headers or footers simply cause Word to crash.

    Even really simple things such as WMF, JPEG, or GIF export filters are faulty in sdraw. GIF doesn't seem to work at all, and WMF and JPEG lose objects under certain conditions.

    The filters are OO's definitely weakest point at the moment. I hope they get the problems solved, as it's otherwise such a great software.
  • Though I can't say I normally use any parts of an office suite other than the word processor (which I'm pretty sure is the case with most users), why has nobody mentioned two other alternatives to SO/OO that work great - AbiWord and KWord? I don't do anything heavy-duty, but these word processors both work great for basic day-to-day use. Personally I favor AbiWord, but both are quick/unbloated, can read word files without problems, and I have yet to encounter a task that I haven't been able to do in one or both of these.
  • Why can't the Open Office crew abstract the file import/export into an independant library? I personally prefer AbiWord, and I'm sure many others have their own WP preferences. If all could share a common library then we could choose between WPs without fear of losing all our work to date. I would love to be able to read and edit Word files in AbiWord. Data legacy is the killer, and it's why M$ has the world pretty much under its thumb. I know others have already called for a unified Open WP format but really nothing seems to have been done. Why is this?

    Phillip.

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