COMMENTARY--You may not believe this, but Microsoft thinks we're biased...against Microsoft. But if reactions to our office suite review are anything to go by, our readers disagree.
A couple of weeks ago, Corel released version 11 of WordPerfect Office, not that many people noticed. Back in the good old days WordPerfect was the word processor and Microsoft Word was a poor imitation that lacked features and was a lot more difficult to use. I used WordPerfect well into the '90s, and my dad still uses it.
OK, so times change, but WordPerfect is still a very good office suite. The new version has some XML features for getting data out of back-end systems, tighter integration with Microsoft Outlook for exchanging documents by e-mail, and some interface improvements. Unlike Microsoft Office, it has the capability to produce PDF files without paying for any add-on software.
Aside from some entrenched pockets of WordPerfect die-hards--government, the legal profession, some European countries, and my dad--it doesn't sell very well these days. Analysts don't expect the new version to find many converts, though it will be interesting to see if the widespread dissatisfaction with Microsoft's Licensing 6.0 program will translate to more sales for Microsoft Office alternatives such as WordPerfect and StarOffice.
This is the long way of getting around to talking about some of the feedback we have received for the Labs' comparison of Microsoft Office XP and Sun StarOffice 6. Who would have thought a comparison of office suites would be so contentious?
We can dismiss the usual anti-Microsoft propagandists, for whom any article that doesn't say Microsoft is the most evil organisation in the world and all its products are crap is irredeemably biased. "Obviously this article was written by a paid off Micro$oft Zealot!" claims one online reader. To this reader and all who think like that, all I can say is I'm too busy to listen to you because I've got to get down to the bank to deposit another cheque . . . they just keep sending them!
| It was our judgement that OpenOffice--despite possessing many fine qualities and being very useful for home and SOHO users--is not a serious office suite option for most Australian businesses (and I just can't wait for the flame mail). |
(In reality, we get a fair few complaints from Microsoft and its PR representatives about what they percieve as anti-Microsoft bias in our publications, but I know you'd never believe that.)
Quite a few readers told us the review was "incomplete" and "fatally flawed" because it didn't mention OpenOffice, the open source office suite on which StarOffice is based. It didn't mention WordPerfect Office or Lotus SmartSuite either, but nobody complained about that. It was our judgement that OpenOffice--despite possessing many fine qualities and being very useful for home and SOHO users--is not a serious office suite option for most Australian businesses (and I just can't wait for the flame mail).
Some readers thought it unfair of us to compare StarOffice and Microsoft Office feature-for-feature, particularly in areas where StarOffice compares poorly. We went to a lot of trouble to discuss the 80:20 issue--that 80 percent of users only use 20 percent of the features of their office suites--which means the vast majority of users would never miss the features of Microsoft Office that are absent in StarOffice.
However, no matter what we think of Microsoft as a company or the legality or morality of its sales tactics, we must recognise that Microsoft Office is a very mature product with an enormous and well-established user base. It wasn't always this way, but today it is the standard against which all other office productivity software must be compared. Even commercial office suites which match Microsoft almost feature-for-feature have a hard time. From the way I look at it, it's unfair--for those 20 percent of users who use the advanced features--not to make these comparisons.
If you're going to look at software in biblical terms--Microsoft evil, open source good, or the other way around--you're hardly going to have a balanced view. And with zealots on either side, finding that balance can be very tricky.
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I'm interested in knowing what the differences between OpenOffice.org-1.1 beta and StarOffice 6.1 beta are.
IT would be a great comparison for readers to know whether the extra dollars are worth it.
In the past, StarOffice was developed by taking the OpenOffice.org code and improving it before release. For example, the filters for Word files were better in StarOffic-6.0 than OpenOffice.org-1.0.
However, recently both StarOffice and OpenOffice.org have started sharing the same development code and, it's my understanding, the differences will be far more black and white. StarOffice will have a database, extra fonts and a few other extras that are in StarOffice and not it OpenOffice. On the other hand, the file filters in both should be identical and so should the feature set.
Maybe someone at ZDNet might be interested in talking to someone at OpenOffice or Sun and asking what the differences will be.