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StarOffice is Sun Microsystems' proprietary office suite software package. StarOffice is the proprietary version of the open-source codebase developed by OpenOffice.org with some additional features. The version sold in East Asia is known as StarSuite and is functionally identical to StarOffice, with full file interchange and compatibility, but includes language and font support for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean. StarOffice supports the OpenDocument standard as of version 8.
Features The program includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, drawing tool and database. StarOffice supports the XML file format, including (as of StarOffice 8) the OpenDocument standard, and can generate PDF and Flash formats. The program comes with templates, a macro recorder, and a Software Development Kit (SDK). Proprietary components in StarOffice that are not in OpenOffice.org include: StarOffice 7 had file filters for WordPerfect, while OpenOffice.org did not. OpenOffice.org 2 added file filters for WordPerfect, so now both programs have filters for the format. There are also differences in the documentation, training and support options, and some minor differences in the look and icons between the two programs. Other differences include: StarOffice only supports 10 languages (compared to over 25 for OpenOffice.org), and StarOffice is only available for the Windows, Linux, Solaris operating systems (while OpenOffice.org is available for 8 operating systems). eWeek Labs published an independent evaluation of StarOffice 8 in September 2005 and reported, "we were pleased with the suite's word processing (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), presentation (Impress) and database (Base) functions. In addition, we experienced generally good results opening and creating Microsoft Office-formatted documents with StarOffice... whether StarOffice 8 can succeed as a wholesale or partial replacement for Microsoft Office will depend on the organization thinking about making the switch." They noted that, "converting complex documents between the two suites' formats will in some cases require tweaking to preserve document appearance. In addition, while StarOffice 8 can be extended through macros and scripting, much like Microsoft Office can, these extensions won't migrate to Microsoft Office without being rewritten. However, StarOffice ships with a Macro Migration wizard that will aid in the migration of Microsoft Visual Basic macros to the StarOffice Basic macro language." They report that StarOffice has a "significantly lower per-user license costs for the Sun suite—$70 for a downloadable version of the product, compared with about $500 for Microsoft Office Professional Edition... and perhaps just as important as licensing costs is cross-platform support, and StarOffice clearly beats Microsoft Office here." History StarOffice was originally developed by the German company StarDivision, founded by Marco Börries in 1986. The development of the integrated StarOffice started at the end of 1994. Until version 4.2 StarOffice was based on the platform independent C++ class library StarView. The company and the rights to StarOffice were acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999 for US$73.5 million. Sun was seeking to compete with Microsoft Office, and also wanted to save money on licenses for Microsoft Office and Windows: The number one reason why Sun bought StarDivision in 1999 was because, at the time, Sun had something approaching forty-two thousand employees. Pretty much everyone of them had to have both a Unix workstation and a Windows laptop. And it was cheaper to go buy a company that could make a Solaris and Linux desktop productivity suite than it was to buy forty-two thousand licenses from Microsoft. (Simon Phipps, Sun, LUGradio podcast) Sun soon offered StarOffice 5.2 as a free download for personal use. Sun then went through an exercise similar to Netscape's release of Mozilla by open-sourcing most of the StarOffice code-base. The resultant open-source codebase is developed as OpenOffice.org and is contributed to by both Sun and the open source community. Sun then takes a "snapshot" of the OpenOffice.org code base, integrates proprietary and third-party code modules and markets the package commercially. In September 2005 Sun released StarOffice 8, adding support for the OpenDocument standard and a number of improvements (based on the OpenOffice.org 2 code). Pricing and licensing Traditionally, StarOffice licenses have been sold for around 70 USD, but in 2004, Sun planned to offer subscription-based licenses to Japanese customers for about 1,980 JPY (19 USD) per year (Becker, 2004). P. Ulander, a desktop products manager for Sun, acknowledged that Sun planned to expand subscription-based licenses to other countries, as well. Sun uses a per-person license for StarOffice, compared to the per-processor licenses used by most software companies. A person can install the software on up to five computers. For example, a small business owner can have the software on his laptop, office and home computers. For another example, if you have both a Windows and Linux computer, you can install StarOffice on both computers. Sun offers educational licensing to academic institutions and individuals for the cost of the media or of a download. They also offer free Web-based Training and an online tutorial for students and teachers, free support services for teachers including educational templates for StarOffice, and significantly discounted tech support for schools. See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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