RSSSun Details StarOffice 6
By David Worthington | Published August 29, 2001, 5:55 PM
This week at LinuxWorld, Sun Microsytems is demonstrating the latest incarnation of its popular StarOffice Suite several weeks after placing a teaser on its Web site to gauge public interest. While details have not yet publicly emerged, BetaNews was able to catch up with Sun to get the scoop on version 6.0.
After a long wait, localized versions featuring support for Asian languages have finally materialized – something Sun hopes will lead to world wide acceptance. Overall, the focus of this release will be centered on ease of use rather than adding an over abundance of new features. Performance, compatibility, and the introduction of XML as the suite's default file format are among several areas that have received attention by developers.
Set for a public beta in earlier October and release some time in the first quarter of 2002, StarOffice has undergone numerous changes since version 5.2. Sun has made good on it promise to target key areas cited by user feedback, and has opted to remove the much maligned integrated desktop.
Additionally, performance has been enhanced through componentization. The entire suite will not load when users simply wish to perform a routine task - leading to quicker load times and a lower utilization of system resources. According to Sun, an assortment of bugs and code optimizations were taken on by the open source community -- contributing to the overall quality of the product.
In an effort to make StarOffice more intuitive and easy to use, usability is bolstered by extras such as: templates, clipart, buttons and icons modeled to be consistent with industry norms, pivot tables, and revamped dialog boxes. Due to the feedback provided by focus groups, help has also been re-worked.
A Sun representative remarked that the suite would be similar in appearance to Office 2000. Some of the templates include business plans, and others are designed with educators in mind. With convenience in mind, charting tools have also been integrated into all StarOffice components.
As always, popular formats such as binary and files saved with Microsoft Office are supported. However, Sun is banking on XML to provide universal compatibility to its product all while side stepping proprietary formats. With XML, the recipient of a file will not be required to have StarOffice installed in order to view it.
Not only will XML provide for smaller file sizes, it also opens the door to interactivity. Once technology progresses, users will be able to edit files through a Web browser. Continuing its push toward the Web applications, Sun is banking on Sun One Webtop to bring its productivity suite to the masses. As far as Sun is concerned, the adoption XML, combined with its open source business model is laying the groundwork for the future.
Rather than solely target Enterprise customers for a complete conversion from MS Office, Sun is turning toward educators, small businesses, governments, end users, and enterprises with mixed platforms to provide its niche. Sun concedes that many corporations have included Microsoft Office into their infrastructure, investing significant sums of money into developing custom middleware.
Given that fact, the company is eying tight school budgets, and is touting StarOffice as a solution that can support all commonly accepted file formats while eliminating the steep price tag. The same pitch is being offered to small business owners, particularly startups who are seeking viable desktop software.
Sun claims that openings are also present in government and corporation environments were mixed platforms are commonly used – offering up StarOffice as an economic method to achieve interoperability. It also sees itself as a secondary vendor to replace aging government information systems. However, Sun is simply not settling to coexist with the competition.
A company representative illustrated the example of an engineering manager using a Windows machine for presentations and documents while performing actual design work on another. Sun's solution is to eliminate the need for an additional machine with StarOffice.
One intention of developing StarOffice is to increase sales for Sun Desktop machines in lieu of those sold by mainstream OEMS. Offering a fully compatible office suite makes the sale easier, providing customers with incentive to buy without feeling that they are missing out on mission critical software. Sun also profits from OEM bundling and service and support.
Although no comprehensive study has been conducted recently on market share, Sun points to an unscientific Windows 2000 Magazine poll that reveals nearly a 15% stake in the market. According to Sun, Gartner Inc. has not commissioned a study since 1998.
Retail versions of StarOffice will be sold through a network of retailers such as Best Buy, Circuit City, and Staples. Sun is debating the addition of another CD and improved manual into its boxed edition, and therefore has not announced pricing. Previous releases, such as 5.2, sold at roughly $40 USD per copy. Select OEM partners will also ship the suite with new PCs. Versions will be available for Windows, Solaris, and Linux.
Product requirements will remain consistent with version 5.2
To sign up for early notification of the beta release, visit the StarOffice 6 Homepage.
I've been using openoffice for a few months, I've found that it's import/export filters aren't 100%, but as someone else said, who's are? They are good enough to get the job done with minimal rework. I move documents from word 2000 to openoffice all the time (between work and home) reworking a minor amount of formatted text is way better for me than shelling out $400.00 for Office!
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|Well, I just d/l'ed and tried build 638 of Open Office (which is beta 6 of Star Office I assume), and here are my thoughts:
1) Better UI than previous versions. Thanks for getting rid of that lousy desktop.
2) I tried opening a few text docs with some "advanced" MS Word formatting. I'd be charitable if I said it did a mediocre job of properly interpreting everything. In reality it was pretty crappy.
3) I still use Word 97 (with service pacs 1 and 2), since 2000/XP don't offer anything worth upgrading for, and and both have quagruple memory requirements over the former. Open Office's word processor does not compare favorably with Word 97 in this regard. Open Office takes about 19,000 KB in memory and about 40,000 KB in total memory, whereas Word 97 takes about 4,500 and 16,600 respectively.
4) Open Office's word processor takes at least 5 times as long to load as Word 97 on first load. Open Office tries to load some stub at start-up, presumeably to speed loading time of its components. Word 97, on the other hand, loads in a fraction of the time w/o anything loaded at system start-up. So do Word 2000, Word XP and Corel Word Perfect 2000 (with all the service packs installed) for that matter.
All in all, I'd have to say I've used worse MS alternatives (Atlantis and Software 602's offerings come to mind), but that's not saying a lot. This suite of software just isn't good enough to be a true alternative to Microblows. Try Corel Office 2000. With all the service packs installed, it's a fantastic word processor with near-complete compatability and a better UI imo. Corel Office 2001 is probably even better.
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|I tried an older incarnation of Star Office, but the advanced Excel spreadsheet functions I used wouldn't work in Star Office's spreadsheet. All in all, I did like Star Office, and I would jump at the chance to use something other than MS. I would so much like to boycott MS altogether because they don't play fair, and I feel they will ultimately bring us all down back into the stone age. One of the only really good programs MS makes is Excel, and it's too bad the programmers that worked on it didn't get to work on a lot of other MS programs, because most of the rest is MS Junk.
Anyhow, I will definitely try the new Star Office. I do have some high expectations though, and Excel's hard to beat, IMHO.
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|I totally agree that alternatives to Microsoft are imperetive. On that note, I just downloaded and installed beta 2 of Mandrake Linux 8.1. This is the first version of a Linux distro I feel is worth making the transition away fom Microsoft. I've tried many rescent versions of various distros, including Red Hat 7.x and Ice Pack Linux 1.x. This is the first version that, as an advanced end-user of MS Windows, I feel is worth making the investment of time and, yes, even a little money if necessary, to migrate to. The advent of this quality of distro, developements in Linux multimedia, Open Office/Star Office, the availablity of quality Internet software, etc, etc, mean I will be making the switch. (and just in time, given the direction MS Windows is going with XP.)
A serious problem Linux still has, IMO, is the high system overhead. That is, the lack of system resources (RAM, CPU, etc) available to the user, that aren't being used by the OS in some way. Granted I'm still new to Linux, so I'm sure I'll quickly learn how to tweak things and get it running like a cheatah. For now, it takes forever to boot, thr UI is sluggish, and the OS takes-up too lrage an amount of RAM and CPU.
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|Btw, I'm comparing Linux to a Win9x system using 98 Lite (an app which de-integrates Internet Explorer from Windows, swaps-in the W95 explorer, and makes optional most of the components of Windows, greatly reducing overall, system overhead), and geOShell as the shell in Windows instead of Explorer. (A fully-loaded geOShell, with many times the features and practical functionality of Explorer, takes perhaps 1/5 the memory of Explorer.) The net effect is I boot my laptop, for instance, in 18-20 seconds, and start with only 25% of my RAM in use, and 0% of the swap file.
When compared to a similarly configured W2k (which many if not most would say is the fairer comparison), on the other hand, Linux comes-out favorably, performing as good or better in terms of speed and responsiveness. That's not saying a lot though. W2k is a total resource hog and GNU-inux and the Open Source community can do better. So can Open Office/Star Office, which was my point earlier. Something has to be done about streanline this stuff, to make it sleeker-running and less needy of resources, particularly RAM and CPU.
If a higher-up from Microsoft is reading this: know that your company is in serious trouble. At this rate, Linux will achieve the level of functionality found in your Windows desktop products withing 1 year, with improved ease of use (for the non-technical user) comming close behind. You chose the wrong time to put punative measures like your new Windows product activation into place. Your days of domination of the desktop are comming to a close, no matter what you do to try to lock people into your OS and other softs (I'm thinking subscriptions, proprietary media technologies, etc., here.) I say this as a long-term user of your products that has avoided Linux all this time, because it just couldn't quite cut it. Prepare to pay for your past transgressions, your time is comming to an end.
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|Question? Is the spell checker still separate and proprietry?
I don't see any sense in persisting to use proprietry spell checkers when there are alternatives like aspell which could be incorporated. Can someone please explain why programs like Staroffice and Netscape cling to such things?
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|Support for aspell (under linux) has been available since OpenOffice.org build 633. As of build 638, aspell is not working under Windows, but this is being worked on.
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|There are two problem's with StarOffice first the integrated desktop, second the ugly fonts. The first problem they are doing something about, what about the second. They should start using Anti-aliased fonts KDE already support's them. KOffice is promising if StarOffice whant's to compete they will have to fix this.
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|Since OpenOffice build 633, there is support for anti-aliased true-type fonts on linux. Not sure about the windows or solaris versions. It is acutally now more pleasing to the eye than MS Office 2000.
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|This one is free also, and around a 14-15 meg download, and can be downloaded from www.software602.com.
Comparing StarOffice with this program when it comes to importing, I believe this one does a bit better job. Try it out.
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|Hi,
What are you talking about? See requirements for the Soft602 product:
Operating Systems
Windows 95/98/98SE/ME
Windows 4.0 Workstation/Server
Windows 2000 Professional/Server
StartOffice runs on more OSs, I guess...
Gaboro
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|Sorry; I should have clarified: Software602 is a good alternative to MS Office if you are running a Windows9x or higher OS.
As for spellchecking- this product has spellchecking when you register (still free).
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|I think OpenOffice / Star Office is more then enough for Small Office / Home Office users. It's got everything you need to finish allmost all tasks there are. And by using Linux and OpenOffice you can really save a lot of money you would otherwise pay for expensive licences for Windows and MS Office.
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|It appears StarOffice 6.0 bill be built using the work done by an open source project called OpenOffice. The relationship between StarOffice 6.0 and OpenOffice sounds very similar to the relationship between Netscape 6.x and Mozilla.
For more information check out the Historical Background on the OpenOffice web site. BTW... they are even beginning to port the latest OpenOffice build to MacOS X.
http://www.openoffice.org/about.html#history
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|I’ve got to say, when I got fed up with MS, I tried StarOffice. Yes it was cheap, but really wasn't intuitive or user-friendly. Nor did it really seem to import MS office files quite right.
Now i'm not saying that MS Office is any better, or worse. I’m just saying that from my point of view, I found StarOffice to not be what I really had in mind in an Office-type application. And certainly not what I would roll out to 100+ plus users in my business.
I hope that this next release improves usability. Users are used to MS Office, Sun would be wise to emulate the product that has the most market share. (Regardless of how MS got that market share)
I like their idea of steering clear of proprietary formats, and using XML. I just hope that they use "pure" XML.. And not garbage that some products churn out. Using the W3 standard, and only that standard will allow StarOffice documents to be truly portable.
As for the open source OpenOffice project. Great idea, BUT.. And I know Ill get flamed for this one, I hope it doesn’t turn out like Linux, which still does not meet the standard of being so simple that a monkey could use it. While Linux is much more robust in a server environment, and for hardcore techies, it is not for the masses.
Think about the people who spend $2500 on a pc to only play solitaire and send email. Is Linux for them? Nope...
So my point is, StarOffice and the OpenOffice group will do very well if they would come out with a product that really did set new standards in usability and features, while maintaing a price point below that of MS.
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|I’ve got to say, when I got fed up with MS, I tried StarOffice. Yes it was cheap, but really wasn't intuitive or user-friendly. Nor did it really seem to import MS office files quite right.
Now i'm not saying that MS Office is any better, or worse. I’m just saying that from my point of view, I found StarOffice to not be what I really had in mind in an Office-type application. And certainly not what I would roll out to 100+ plus users in my business.
I hope that this next release improves usability. Users are used to MS Office, Sun would be wise to emulate the product that has the most market share. (Regardless of how MS got that market share)
I like their idea of steering clear of proprietary formats, and using XML. I just hope that they use "pure" XML.. And not garbage that some products churn out. Using the W3 standard, and only that standard will allow StarOffice documents to be truly portable.
As for the open source OpenOffice project. Great idea, BUT.. And I know Ill get flamed for this one, I hope it doesn’t turn out like Linux, which still does not meet the standard of being so simple that a monkey could use it. While Linux is much more robust in a server environment, and for hardcore techies, it is not for the masses.
Think about the people who spend $2500 on a pc to only play solitaire and send email. Is Linux for them? Nope...
So my point is, StarOffice and the OpenOffice group will do very well if they would come out with a product that really did set new standards in usability and features, while maintaing a price point below that of MS.
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|I can't agree about Linux with you. My parents and grandparents use it and they mostly use it for surfing the web, reading e-mail and playing those little and addictive games that come with KDE or Gnome. And there are much more games that there are in Windows (only 5 in Windows if i remember correctly). And if you ask my (grand)parents they would say that KDE or Gnome are much easier to use then Windows GUI. And you have a great choice of other window managers unlike no chioce in Windows.
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|Ever heard of Window blinds or Litestep? Very nice gui programs going on, Whistler allows you to use themes and such and in the future once the api is learned the desktop it's self.
Microsoft never really looked at theme's the same way Linux people did I guess, not a hard feature to include though.
But back to the point, your grandparents are not everyone in the united states or the world. Windows is still and will always will be until Linux can catch up to the NT base Microsoft has been improving on since they started working on it.
Most Linux users like to believe that Linux is going to somehow overtake the Windows users by storm. This is sadly a big joke, just look at most Linux releases like Mandrake and some others that try and focus on the home user.
Mandrake for starters does not even have full drag&drop abilitys, now that is just plain sad in terms of what should be in the OS.
Linux has always seemed like a cheap version of Windows...something that was unfinished or abandoned as a early alpha project. Everything about it always seems cheap, wrong, or a rip from MS part.
Microsoft is going to be around for a long time, despite what any court or people say. When you have the funding Microsoft does you can have anything you want.
Just my two cents.
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|> Most Linux users like to believe that Linux is going to
> somehow overtake the Windows users by storm.
Where do you get this from? I believe most Linux users believe Linux fit best in the server market. Those users who uses it as a desktop uses it because it fits their needs. Not because they Linux will take over the world.
> Linux has always seemed like a cheap version of Windows...
There you're right. It's not just cheap, it's free :)
> something that was unfinished or abandoned as a early alpha > project.
Same thing could be said about the stability of some windows versions. Ever heard of bluescreen?
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|Extensive experience here is going to have to sharply contradict you here: My previous company used StarOffice and we very frequently imported/exported MS Office documents quite smoothly. We rarely had any conversion difficulties, and I can't say that about any other Office suites--including WordPerfect.
Strong points are: MS Office compatibility, export to web quality, and StarBasic for VBA-compatible macro construction.
The only complaints are that the desktop is annoying (but Sun is removing it), it could be a little more intuitive in certain areas, and the database capabilities are weak as compared to MS Access.
As per Linux, the additional problem is that the Linux version comes in one huge statically compiled piece which makes it very sluggishly load on weaker machines.
Linux is a great operating system for the desktop. The only issues (in my opinion) that it has are: It doesn't come pre-installed on consumer PCs (I mean consumer PCs to be found in places like Best Buy, Office Depo, etc.) and that the programming API to the desktop systems (GNOME/KDE) are rapidly moving targets making it impossible for commercial developers to write for them....and even difficult for Open Source programmers. However, I think this is gradually stabilizing and maybe in a few years this won't be a problem at all.
Linux is still growing and thriving in server markets and journalists started marking off Linux's desktop possibilities before most of the desktop development had even been finished. The underlying stuff is now mostly complete and the application level stuff is now coming out on a pretty fast pace.. I supposed journalists will see this as a come-back when this was supposed to be the main thrust in the first place.
--Matthew
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|"Windows...something that was unfinished or abandoned as a early
alpha project. Everything about it always seems cheap, wrong, or
a rip from other products."
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|Unfortunately I've seen too many Linux users who believe that Linux is not only for the server market, but for the desktop market and in reality its all Bulls*** because Linux is no where near taking the desktop crown.
And yes I've heard of BSOD, but have I ever seen on in Win2k?? Well, one or two, and that's in over 2 years of use. I've had a Mandrake crash on me twice since 8.0 was released.
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|Unfortunately I've seen too many Linux users who believe that Linux is not only for the server market, but for the desktop market and in reality its all Bulls*** because Linux is no where near taking the desktop crown.
And yes I've heard of BSOD, but have I ever seen on in Win2k?? Well, one or two, and that's in over 2 years of use. I've had a Mandrake crash on me twice since 8.0 was released.
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|Ever hear of a kernel panic?
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|Personally I like staroffice but the biggest problem is its inability to correctly export MS Word documents. It comes real close, but it totally screws up my auto-numbering.
Section 3.2.4
becomes
Section 324
Ugh.
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|Wasen't this about StarOffice? Heh, its funny how everything in one form or another turns into a Windows VS Linux subject or just turns into MS bashing.
I for one have used lots of OS's and lots of Office applications, it all comes down to the users opinion, and what her/she likes to use.
As far as Win2k and BSOD, the only time i've had an NT BlueScreen was due to bad hardware drivers. And the good thing about the NT Blue Screen is that it tells you what driver messed up.
I've also had Linux kernel panics... and i've had Xfree86 get so ****ed up you have too totally reinstall it again.
I'm not saying Windows is better then linux or vice versa. A person can do the job at hand in both OS's if needs be. You can type up documents or run a web server. If the user is smart and knows what he/she is doing , then any OS can be made to run perfect.
Hell i've seen Win2k servers runing IIS have uptimes of 80+ days, because the admin runing it knew what he was doing.
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|> Ever hear of a kernel panic?
Heard of 'em, just never seen one! ;-)
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|What? No more desktop oriented GUI? awww... too bad, I really liked it :| Oh well, I've been using StarOffice only a couple months and I don't think I'll ever go back.
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|Finally a mature Linux/Windows argumentation ... No flames, no bad words... even not a insult ! (so far...)
It was really interesting to read !
The only thing I have to say about the topic is that I hope that Star Office will get more stability in this new version. We had some problems with 5,2 ...
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|that's because mandrake is really ASS.. try slackware then get back to me.
As far as linux being a good desktop OS, I don't think it's on its way. I run a aix/sun/linux shop. my workstations: ultra60 sun workstation and a win2k laptop.
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|Not only unstable but a complete HOG... I got so sick and tired of people b****ing on their little ultra5 workstations that staroffice was taking too long to load. I hope this to be a nice build.
Right now we currently use Office2k and applixware
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|Perhaps Linux is nowhere near busting the Desktop segment Open in terms of percentages - but in terms of functionality and user readiness, Linux is primed and definitely ready for use by all those Grandmas and Grandpas that barely know what a keyboard or mouse is. The city of Largo, FL, is an EXCELLENT case study that directly refutes the poorly thought-out suppositions by MRASTUDENT. Over 800 non-technical clerical workers for the city of Largo use RH 7.1 with KDE 2 every single day. The city has an IT support department of 10 people for all those 800 users. It is saving $500,000 in the first year alone.
And Open Office works great for all those .rtf documents. To those of you who say 'But that isn't Microsoft format though!', I say 'So?' Do like I do, send any .doc files to /dev/null and tell the sender you need the document in .rtf format.
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|The most important part of any well run PC is the nut between the keyboard and the chair no matter what OS is used.
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|Talk about a small world. I LIVE in Largo. Im very interested in talking with you on how you did all of this. Please email me =)
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|whoooops email is Dravencove@hotmail.com
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|Yeah, but they left out one part - that 10 ppl IT department costs the city a lot more than those $500,000/year. If they work cheap on $50K salary than they're costing the city somewhere around $1,000,000/year (with taxes and benefits). But if you had enough experience to make a switch from Win to Linux would you work for $50K? I find it hard to believe ... The point is, they're saving some money but you have to put it in prospective.
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