StarOffice

Sun Microsystems has produced an integrated suite of office software that is beginning to rival the major providers, Microsoft and Corel. What's more, it's free.

The software is already available for Solaris , Linux , OS/2 , and the Windows platforms. Figure 10.5 shows the initial screen when StarOffice is started in the Solaris CDE environment.

Figure 10.5. The StarOffice desktop provides easy access to all the office productivity facilities.

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StarOffice delivers a special feature that Microsoft Office and Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 don't: real Windows/UNIX cross-platform compatibility.

Multiplatform enterprises can benefit from using StarOffice because it uses a platform-independent file format. This means, for example, that documents created on a Linux platform can be transferred accurately to the Solaris or Windows version without modification or conversion. A number of larger educational establishments are now standardizing on the StarOffice suite ”not just because it is free from licensing restrictions and doesn't cost anything, but because it works and is compatible with the major vendors ' offerings.

StarOffice has a Start bar that closely resembles the Windows Start bar. Figure 10.6 shows the Start menu.

Figure 10.6. The Start bar, menus , and toolbars are all fully user -configurable and help to maintain the suite's look and feel across multiple platforms.

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Loading Star Office

The only downside to StarOffice noted has been the time it takes to start up: about 10 seconds, on average. This is because the software is so tightly integrated that the startup loads about 10 “12 applications. Sun is seriously considering unbundling the major applications so that the package will behave more like Microsoft Office, with only the relevant application loaded. This will definitely improve its performance when loading.

StarOffice Writer, the word processor, comprises some specialized tools: AutoPilot, Sun's version of a wizard, and AutoFunction, real-time spelling, error correction, and auto-completion make good examples. Documents can be saved in a variety of formats, including Word 97 , Word 2000 , and WordPerfect 8 .

The presentation program, StarOffice Impress, aids in the production of high-quality presentation slides, and, like the other products, provides the facility to save in a number of formats, such as Microsoft PowerPoint. Figure 10.7 demonstrates this.

Figure 10.7. The variety of compatible formats make the documents and presentation files truly portable.

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There is an increasing wave of support for the StarOffice suite, a fact demonstrated by more than 1 million downloads from the Web site. System managers are considering it a serious alternative to the Microsoft Office and Corel WordPerfect Office suites. Considerable financial savings can be achieved because the software is free and because the suite provides resource savings that would normally be spent managing the licenses. Those savings could be well spent on other projects or upgrades.

Following the StarOffice suite is Sun's latest initiative, StarPortal. This includes a product known as Webtop, based on the StarOffice suite, except that the local host does not have any applications to install or maintain, the applications (including the data) all reside on the network. Portal computing certainly will be the next major step forward as it begins to seriously threaten the domination of the Windows model.

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