At first glance, Sun Microsystems’ StarOffice suite appears to be just another collection of office productivity applications, but, after using it for a while, you quickly discover that there is more to it than that. The integration of the applications is so tight that you feel as if you are using just one application that does everything. The core of StarOffice consists of a document editor called StarOffice Writer, a spreadsheet called StarOffice Calc, a mail client called StarOffice Mail, and a calendar and task manager called StarOffice Schedule. For most users, this might be enough to persuade them to take a look at StarOffice, but Sun added several other applications to make the suite complete. There are applications for creating presentations, drawings, and database interfaces and for reading newsgroups, and an integrated browser and a desktop tie it all together. Sun’s slogan for the product suite is “Do Everything in One Place.”

First Impressions

One of the most appealing things about StarOffice is that it is free. You can download it from Sun’s Web site (www.sun.com), or you can order the full media kit, which includes the installation CD and user documentation, for $39.95 plus shipping and handling. The download is 65 MB, and the installation process is trivial. After downloading and installing StarOffice, be sure to register it with Sun to receive updates as well as access to the StarOffice Knowledge Database and the Sun Web Learning Center. The Sun Web Learning Center currently offers five online, introductory StarOffice courses. A nice side effect of StarOffice being free is that there is only one version. Microsoft Office 2000 already comes in standard, small-business, professional, premium, and developer editions.

Another appealing feature of StarOffice is that it is currently available in eight languages and runs on Windows 95/98/NT, Linux (x86), Solaris (x86 and SPARC), and OS/2. For Windows 95/98/NT, Sun recommends a Pentium or higher, 160 MB of available disk space, and 64 MB of RAM (although a minimum of 32 MB will do).

Since StarOffice’s release last year, Sun has reported nearly 2 million downloads. Since there are over 120 million Office users out there, Microsoft has yet to lose significant market share.

Most of the individual applications that make up the suite exceeded my expectations. My initial thinking was that, if they are being given away, they can’t be as good as the Office applications you pay for, but I soon found out that, in most cases, the applications are as good and that their integration with each other is excellent. The applications are as follows:

• StarOffice Writer (see Figure 1) has most of the features you would expect from a document editor: automatic spell check, thesaurus, templates, autocorrect, autoformat, multiple undo/redo, tables, and tight integration with the other applications in the suite. It also allows you to open and save documents in a number of formats, including Microsoft Word 6.0, Word 95, Word 97, plain text, and HTML. A few things are missing that you would find in current versions of Word, such as automatic grammar check and word count. However, most of the tools you use day in and day out are there and easy to find. In fact, I wrote this article using StarOffice Writer.

• StarOffice Calc is a fully functional spreadsheet application. The interface is similar to that of Microsoft Excel and yet consistent with other StarOffice applications. The function autopilot is a particularly nice feature for creating complex formulas.

• StarOffice Impress lets you create presentations. You can create new presentations or import them from Microsoft PowerPoint 97. After you have finished your presentation, you can save it as either a PowerPoint 97 file or an HTML file.

• StarOffice Draw allows you to create eye-catching graphics quickly and easily by using drawing tools, templates, or the built-in 3-D engine for texture mapping.

• StarOffice Base enables you to query Oracle, Sybase, and Informix databases as well as ODBC and other databases. It also allows you to drag and drop records into documents.

• StarOffice Schedule lets you track tasks and events. Although the interface and functionality are generally good, it lacks the depth of Microsoft Outlook, especially in the area of task management. However, it does let you synchronize with your personal digital assistant (PDA) and has group scheduling capabilities.

• StarOffice Mail allows you send and receive email using Internet email, Microsoft Exchange, or Lotus Notes. StarOffice Mail uses StarOffice Writer as its editor and is a perfect example of the tight integration of the StarOffice suite.

• StarOffice Discussion is a news reader that allows you to filter, sort, and read news either online or offline.

Overall, the applications are so tightly integrated that you don’t even think about the fact that you are switching between them. You feel as if they are all just part of one large application. You can have windows from multiple applications open simultaneously and drag and drop content between them as either copies or links. This tight integration takes some getting used to, but, once you become accustomed to it, going back to separate applications feels clumsy and awkward.

Feature Presentations

Most users have three primary concerns about adopting a new office productivity suite:

• Can I convert my old files to the new suite?

• Can I exchange files with people using other suites?

• Does it do everything my old suite did?

Sun has put a lot of effort into ensuring that StarOffice can import and export not only to the various Office formats but also to many others. Sun does not claim to be 100 percent compatible with Office; however, it does provide a comprehensive list on its Web site of which features do and do not import and export as well as which features it is currently working on for upcoming releases. While doing research for this article, I converted a number of Excel spreadsheets and Word files to the StarOffice format and found, in general, that I had fewer problems than when I upgraded between Microsoft suites. However, the current version, StarOffice 5.1, does not have built-in support for converting to and from Office 2000 formats. StarOffice 5.2, due out this summer, will have support for Office 2000 formats. The prerelease version of Version 5.2 can be downloaded from Sun’s Web site. StarOffice also uses its own macro language called StarOffice Basic, which, according to Sun, is similar enough to Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) that you will have to make only “minimal changes” to existing code.

I found very few Microsoft Office features missing from StarOffice. And, although I would do an in-depth study before making a recommendation for my shop to make the switch to StarOffice, it seems like a reasonable alternative. Also, it is important to point out that StarOffice offers some unique features, such as an integrated desktop and browser, that are not only convenient but also change the way you work to be more task-oriented.

As shown in Figure 2, the online help system is good for giving you an overview of each of the applications and how they interact. It uses numerous screen shots and hyperlinks to assist you and allows you to set bookmarks for things you find of particular interest.

That’s a Wrap

StarOffice is only the beginning of an even larger strategy by Sun to bring the office suite into the dot-com age. StarPortal, which will be based on StarOffice, will provide you with browser-based access to both your data and StarOffice applications from anywhere on the Internet. By using a portal-based architecture, Sun enables you to access your applications not only from traditional desktops but also from PDAs, Web phones, and many other devices. Using this model, you will, in essence, be outsourcing your desktop to an application service provider (ASP). While this may at first sound new and unprecedented, think about how email has changed from a shrink-wrapped product to a service offered by many Web sites.

My overall impression of StarOffice is very positive, and the product exceeded my expectations. StarOffice is a tightly integrated, reasonable alternative to Microsoft Office that deserves further evaluation. It will be interesting to see if Sun’s strategy of giving away StarOffice will work as well for it as giving away Internet Explorer worked for Microsoft in its browser war with Netscape. It will also be interesting to see if StarPortal lives up to its promise of making us think of office applications as services rather than as products.

References and Related Materials

• Sun Microsystems’ Web site: www.sun.com

Figure 1: StarOffice Writer is an easy-to-use document editor.

Figure 2: The help system contains numerous screen shots.

Michael J. Floyd is the Vice President of Engineering for DivX, Inc.

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