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Sun to Charge for Star Office 6.0
Posted by
michael
on Sun Feb 24, 2002 05:08 PM
from the death-of-a-thousand-pinpricks dept.
from the death-of-a-thousand-pinpricks dept.
biwillia writes: "According to
this
heise article (in German, or Google translated), free versions of Star Office will now only be available to Solaris users. Free versions for Linux and Windows users will no longer be offered. A homemade translation of the first paragraph reads, 'With version 6.0 of Star Office, scheduled to be released in May, Sun has changed the product politics of their Office package, which had been freely distributed since the aquisition of Hamburg-based Star Division. In the future, Sun wishes to charge license fees for usage of the Windows and Linux versions. Only the version for Sun's own operation system Solaris will remain free.'"
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Open Office (Score:4, Informative)
Open Office vs. Star Office (Score:3, Interesting)
I would try it myself, but the server I'm downloading OpenOffice is downloading at something like 16.6k. And I would like to know other people's experiences with OpenOffice. Thanks.
Re:Open Office vs. Star Office (Score:3, Interesting)
There are a few issues yet with OO, but every version has gotten closer and closer to perfection.
OO 641c is a MAJOR improvement over 5.2 in stability, ease of use, management, etc.
Send me a email if you'd like more detail...
admin@NOSPAMlindenhall.org (remove the NOSPAM)
Re:Open Office (Score:4, Informative)
B. Differences between StarOffice and OpenOffice.org
The source code available at OpenOffice.org does not consist of all of the StarOffice code. Usually, the reason for this is that Sun pays to license third party code to include in StarOffice that which it does not have permission to make available in OpenOffice.org. Those things which are or will be present in StarOffice but are not available on OpenOffice.org include:
- Certain fonts (including, especially, Asian language fonts)
- The database component (Adabas D)
- Some templates
- Extensive Clip Art Gallery
- Some sorting functionality (Asian versions)
- Certain file filters
Regards, Ralph.
Parent
Open Office works just fine (Score:5, Informative)
As any project in active development, it has crashed a few times, however every time the crash recovery reopens every document I had open, right down to where the cursor was. Pretty damned slick.
Not to mention it's opened every MS Office document I've thrown at it without a problem. Definitely not complaining.
Parent
Re:Open Office works just fine (Score:4, Insightful)
OpenOffice is meant to work with MS-Office (any version).
On the other hand, MS-Windows v.X is meant to not be exactly compatible with documents created with MS-Office v.(X-1).
It was very very obvious with MS-Office 97/95. And it was a RPITA to export from MS-Office 87 to 95 version.
This is what you get with closed file formats. They own your documents.
Parent
Re:Open Office (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Open Office (Score:3, Informative)
deb http://people.debian.org/~nidd/debian/ unstable/
This should be good... (Score:3, Insightful)
Open Office to Star Office as Mozilla to Netscape? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't use either - was looking forward to trying Star Office 6 as I'd heard it had removed the custom desktop. Now it looks as if I'll be trying out OpenOffice instead.#
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Open Office to Star Office as Mozilla to Netsca (Score:5, Insightful)
Not exactly. Although this is a good comparisson, the commercial version of Netscape is still free. The main difference are testing (Netscape stick to a mozilla version and do a lot of QA testing before moving to another, while mozilla keeps going), features (like that spellchecker) and some 'AOL integration'
In the case of Staroffice/OpenOffice, it seems to me that real reason behind the split is to 'force' people to use Solaris instead of Linux. If that's the case, I don't it was a good idea: people will still use Linux (as long as OpenOffice is still available), and the anger against Sun will increase with this move.
Parent
Re:Open Office to Star Office as Mozilla to Netsca (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd bet that way more people use Star Office on Windows and Linux than use it on Solaris. It's not very profitable to start charging the people who use it on Solaris since these are so few. They're also Sun's most loyal customers so it doesn't hurt to give them the occasional freebee.
People are willing to pay for Star Office on Windows and Linux. It would be nice to make some money so that more money could be invested in advertising and marketing. Maybe you could hire some new developers with the cash as well. Then maybe SO could be a real competitor to Word.
Basically, it's nice to work at a company where customers buy your products and the executives really care about making money.
Open Office is good. (Score:4, Informative)
So, StarOffice for a branded package with support and feel-good factor for people unsure about this newfangled OPen Source thing; and Open Office for all the rest of us. Fair enough.
/Janne
Linux I can understand, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Linux I can understand, but.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with that logic is that Sun isn't going to sell even one Sparc box because of StarOffice. Nobody is going to buy one because of this. People, however, would be less averse to buying one if StarOffice became some sort of de-facto standard under Windows, Macs and Linux/BSD boxes. I think they're making a big mistake by doing this, but it's their mistake to make.
What was the whole point of releasing the source for OpenOffice in the first place? One of the key reasons Microsoft sits on top is that Microsoft Office is the Must Have application; people can't buy Sparc machines for desktop use because it doesn't run Office. So, Sun came along and opened up the source to combat this trend, and it seemed like a good attack plan to sell more Sparc machines (ie, Sun is a hardware company) because it would run the same Office software that Windows users could download for free.
Now, Sun is having delusions of being a software company for some reason (unless this is simply something like a $29.99 el-cheapo license, we don't know yet). Hopefully they'll come to their senses and remember why they opened the source to StarOffice in the first place; otherwise it's going to further pave their doom to becoming a Windows VAR.
They Have to Make Money on a Product (Score:5, Insightful)
If quality product, worth buying (Score:4, Interesting)
Given interoperability, I may purchase one commercial copy of Star Office for my main desktop use, and use Open Office on every other computer, it depends on how well each is distributed.
In some ways, charging for Star Office may be a good thing. Charging for software in the business world gives it some degree of credibility - that software has value if one must pay for it. I'd be even more happy if Sun offered free education and/or personal licenses to try to gain market share, while charging a fair fee to businesses.
I eagerly await Star Office 6 and Open Office 1.
Depends on price - what would you pay? (Score:5, Insightful)
Value-adds I wouldn't mind paying for if they're bundled: Professional clipart, professional templates, multiple language dictionaries - all those would be a good start.
I don't think you will. (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how cheap your suite is, no matter how good it is, no matter even if it's free. Businesses won't use it because the PHB's are all stupid and people won't use it because they want the same thing at home that they have at work.
Parent
Abiword and OpenOffice (Score:4, Interesting)
What are the major differences currently between OpenOffice and StarOffice?
I remember a DoD procurement [gcn.com] elated to StarOffice, has the price remained the same? (Are they running it on Solaris anyway?)
This sounds like a bad idea for Sun (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that they will make no money, and they won't be able to persuade new Linux users to use Star Office in future; and Linux is looking like it will be popular in future; they're losing lots of future profit.
If they had waited till it was popular then they would have been able to do the switch THEN, and have a way of screwing money out of most of the Linux users from that point on; they'll lose this.
Also, it's a bad idea because Sun is a competitor of Microsoft, and Linux is challenging Microsoft for the desktop, and your enemies enemy is your friend.
Re:This sounds like a bad idea for Sun (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, this isn't targeted at the linux crowd. Sun wants to target the Windows crowd. Not only is the linux community too small to make them enough profit to support Star Office, they also suffer huge competition with Open Office, Abiword, and other word processors for the linux desktop.
IMHO, Sun doesn't care about the linux crowd. StarOffice is probably only available to linux users because it budded from open Office and therefore was already on linux. Sun has spent time and money developing StarOffice to compete with MS Office, not to win the linux desktop. Charging a modest fee for Star Office 6.0 will allow Sun to advertise Star Office, put more software on the shelves at retailers.
Then why the penguin suit? (Score:4, Funny)
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-832463.html
Is the article correct (Score:4, Interesting)
HH
Make more money doing both Commercial and Free (Score:4, Interesting)
By selling it at the store for $$ and making it available by download for free.
I'm still buying RedHat CDs despite downloading various rawhide. I can't be alone on this.
Re:Make more money doing both Commercial and Free (Score:3)
After all, StarOffice costed Sun a fortune (1B if I remember correctly). Making StarOffice free for Linux would be just helping the OS that's eating their own market share.
The Raven.
Direct quote from sun.com (Score:5, Insightful)
No longer will files and documents wear the cement shoes of a single vendor or operating system, but standards will flourish and compatibility reign across platforms.
For the first time, a commercial grade, full-featured office suite will be opened up to the innovative input of the global developer community.
Free to be changed. Free to be improved. Free to adapt to meet the needs of any situation. Free.
Wait, I can't make money from free? Nevermind, we're gonna charge for it.
A couple comments (Score:5, Insightful)
I heard a talk with McNealy where he was frustrated that businesses wouldn't take up Star Office. He talked to some hot shots at other companies and heard the same thing a few times - We love it, it does what we need it to for most of our users but we just don't trust something that's free. Well, now we get to see if businesses will take a product more seriously if it costs some. I'm willing to bet that it will be very very cheap compared to MS products. This should be interesting. Oh, has anyone seen any info on how much it might cost?
Re:This oft-quoted argument is hooey (Score:3, Insightful)
But said half-competent IT staffer doesn't get to determine what Mary (the CEO's private secretary and coffee-carrier) will use to type the boss's very important letters.
Re:This oft-quoted argument is hooey (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
OpenOffice going to 1.0 (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, I can see some interesting projects about to kick off - The Open Office wordprocessor as a KPart, for example
Dave
This is a good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
When you go to a manager and try to argue for free software over MS stuff, they can't get their heads around the idea that the one that is free has value. Managers just don't get it.
The only way to convince some people that this is quality software, is to charge them money for it.
StarOffice 6.0 == OpenOffice 1.0 (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably the biggest difference will be the lack of support for the Sun ONE WebTop [sun.com](whatever, exactly, that is) in OpenOffice.
Probably good for Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the main excuses that I hear for not running Linux on the desktop is lack of professional quality software. Sure, there is a lot of good stuff for Linux but it has a low visibility. No ads, not sitting on the shelf in software stores.
I would think that $40.00 for a quality office suite would be worth the money especially if the product gets advertising that mentions Linux.
Corporate POV (Score:5, Insightful)
I can confirm that my organization (Fortune 100) didn't give StarOffice a first look because it was "free". They don't trust free s/w and need to hold someone accountable if there are problems (I should point out that we don't really hold M$ accountable for much, but the exec$ feel goo about the possibility of maybe being able to hopefully do so if there are really, really, major problems).
I can also confirm that we would like to save megabuck$ and provide some productivity suite competition so we can stop getting royally soaked by mr gates & co.
And I can confirm that other large organizations expressed the same feelings directly to Sun (with us).
HOWEVER, Visio is the "killer app" that will stop us from using StarOffice. Without a Visio-killer (open source or otherwise), M$ will continue to dominate. Buying Visio was a very strategic move on Redmond's part and it will prevent alot of places from switching since they would be fearful that it would not "integrate" properly with StarOffice (ever try to embed a complex Visio diagram in a Word file? there are integration problems enough within the suite, let alone outside of it).
So, Sun will make some money in the small-to-medium sized orgs, but M$ will continue to rake in the dough from the big boyz.
Which way's up again? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, but at least the data formats aren't closed (Score:4, Insightful)
I at least know what WHATEVER I do with a bought copy of StarOffice 6.0, will be written to an OPEN and documented implementation of XML (albeit compressed and fussed with a bit in a directory structure), but still open and documented.
I know that ten years from know I'll be able to get at my files without going... oh wait, I would have to upgrade to windows 2010, in order to run Office 2010, in order to get at MY data, stuff that I wrote, worked on and own... and who knows, maybe MS will choose to wage a lawsuite against those that reverse engineer their file format. They are just waiting for supporting legislation to do so... I just know it.
And before anybody says, that I could just keep the copy of windows and office that I have, forget that once the hardware dies, any NEW computer I buy is only going to come with a new version of windows, and I only have a snowball's chance in hell having it be binary compatible with the version of Office that I might have.
Bah, StarOffice as a pay-ware front end to an open data format, is light years better than MS Office as a front end to MS's own data format.
Usual grumble (Score:5, Informative)
I work for Sun, and submitted this story more than a month ago when we received internal email about the plans to charge for StarOffice.
FWIW, here's the original email that was sent out on Friday, January 11:
New Business Model for StarOffice/StarSuite 6.0
I am pleased to announce some significant changes to the StarOffice marketing strategy and corresponding business model. Along with our top goals of enabling desktop sales for Sun and being a critical component of the Sun ONE software stack, StarOffice is moving to a revenue based model. The major changes to the business model are:
Two products available to the market: (1)StarOffice/StarSuite 6.0 (Enterprise Edition) -- Sun sells & supports, (2) OpenOffice (Community Edition) -- free from OpenOffice.org and other sites outside of Sun
Other changes will include:
- Removal of the full function, no-charge downloads from Sun
- StarOffice 6.0 and service offerings available on GSO prices list at FCS (per copy, site license, OEM and channel pricing)
- Global distribution channels: GSO, OEMs, Retail, Sun Store
The goal of this new business model is to generate revenue by providing a low cost, full featured office productivity alternative to the market place. Feedback from the market validates that customers are placing an economic value on StarOffice that is significantly greater than zero. This model allows Sun to generate new revenue from these customers willing to pay for StarOffice as well as creating pull for new systems, software and services revenue.
For those customers that would like to use a basic office suite at no charge, a "Community Edition" will continue to be available via the OpenOffice.org project and other download sites outside of Sun.
This is an exciting time for StarOffice as customers, partners, press and analyst community are eager for a viable alternative and highly supportive of our efforts.
Over the next 90 days, SSG will be focused on delivering:
Stay tuned for more details on the specific programs and pricing to be available soon.
Pat Sueltz
EVP and GM, Software Systems Group
What about the forthcoming Sun Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
(And for the record, I think this is great. If you aren't happy with OO, then pay your $35 and get a supported version. As long as SO and OO use the same code base, like Mozilla and NS, I think it's a good move by Sun.)
Lust like NetBeans/Forte (Score:4, Insightful)
Sun will support a "commercial" version of OpenOffice called "StarOffice". The purchasers of StarOffice will get benefits (support, additional features, etc) that the users of the free OpenOffice version won't get. That seems fair and it provides an incentive for customers to help support OpenOffice financially.
Some people might be cynical, but I think that the NetBeans/Forte arrangement has worked out pretty well. The Sun developers working on NetBeans work hard to make NetBeans great. They have to work on the Forte-only features but I think that the development of the Forte-only features benefits NetBeans as well (any architectural improvements in Forte must get pushed down to NetBean in order to keep them interoperable). I think things will work the same way with StarOffice and OpenOffice.
Re:What is new? (Score:5, Insightful)
Though it may seem strange, it is usually easier to market commercial software than it is free software. Most business customers still associate free software with shoddy shareware. By charging for StarOffice 6.0 and putting it in a nice pretty box Sun has a better chance of gaining marketshare than they would with a free download. Plus die-hard freeloaders who don't want to play still have OpenOffice, so everyone will be happy.
Parent
Business 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
What it is is a margin-killer.
Microsoft is using its HUGE profits in the Office arena to fund their drive into the enterprise OS market - which is scaring the bajeezus out of Sun's strategic planners. Sun must do something to level the playing field.
To win this battle, Sun doesn't need to capture much market share, all they need to do is give consumers a credible alternative. The bumper-sticker version of this strategy: If you can't beat your competitor, screw up his margin.
I've heard that Office makes up about half of MS's revenue - about 4 billion in the last quarter of '01, that would be about 16 million copies if they're going for $250 on average (I don't know this, I'm just speculating).
If Sun succeeds in forcing them to drop their price by even $10, they've scored a major victory - to the tune of $160 million per quarter. That's not chump change, not even to the beast of Redmond. Remember, Microsoft's profits are somewhat tied to their stock price (they pay their employees largely with stock options) and their stock price is sustained by GROWING REVENUES - which they won't have if they have to drop the price of MS Office.
If you read the preceeding and substitue IBM for Sun, you'll understand IBM's committment to Linux.
Parent
Re:Business 101 (Score:5, Funny)
Pity. I think there are a lot of people out there who would pay good money for software that would kill everybody back at their office.
Oh, you mean MS Office...
Parent
Re:This isn't bad... we have 2 versions now (Score:3, Funny)
The true 'geek' users among us
would use, is called EMACS.
Re:Sure Sun gets it. (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Microsoft releases C# with large amounts of adverts. Sun goes off and releases Java 1.4 with non blocking i/o and ssl support (both advertised loudly) and then ensures that the ssl stuff doesnt work with the non blocking i/o due to the bugs present in java 1.4 which was rushed to the door too early... Result? people look at C#.
2. Ximian goes off and announces Mono which is the open sourced C# clone. Sun proceeds to piss off the apache group in a very public way who then complain loudly that java is a proprietary language. Result? people look at C#.
3. Sun announces linux support on an expanded cobalt line and drop x86 solaris in favour of linux. Sun then decides to have their cheif competitive officer write a very anti linux article. Result? linux community is pissed. sun customers look away from the cobalt line. sun customers are confused. sun customers start looking at ibm.
4. Sun announces that it is open sourcing staroffice. Linux community is really happy. sun customers start to look at replacing NT with linux and staroffice on PCs. Sun decides to charge for startoffice for linux. Result? sun customers go - huh? linux community hates sun and starts using the open source LGPLed code and ignores staroffice and sun.
Parent
Re:Sure Sun gets it. (Score:3, Informative)
java.net.ssl is distinct from java.nio.* libraries, and it was known months ago that Sun was not going to provide an SSL nio library. See this article [itworld.com].
Hint: it's from last September.
Re:Remember .. (Score:4, Informative)
Differences between StarOffice and OpenOffice.org
o The source code available at OpenOffice.org does not consist of all of the StarOffice code. Usually, the reason for this is that Sun pays to license third party code to include in StarOffice that which it does not have permission to make available in OpenOffice.org. Those things which are or will be present in StarOffice but are not available on OpenOffice.org include:
+ Certain fonts (including, especially, Asian language fonts)
+ The database component (Adabas D)
+ Some templates
+ Extensive Clip Art Gallery
+ Some sorting functionality (Asian versions)
+ Certain file filters
Parent
Not only does it have spell checking... (Score:3, Interesting)
"First, let's clear up some major misunderstandings: OpenOffice.org build 638C does print, does save to PDF (*) , does have online help, and does have a working spellchecker. Having said that, let's see now in detail some of the major features."
Its on the Features [openoffice.org] page. Im downloading it now to check it out, and because i figured id try to prolong the slashdot effect.
So what's the price point? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: OpenOffice = no database! (Score:3, Informative)
That, alone, might make it worthwhile for some people to pay for StarOffice.