ZDNet Australia: Office Politics: Microsoft Office XP vs Sun StarOffice 6

“Sun would like to think it can succeed where others have
failed–in breaking Microsoft’s stranglehold on the office
productivity market–by offering a product that’s almost as good as
Microsoft Office at a much lower price. Do the sums add up?

“StarOffice version 6 is not a direct competitor to Microsoft
Office XP, whether it is the Standard or Professional edition.
However, StarOffice is a suite of office tools for the user who
does not need all the additional bells and whistles of Microsoft’s
Office suite.

“It could be argued that most users do not need or will never
use many of the features in either product, and this makes a
compelling case for the considerably less expensive StarOffice.
However, Office is the most widely used suite and as a consequence
most documents, spreadsheets, and presentations are in Office’s
proprietary format. While StarOffice imports most simple files
without any problems, as the files become more complex, problems
start to creep in…”

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