Star Office vs Microsoft Office
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Thread: Star Office vs Microsoft Office

  1. #1
    Registered User BOB IROC's Avatar
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    Star Office vs Microsoft Office

    Has anyone had any first hand experience in using Star Office? I ask because the school district I work for is using Office 2000 and we approached the "Directory of Technology" with the the fact that when office 12 is released we will be 4 generations behind and should seriously think about upgrading. His reply was that we should consider Sun's Star Office as an alternative. Seeing as I have never used Star Office I am looking for input. I know I have experienced issues with Using Word Perfect and Office, but thats about it. The two main issues that concern me are:

    Compatibility: We have many huge files from excel, word, and access that are merged with other documents and I am afraid some of that will be lost in the translation. Also how truley compatible is Star Office if a student or teacher creates a document such as a power point presentation at home and tries to import it in for editing in Star Office? Stuff like that.

    Functionality: In my experience the teachers I work with are very threatened by change and I think a Jump to a different office platform would open a pandora's box and create an uproar with the teacher's union and parents.

    Currently we are experience issues of Students creating documents in the latest version powerpoint and being unable to edit because of the new features they use at home. Also I have run into many instances of people using the new works suite and word 2000 being unable to open the document. In an attempt to battle this I had the viewers for Word 2003, Excel 2003, and Powerpoint 2003 installed on virtually every computer, but that still only allows them to see the document and they cannot edit without losing some features. My boss (the director of technology) is concerned about cost and while that is a factor, there are many other things to consider than just the bottom dollar. I have a friend that his company used Star Office last year and it caused major headaches with old spreadsheet and database files they had and made those files pretty much useless. They ended up dumping Star Office and upgrading to Office 2003. But that is only one story, I am interested in hearing more.
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  2. #2
    Banned TripleRLtd's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BOB IROC
    I have a friend that his company used Star Office last year and it caused major headaches with old spreadsheet and database files they had and made those files pretty much useless. They ended up dumping Star Office and upgrading to Office 2003. But that is only one story, I am interested in hearing more.
    That is supposed to be the problem with Star Office: compatablilty, especially with spreadsheets.
    I'm sure you'll get many comments, but how about you "borrow" his copy, or buy just one copy and see for yourself how it works in your environment...that's what I would do. Personally, I don't do "corporate" so I don't have that xp, and the last Star I used was the one before they started charging.

  3. #3
    Laptops/Notebooks/PDA Mod 3fingersalute's Avatar
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    have a look at OpenOffice as well, its come a long way.

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    Registered User TechZ's Avatar
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  5. #5
    Laptops/Notebooks/PDA Mod 3fingersalute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TechZ
    great idea

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    Registered User TechZ's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 3fingersalute
    great idea
    hehe same time posts, it always happens when you least expect it

  7. #7
    Registered User BOB IROC's Avatar
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    correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Star Office 8 the commercial release of OpenOffice 2.0? I think my boss is either going to buy a copy or get an evaluation copy of StarOffice. I would like to test it with our complex spreadsheets and our merged documents which are used frequently here in our district. I read this article http://searchwin2000.techtarget.com/...129233,00.html and it is stuff like the last line that scares me.

    "If an organization does not use templates with complex macros [and] if they are just using standard templates and spreadsheets, they will find little difficulty using StarOffice,"

    We do stuff like that mentioned in the above quote, not to mention we have stuff that is integrated with asp.net and many of our programs that are written to integrate with access databases that include but are not limited to personel and student records. I guess I think the money saved in purchasing StarOffice as an alternative would be spent in re-writing programs.
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    Banned TripleRLtd's Avatar
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    In some ways yes Bob. StarOffice is made by Sun Micro, whereas OpenOffice uses the base code from Sun. Sun actually does support OpenOffice.org.

    Mission Statement To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format.


    Historical background

    StarDivision, the original author of the StarOffice suite of software, was founded in Germany in the mid-1980s. It was acquired by Sun Microsystems during the summer of 1999 and StarOffice 5.2 was released in June of 2000. Future versions of StarOffice software, beginning with 6.0, have been built using the OpenOffice.org source, APIs, file formats, and reference implementation. Sun continues to sponsor development on OpenOffice.org and is the primary contributor of code to OpenOffice.org. CollabNet hosts the website infrastructure for development of the product and helps manage the project.

    The OpenOffice.org source code includes the technology which Sun Microsystems has been developing for the future versions of StarOffice(TM) software. The source is written in C++ and delivers language-neutral and scriptable functionality, including Java(TM) APIs. This source technology introduces the next-stage architecture, allowing use of the suite as separate applications or as embedded components in other applications. Numerous other features are also present including XML-based file formats based on the vendor-neutral OpenDocument standard from OASIS and other resources.

  9. #9
    Registered User slgrieb's Avatar
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    Actually, I think it is more correct to say that StarOffice is based on the OpenOffice platform but differs some. Anyway, running Excel files in Star or Open is going to be a real headache (this is true of pretty much any spreadsheet app) because of the difference in the way various programs implement functions. Even when programs have functions with the same name, they may do totally different things. Functions that exist in one application may be non-existent in another. The same situation exists even in regard to something as simple as cell formats.

    I'd grab a copy of OpenOffice and play with it some. I think you're going to find the issue of interoperability and conversion very, very ugly.

  10. #10
    Laptops/Notebooks/PDA Mod 3fingersalute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by slgrieb
    Actually, I think it is more correct to say that StarOffice is based on the OpenOffice platform but differs some. Anyway, running Excel files in Star or Open is going to be a real headache (this is true of pretty much any spreadsheet app) because of the difference in the way various programs implement functions. Even when programs have functions with the same name, they may do totally different things. Functions that exist in one application may be non-existent in another. The same situation exists even in regard to something as simple as cell formats.

    I'd grab a copy of OpenOffice and play with it some. I think you're going to find the issue of interoperability and conversion very, very ugly.
    Granted, I don't use it heavily, but I've had almost zero incompatibility issues between MS-Office and OpenOffice.

  11. #11
    Registered User BOB IROC's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by slgrieb
    I'd grab a copy of OpenOffice and play with it some. I think you're going to find the issue of interoperability and conversion very, very ugly.
    Thats is what I am afraid of.

    Quote Originally Posted by 3fingersalute
    Granted, I don't use it heavily, but I've had almost zero incompatibility issues between MS-Office and OpenOffice.
    That also scares me because I am sure it would be fine for simple stuff, but with out programs that integrate with access databases and sql I think there will be trouble. Something I am having a hard time getting across to my boss.
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  12. #12
    Laptops/Notebooks/PDA Mod 3fingersalute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BOB IROC
    Thats is what I am afraid of.



    That also scares me because I am sure it would be fine for simple stuff, but with out programs that integrate with access databases and sql I think there will be trouble. Something I am having a hard time getting across to my boss.
    If its that important and used that heavily, then they need to cough up the dough for the MS licenses. Look into volume licensing to save costs.

  13. #13
    Registered User BOB IROC's Avatar
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    Another Tech and I have a meeting with Microsoft representatives on February 1st because we plan on moving away from Novell and using Microsoft Active Directory so we will discuss office at that time as well. I just don't want to be fed the Microsoft BS and was using this forum for an objective approach. Being in education we receive software at a substancial discount, that I know. We need to get the cost of how much it would be to upgrade our office licenses vs getting new licenses for Star Office and the other cost that may be involved in the switch. I spoke with a 3rd party programmer that helps us with our Student grading and info database and they simply stated that much of the code will have to be re-written and many features may not be possible with using a Non-Microsoft office product. That alone would sway me from using the alternative, but convincing my boss and the other super-intendant staff is a different story. Their philosophy to us is to just make it work. Which sucks.... I don't mean to bash Sun Microsystems product or any other alternative for that matter, but the whole picture needs to be looked at, not just the intial cost for the software. Thanks to you all for your replies. I am working on getting a full evaluation version of Star Office 8 so we can try to put it to the test. I guess that is all I can do despite the fact the tech staff views it as a potentially bad idea.
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  14. #14
    Registered User slgrieb's Avatar
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    3finger, I agree with you pretty much on simple spreadsheets, but big complicated ones are, in my experience, scary. I'd say look at the differences between releases of MS Office and multiply by 10 or so. Star and Open are very good products, but migrating from one app to another always sucks!

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    My experience here is that for very basic spreadsheets Excel/Open Office compatibility is quite good. Beyond this very basic level the problems grow and grow. The same holds true for Word and Power Point. Lots of rewriting.

    Users are a little freaked, too. Even basic things like summing up a column is different in OO than in Excel. But the problems are no less than those involved in weaning users off Lotus.

    I got around to sticking a Suse 10 disk that Novell sent me into an optical drive and letting it install. The version of Open Office included now has a database application. I haven't had any time to look at it all, so I don't know whether it is Access compatible or not.

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