Westwood Village Computers

Perhaps many of you have often asked yourselves if the price of Microsoft Office is really worth it, when you just need to type up a couple dozen letters a week, do up some quotes, some invoices, the odd purchase order, and a presentation once a week for your board meeting.  I’ve found a very capable office suite in the last couple of years.

I’ve always been a strong supporter of open source.  However, up until recently all the open source solutions were predominantly only available on Linux, they weren’t really up to the task, and you had to use a hodgepodge of them together, to achieve the same functionality as Microsoft Office.

Several years back, Sun Microsystems realized they could fill this void.  From a company that most Windows users have probably never heard of, came forth an office suite called, Star Office.  If you look for Star Office elsewhere on the Internet, you will also come across the name ‘OpenOffice‘, or ‘OpenOffice.org‘.  This is the open source version of Star Office.  Star Office is a repackaged OpenOffice.org, rebranded, and with full, business grade support.  OpenOffice.org only offers self-help support.

For a single license of Star Office 9, the price point is about $66.  For Microsoft Office 2007, it’s about $350.  Also, Star Office 8 may be installed on up to 5 machines per user.  What this means is that for a typical user that might have a desktop at the office, a desktop at home, and laptop for when they’re a road warrior, they pay once for it, and can install it on all three machines.  What it does not mean, is that you buy it once, and install it on every staff member’s machine.  You will still need to buy one copy for every staff member.  For the capability to install on additional machines for each user, Microsoft charges an additional $200/machine for what StarOffice includes in the base license.

When you begin to look at after-purchase support costs, you’ll see the price differences skyrocket, if you’ve got a large office.

To sum it up, for a small office, StarOffice 9 is an excellent alternative to Microsoft Office 2007.  You’ll also find that StarOffice 9 will run on a much larger range of Microsoft Windows versions.  It will also run on Linux, Solaris, and MacOS X.  Alternatively, if your office is on a shoestring budget, OpenOffice.org is also well worth looking at.

I’ve been running OpenOffice.org since v1.0.  In all that time, I’ve come across a few problems with spreadsheets where what I was trying to do wasn’t possible.  However, those few problems are not something the average user would try to do.

All in all, I give it an outstanding pass.  It’s definitely 4-1/2 out of 5 stars in my book.