Users Swarm to StarOffice 6 Beta [Free Microsoft Alternative from powerhouse company Sun]

eWEEK ^ | Peter Galli

[Texas_Longhorn]

The brouhaha surrounding Microsoft Corp.'s new volume licensing plans has apparently been good news for companies like Sun Microsystems Inc., which last week announced the beta release of its free StarOffice 6 office productivity suite.

Iyer Venkatesan, the product line manager for StarOffice, told eWEEK in an interview Tuesday that there had been more than 200,000 downloads of the software from Sun's Web site over the past week. Some two-thirds of those downloading the software had indicated on the download page that they were Windows users, he said.

[Texas_Longhorn]

I just downloaded this software and I couldn't believe it. IT's free. it's 100% compatable with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Powerpoint, and Micrsoft Excel and has all of the features. It runs on Windows 95, Windows98, Windows2000 and Windows XP.

[Texas_Longhorn]

You can get it here:

http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/6.0beta/index.html

[FastCoyote]

Thanks, I've been waiting for the new release. 5.2 was usable, if 6.0 lives up to hype, I will recommend it in all small office environments.

[daviddennis]

Thanks for the heads up. I wish they'd made it available on MacOS X, which I have been standardizing on for my home sy stem; I'd love to take a look.

I use Linux at work, so I will be giving it a try. It needs Outlook-style email, though - but fortunately there are apparently other Linux programs now that can read Outlook files. That might be well worth exploring due to the Outlook virus threat alone. (I know that at my company, our users constantly click on virus e-mails despite timely alerts not to).

D

[Texas_Longhorn]

They got rid of the whole "StarOffice Desktop" thing and made 6.0 behave, look and feel much more like the M$ product.

[Cicero]

I still use WordPerfect to write with. Unfortunately the program was taken over and maltreated before Corel acquired it, and it's never really recovered momentum. But WordPerfect 8 SP7 works very well if you do a lot of writing. I like the feature that lets you "view codes," which Microsoft has avoided. In fact, I don't know how you can really tweak a document properly without that feature.

I keep MS Office on all my computers so I can read Office files, but I don't actually use it.

I seriously doubt that MS Office files will be compatible with StarOffice unless they keep updating their converters, because it's not really compatible with MS Office unless you keep installing new filters.

It's hard to beat a freebie, so if StarOffice gets popular no doubt I'll keep that on my computers too.

[zoso82t]

I'm running 5.2 on my Linux box, and it doesn't seem to understand .doc extensions. But AbiWord does, so i can cut and paste when i need. Other than that it does everything I need to do. All that i miss is the smooth (anti-aliased?) fonts of Microsoft. Not ready to ditch Windows yet, but it keeps getting better. Im not starting a Linux vs. Windows deathmatch, just reporting my experience with StarOffice.

[Knitebane]

Well, it wouldn't be right to have this conversation without the participation of a paid Microsoft shill.

Come tell us how much better it is to pay anually for functionality that you can get for free, O Great Microsoft BootLicker.

Knitebane

[Texas_Longhorn]

I take it you have not checked out the newer version.

[bobwoodard]

I read about the troubles with some macros, but for just opening up Word docs, I haven't seen a bad conversion yet. Granted, most the documents are memos or documentation docs, but how much does the average office need? In my day-to-day use, I haven't come across anything that I'm missing yet.

[notfondajane]

Sorry dude(tte) it's awesome.

[Texas_Longhorn]

It's true.
I'm still running Windows 98. Is you opinion of Windows XP high? I can get a copy for $5 because my university has a deal with MS. I have heard sories of "A crash a minute" with Windows XP running Office XP.

[RadioAstronomer]

I just downloaded StarOffice on my Win 98 machine. So far so good! :)

[PokeyJoe]

Beware WordPerfect 6.1 users (some of us stay with the GOLD standard).

WordPerfect 6.1 is INCOMPATIBLE with Windows XP.

[wienerdog.com]

Features! Yes! We must have more features! And Wizards, too! We won't stop till an email client hits 10 megs! Oops, they already did that. Okay, but still, I love bloatware too.

[Texas_Longhorn]

Considering I'm a computer engineer, I think I am a good judge on wether or not I should "upgrade" to a new product.