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Staroffice by StarDivision Review, Part 1 of 3

© Glenn Berlow

Staroffice 5.1 Report

StarOffice5.1 by StarDivision in Germany was purchased and released free of charge by Sun Microsystems. Download it at http://www.stardivision.com/ . StarOffice has many built in features which make the program the most complete package I have had the pleasure of reviewing. It is available for several popular operating systems including Solaris, Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT,OS/2 and of course Linux. We have tested it on Linux and MS Windows 98. This review was based mostly on a win machine just because it is new, we already tried it out for Linux and wanted to see the cross file format compatability easily. The linux install is a bit more tricky as you need to understand how to untar the zipped file. Once set up you will have the look and feel of a graphic GUI, and be able to use all common file formats -input and output!

There is an ongoing controversy with the Sun aquisition of StarOffice. At this web page you will find a discussion about the license for the program. http://perens.com/Articles/StarOffice.ht... . It explains the differences between a public license under GNU and the Sun license. Basically the difference is in the developers ability to modify the code and redistribute the program.

According to the official StarOffice material Sun is changing the rules in a fundamental way with a new business model. Many programs are now available on-line for free such as email, chat, calendar function, as well as many useful web site utilities. Sun is biting into its main competitor by giving away a huge program with all the functionality and compatibility required to run a small business. Sun is calling it the ".com office software from Sun Microsystems Inc." This will undoubtedly chafe at the open source community which makes extensive use of programs such as Staroffice in its distributions. Hopefully the company sees the value in maintaining the status quo.

The tie in with Sun's StarPortal, essentially, is a Web-based version of StarOffice that combines a Java-based client with the software to enable browser access to office productivity tools. Through StarPortal, users will be able to access their office "desktop" and synchronize changes from any Web browser.

It will likely show up on many students computers because they will get it for free. School districts may opt to use it and avoid numerous seat licences for competeting products. Considering its cost it will find its way into educational institutes implementing best cost solutions due to fiscal restraints. The great value in this program is that the feature set is deep, and wide. There are a lot of programs, and they a feature rich and able to handle common file formats. Look for the program to evolve and use the Star Portal web site for file storage and collaborative work.

The copyright of the article Staroffice by StarDivision Review, Part 1 of 3 in Linux for Business is owned by Glenn Berlow. Permission to republish Staroffice by StarDivision Review, Part 1 of 3 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.