I hope StarOffice does better than Lotus SmartSuite.
Look at the number of people who are unhappy with MSFT:
The right time and the right place--at least Sun hopes so, as it rolls out the latest version of its StarOffice suite. And considering the backlash to Microsoft's new software licensing policies, Sun just might have hit the suite spot with StarOffice. According to a recent Tech Update poll, 59 percent of the respondents said they're considering ditching Microsoft Office (12 percent had already done so), and less than a third--29 percent--said they were sticking to their Microsoft Office guns.
techupdate.zdnet.com
Further:
StarOffice suite may be bitter pill for MS to swallow
By Jonathan Blackwood
May 15, 2002
Anyone who was paying attention as Microsoft wasted Lotus, WordPerfect, and then Corel in the office-suite contest, might well wonder what in the world Sun is thinking by trying seriously to rejoin the contest with its StarOffice 6.0 product at this late date.
After all, Microsoft enjoys a (revenue) market share of 93 percent in the category, according to some analysts' estimates.
To make matters worse, though previous versions of StarOffice--which is available for Windows, Linux, and Solaris operating systems--have been free, Sun will charge a nominal amount (most estimates are in the $50-$100 range) for the new release.
We spent some time with StarOffice for both Windows and Linux recently, and came away impressed. It sports a slick new interface--the awful, quirky Star Desktop interface has bit the dust--and a surprisingly accurate compatibility with files created in Microsoft's own Office products, including complex Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.
A complex resumé document--with borders and two asymmetrical columns--made the trip from Word to StarOffice (in both Windows and Linux) almost flawlessly. A thin horizontal rule, which set off the address information from the body of the document, became two rules, above and below the last line of the address. This was easily corrected, however, and the remaining complex formatting, including bulleted lists, came through perfectly.
Likewise, an extremely complex spreadsheet with macros and contingent formulae spread over 13 worksheets made the transition from Excel to StarOffice almost without mishap. Two of the constituent worksheets had hidden values embedded on their bottom rows. In Excel, that is row 65,536; StarOffice's spreadsheet contains only 32,000 rows. As a result, the hidden values were truncated, and although all other parts of the spreadsheet--including all the various formulae and macros--worked as expected, the two results dependent on that hidden value showed up as errors.
The two presentations we examined in StarOffice looked and performed exactly as they did in PowerPoint. Although StarOffice supports Visual Basic--Microsoft's macro language--even the best efforts at total compatibility are likely to come up short. Still, in our experience the level of compatibility and the quality of the conversions to and from StarOffice exceeded our best experiences with previous releases of StarOffice, or for that matter, Corel WordPerfect Suite, Lotus SmartSuite, or 602Pro PC Suite.
StarOffice 6.0 is, quite simply, robust, full-featured, and intuitive to use. The real question, however, is this: Is it good enough to replace Microsoft Office?
The answer to this question depends on how you arrive at it. If your organization has a lot invested in proprietary macros that must work absolutely perfectly to maintain productivity, you probably wouldn't want to risk making a change. But the vast majority of users don't actually need perfect compatibility. Most users make use of only a tiny fraction of the features in any of Microsoft's Office applications; their documents and spreadsheets are likely to lack the sort of esoteric formatting or macros that might cause StarOffice to stutter.
For these users, StarOffice is a viable alternative to Microsoft Office. We actually preferred many elements of the program, such as the way text can be made to flow around text boxes in the same way as in a desktop publishing program. There are minor things that StarOffice does differently, such as placing the track changes feature on the Edit menu instead of the Tools menu, and its right-click menus often contain selections different from what Office users may expect. But in the grand scheme of things, most of these minor interface issues would likely be overcome within a few hours of use.
techupdate.zdnet.com |
