Microsoft owns the word processing/spreadsheet/presentation market through Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. But the software is expensive, sometimes frustrating to use, and for many users more feature rich than necessary. Until recently, StarOffice was free as a download. With version 6.0, Sun has wisely packaged the software with a CD-ROM and a paper user manual and now charges about $75 (Amazon pricing). MS Office, on the other hand, costs $220/$430 (upgrade/new) or $290/$500 for the Professional version that includes Access database software.
StarOffice and MS Office (Professional) contain similar modules: word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and database. StarOffice also provides a drawing program with some of the features of Visio, but it does not include an email/organizer program like Outlook ($109 on a standalone basis). Assuming a new purchase to start with and then two upgrades over five years, MS Office would cost $1,100 per user - not a modest cost. Though Sun hasn't announced upgrade pricing (we probably won't see that for a year or two), buying three versions at the $76 full price, along with three versions of Outlook over the same five year period would cost about $650, or a $450 saving per user. And, by the way, StarOffice licensing provisions are more liberal than Microsoft's, making it legal to use the software on up to five computers that you use.
But pricing isn't the only consideration, by any means. StarOffice does not support Visual Basic for Applications, a scripting language used by developers to customize the behavior of MS Office applications. If you depend on software that uses VBA (and thus one of the MS Office modules), then you're stuck with MS Office.
File format, template, and functional compatibility are also important considerations when looking at alternatives to the MS Office ad hoc standard. Though the StarOffice native file format is XML (but Zip-compressed before being stored), it can import and export MS Office files and templates and edit them in their native format or convert them to XML. I was able to import, edit, and export Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Though I didn't expose StarOffice to a great variety of MS Office files, other StarOffice reviewers I've read said they had no MS Office compatibility problems. StarOffice and MS Office do not provide identical functionality and the latter is somewhat richer. For instance, Word has a grammar checker and StarOffice Writer does not.
When using StarOffice for the first time, I found I was able to do most of what I wanted without having to consult the paper or online help. StarOffice menus follow MS Office menus in many cases, and when they differ, one or the other seems rational and the other idiosyncratic.
StarOffice provides a complete path description to the file you're viewing/editing (even if it's an Internet URL) and a pull-down history list. It also automatically (but optionally) creates historical versions of files as you make changes and edit them, a nice self-protection feature.
It's also possible to print documents in reduced format with multiple document pages per paper page. That's a nice way to save paper during drafting and the more compressed format allows you to see more documents at a glance. And one can easily print color documents in black and white, something I like to do with Web pages when I don't want to use up my color printer cartridge. StarOffice documents can be exported in HTML format appropriate for use in Web sites.
I've had enough experience with Word to be able to say with some confidence that Writer is functionally equivalent. Though I'm no expert on Excel, StarOffice Spreadsheet appears to be its practical match. Star-Office Impress, a PowerPoint look-alike, actually seems to me to be more flexible and contain more predefined helps than the Microsoft program.
All in all, I'm pleasantly surprised at the richness and quality of the Sun office suite. I plan to use it from now on and I'll let you know if I run into any problems. It's good for us and good for Microsoft to have some real competition to Office, an adequate but not imaginative cash cow.
Should you consider StarOffice? Not if you depend on Visual Basic for Applications and probably not if you're not worried about saving money. What about for others in your office? If you're interested at all and want to spend a little time with StarOffice, you can then show it to others and see what they think — before suggesting any wholesale office changes. You also should check with any of your software vendors that make assumptions about what office suite programs you use.
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