Modify Colors
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.
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I request someone to elaborate more on compatibility of openoffice or star office with microsoft office. especially in presentations the tables if i have used will not remain as they were in oof or star office while opening the ppt with MS office. the table is split into boxes and text will cross boundries of tables.
If i talk about headers and footers in word application the tables put in header footer in ms office will get disturbed in oof or star office. I am fierce fan of ubuntu and the linux movement but fail to turn more fan fare to this platform for just one reason that is compatibility of office tools with MS office and their translating libraries.
Dear Joshi,
I would suggest you try Ubuntu.
Although it is a Debian based distro, SO9 can be installed not so easy but for good and without subsequent errors.
The *.sh file is just an archive like *.exe type of files from Windows installers (like WinRar.exe installing package) and its sole purpose is to unpack the software package into a temporary folder and start the ’setup’ from there. It should start automatically under RedHat giving the native *.rpm format of the packages. Right click on the *.sh file, select Properties and then tick the check-box for ‘run in terminal/as an executable’ (or something like that – I haven’t done the operation for quite a while).
The *.sh package can also be unpacked manually with an archive manager (I’m using Ubuntu so I can’t suggest you an archive manager under RedHat).
Make sure you have administrator rights when performing the operations above.
I just purchased StarOffice 9 one copy for Windows and One copy for Linux.
The Windows loaded fine XPsp3 no problem.
I have a dual backup desktops- WIn 2ooo sp4
Dual XEon2.4GHz with a Nvida 5200 PCI graphics card
Dual AMD Athalon 1.5GHz with nVidia 5200 AGP card.
They both loaded fine except the graphics StarOffice lauch window does not work on the Dual AMD AGP graphics.
Problem #2:
The Linux install issue is still a problem. I get several bash line errors when installing the *.sh file downloaded from Sun Systems.
I am running RedHat EL5.3 on a Dual PIII 1.2GHz Compaq DL360 server/workstation configuration.
When I finally got through to Staroffice_Support@Sun.com, I sent them the screen shot of the errors and my StarOffice9 serial number. This is where it gets frustrating.
I run my own servers and the first e-mail from Sun.com bounced so I added the name to the OK list and send the individual an e-mail explaining the e-mail filters and to resend the e-mail. Well the e-mail was resent but with a different name and of course it also bounced. So I sent another e-mail to everyone at Sun.com giving them a choice of e-mail addresses to send that will not bounce.
I am still waiting and the Linux install problem still exists.
I will keep trying to contact Sun to resolve this issue.
My suggestion would be to not deal with sun for any type of customer service on software products. It would be better to just send the money to support OpenOffice.org instead of paying Sun system for no support.
The whole point of this exercise was to change to a Unix or Linux platform and not use Windows at all. I am afraid that that will be at a future date. I purchased the software for the customer service since they stated it would run on a variety of systems. It may once you get loaded.
To give Sun proper credit, they do make a top of the line hardware server and Unix OS but this area of the business needs a lot of work before any enterprise will take it seriously.
I had the same install issues with the NetBean IDE for Linux as well.
My sentiments exactly, Matthew!
MSO 2007 is just a pain in the neck to use, a licence far too dear and overloaded with restrictions.
I’ve been a SO user for seven years, and providing a little fee for the good work that Sun has been delivering is nothing that makes me any poorer. It might give Sun an incentive to carry on, though, if enough people realise that the development of open-source software also costs money, even if there are some idealistic programmers feverishly writing code without getting paid adequate salaries.
And it isn’t as if you get nothing for the money you invest into a StarOffice licence: professional support, a very good clipart gallery and the advantage of not always having to download the entire software package again when there’s an update available – something which you have to do when using OOo. StarOffice updates are considerably smaller than OOo updates.
Well, I’m one of those who bought StarOffice 9 and I really like it. Until few days ago I was a MS Office user, however when I saw the changes in the Office 2007 and the enormous price for 1 licence (not to mention the restrictions in it) I said “Enough! There has to be an alternative to MS products”.
I also saw the alternative free OpenOffice but I also considered the effort of SUN for developing it so why not giving them a small incentive for future versions.
David – I don’t know about online forms, but the PDF editor does work very well. The only thing is, you can download it for free and use it with OpenOffice 3.0.
http://www.sun.com/software/staroffice/extensions.jsp
Hi,
It bothers me that theres so much friendly fire in the FOSS community, Sun gave us OpenOffice, a huge contribution to the whole world, imagine the schools etc.. Java – very big contribution too, now MySQL, Virtual Box to name a few.
I really don’t know what business model works with OSS, but when Sun tries to pay bills, pay developers by trying different models, their crusified and said to be evil. I don’t want to think of what would have happened to FOSS with out, Sun, Novell, or even Redhat and thier commecial offering. Remember Easel, they gave us Nautilus, then went bankrupt, and thats where Novell took offer and continued to improve Gnome.
anyway, i wonder what the world will be like when Microsoft is dead, and FOSS has taken over, and Google owns online services.. only time to tell.. it cost money to develop software, and 80% or more Desktop users never contribute any code. Thus when our finances dry up for guys like Sun, Novell, Redhad, Canonical, then who & how will continue with the vision.
Yes, but the native Mac support is also in OpenOffice 3.0. I would check out reviews of that product for more info. Star Office reviews are all going to focus on the stuff OpenOffice doesn’t have, which doesn’t sound like much.
There is no good pdf editor on linux, one that allows filling in online forms. If the plugin from Sun works as described, many companies would consider that well worth the price.
One interesting feature is the native Mac OS X version of Staroffice 9. I haven’t seen a review of that yet though.
Openoffice, last time I checked, has a downloadable collection of clipart. It’s > 150Mb
It’s in the debian repos, too.
lapbox:/home/machiner# dude search clipart
p openclipart – Open Clip Art Library
p openclipart-openoffice.org – clip art for OpenOffice.org gallery
p openclipart-png – clip art in PNG format
p openclipart-svg – clip art in SVG format