For several weeks now I have been testing an early copy of StarOffice 9, Sun’s commercial alternative of OpenOffice.org. Finally, today, I can tell you about it.

While StarOffice is a commercial product, it is completely open-source and based on OpenOffice.org, of which Sun is a sponsor. A license of StarOffice will cost you $35 for the download or $60 for a disc, so the focus of this review will be on why anyone would pay $35, when they can get OpenOffice.org for free.

My reviewer copy was a mess to install, but I have been assured that there was a problem with these DVDs and that everything will be fixed by release time. On the disc, I received StarOffice 9, Thunderbird (with the Sunbird calendering plugin), Sun’s PDF Import Extension, Sun Presentation Minimizer, Sun Presenter Console, Sun Report Builder, OpenOffice.org eFax Extension, Sun Webblog Publisher, Sun Wiki Publisher, and Sun Professional Template Pack II. The strange thing about all this is that, except for StarOffice 9, all of the software on the disc is stuff you can download for free.

Features

If you have ever used OpenOffice before, you will find yourself very much at home in StarOffice. Apart from different, and slightly nicer, icons, the interface is basically the same.

(StarOffice 9 above, OpenOffice.org 3.0 below. Click for larger images.)

Despite similar appearance, there are actually some differences, though not a huge number. One nice feature is the inclusion of a huge library of clipart, something that OpenOffice lacks. This might seem like a small thing, but it is actually an important inclusion. Apart from compatibility, clipart is one of the few things that Microsoft Office has that OpenOffice does not. StarOffice also includes fonts that imitate the commercial fonts that are common on Windows, however you can get fonts that work for this purpose for free.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, most of the other features in StarOffice 9 are just free extensions, which can be downloaded and used with OpenOffice, or features from OpenOffice 3.0. The truth is, this is not something for anyone to complain about. It means that Sun is dedicating most of their efforts to the free OpenOffice, rather than hoarding all that away in their commercial product.

As far as compatibility goes, it is the same as OpenOffice.org 3.0. In other words, it works pretty well with older .doc documents and it can import .docx – as long as you don’t have any media, comments, or changes. Yeah. It could be better. A lot better. You have to give them credit for their work, though. It is something of an uphill battle.

So, on to the extensions. I am not going to talk about all of them, just a few interesting ones.

PDF Editing

One of the extensions included with StarOffice 9 allows you to open and modify (and, of course, export) PDF files. I tried it on three PDFs I found online and it appears to work well. Loading and saving them does get a little slow, though, and it sometimes froze up completely upon trying to open or export a 1000+ page PDF.

Weblog Publishing

Weblog publsihing, again with an extension, works just as you would expect. Just go into the extension’s options and tell it where your blog is, what kind of blog it is (including Blogger, WordPress, Movable Type, and a few others), and your username and password. Then, write your post and press the publish button. Formatting like links, pictures, etc. all works.

The templates included in another one of the extensions are fine, but nothing to write home about.

Finally, I should briefly mention a couple of more enterprise-focused features. A license of StarOffice gives your business indemnity against intellectual property lawsuits and, of course, support.

Conclusion

In the beginning of this review, I asked why anyone would pay for StarOffice when they can get it free? Apart from supporting a company that helps make OpenOffice better, you basically get clip art, a slightly nicer to look at screen (due to the better icons), and support. That is not a lot, but, then again, $35 is not much either. I think this product is likely to have the most appeal to enterprises looking for support from a large company, but if you need clip art or one of the other features StarOffice offers, it is a great deal. If not, OpenOffice is great, too.