Review: StarOffice 9 Merits Serious Consideration

That doesn't mean that Sun MicroSystems doesn't keep trying. OpenOffice.org has proven to be a viable alternative to Microsoft Office, even if it lacks some of the performance capabilities and features of MS Office (Some OO.o users have complained about lack of spell check, inability to run some macros created in Office and slow start-up times.)

Sun is attempting to further bridge the gap between their offering and Microsoft's with the final release of StarOffice 9. With added functionality from OpenOffice.org and a price that is a sliver of what Microsoft charges for Office, could StarOffice win over the hearts of VARs and IT decision makers?

Some of the newer features:

StarOffice 9 is now supported on Mac OS X. This is a big advantage over Microsoft office; for IT organizations that have multi-platform shops, StarOffice can serve as a one-size-fits-all solution by being able to run on Windows, Solaris, Linux and Mac.

StarOffice's Writer can now open Word 2007 .docx files. A .docx file with formatted text and embedded tables and charts opened with just a little bit of the formatting off, for example certain fonts did not translate over well in Writer. Writer was unable to open any embedded Smart Art in the .docx file, like a listing or organization chart. This is something that is on the roadmap according to Sun.

Grammar check appears to be missing in Writer. With the sentence, "The boy go to the store," there was no indication that the program picked up the grammatical error. Even when a spelling and grammar check was initiated, Writer gave the message, "The spellcheck is complete." What happened to the grammar part?

In keeping with the trend of information becoming increasingly "wiki-ized," StarOffice 9 lets you publish documents directly to Wiki pages.

The bottom line: what can be done in Word can essentially be done in Writer, including advanced tasks like adding bibliographies, adding notes, and mail merges.

In Calc, charts have really been enhanced. 3D charts can be pivoted for different viewing angles and "slices" can be pulled from the chart for more granular analysis. Calc also incorporates a VBA runtime layer; this aids in better handling of macros especially those written in MS VBA.

Table creation in Impress has been improved. A Presenter Console extension gives a multi-view layout of a presentation including slide navigation controls, speaker notes and slide thumbnails.

The Mozilla Thunderbird email client has evolved into a true Personal Information Management system. Calendar service access and calendar views have been incorporated as well creating group meetings and invitations.

A nice feature is the ability to create PDF files with one click. PDF files are also editable from StarOffice. Microsoft has a downloadable add-on for PDF and XPF file creation from Office files, but it's an in-the-box ability with StarOffice 9.

Performance-wise, StarOffice seems to handle large spreadsheets and documents even smoother than OpenOffice.org 3. There is still however, a clunky, dated look to the interface. An interface refresh is slated on the roadmap.

In light of the current economy however, there are far more pressing concerns in choosing software than cosmetic ones. Taking into account that StarOffice 9 offers much of the same functionality as Office 2007 and is compatible with documents created in an MS Office dominated world, the fact that there exists such a pricing difference between the two product may be the deciding factor for solution providers.

Consider a 200-user operation: To deploy a non-OEM, full-version of Office 2007 Professional to every user, a solution provider not partnered with Microsoft could be set back $499.00 per license. That's a potential cost of over $99,000. Sun offers StarOffice 9 Consumer at $59.95. Star Office 9 Enterprise lists from $25.00-$90.00 MSRP.

This is a serious purchase consideration. Office is arguably one of Microsoft's strongest products; it's efficient and relatively easy to use. StarOffice 9 may not have all the capabilities of Office especially in regards to handling heavily formatted documents created in Office, or handling complex macros created in Excel. The grammar feature in Write seems to be lacking. However, StarOffice 9, in many cases, is good enough. It may just be the affordability factor that in the end attracts coverts.