StarOffice: What Is It?
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StarOffice is a full office suite, created by Sun Microsystems, that has the potential to compete head to head with MicroSoft Office.

StarOffice includes the following:

1. Word processor - that can read and write to MicroSoft Word format. It can also open up more document types from other word processors than we have ever seen.
   
   
2. Spreadsheet - that can read and write to MicroSoft Excel format. It also includes some advance calculations.
   
   
3. Presentation - you can use this to design company and client presentations.
   
   
4. Drawing - it has a built in drawing (paintbrush type) program for creating images.
   
   
5. HTML creator - this built in program will help you create webpages without knowing HTML.
   
   
6. E-mail reader - you can use this to get and send your e-mail messages.
   
   
7. Web browser - contains a built in web browser to surf the internet.
   
   
8. Calendar - use it to keep track of meetings and important dates.
   
   
9. And many more!

Since it can read and write to Microsoft Word and Excel formats your clients and friends can send you Microsoft Office files that you can open in StarOffice. You can then make changes and save it back to Word or Excel format and send it back all without them realizing the difference. Also the new XML format is support by StarOffice.

Sun Microsystems has decided to spin off StarOffice into two directions. The open community and free version, which uses the same code as StarOffice, is called OpenOffice and StarOffice itself. StarOffice 6.0 now costs only $75.95 for the full version, includes support from Sun Microsystems. This is much better than $479 for the full version of Microsoft Office. For valid educational organizations StarOffice 6.0 only costs the price of the cd-rom and shipping while Microsoft Office is at least $100 for these entities.

We strongly recommend StarOffice 6.0 and OpenOffice. Since OpenOffice is 100% FREE, and is protect by GPL, there is no reason why you shouldn't at least give OpenOffice a try. Remember you don't even have to reformat your Microsoft Office data, since StarOffice 6.0 and OpenOffice can open Microsoft Office documents. These programs will only continue to grow as more and more companies, both small and large more away from Microsoft Office.

OpenOffice currently has versions for Windows, Linux and Solaris. A Mac version is in development. OpenOffice is sponsored by Sun Microsystems, the same company that creates StarOffice. This relationship is much like Netscape and Mozilla.

For more information on OpenOffice.org (FREE Version) please visit www.openoffice.org

For more information on StarOffice (Low Cost With Support) please visit http://www.sun.com/staroffice/