Sun to push Star Office for OS X!

[jocknerd]

There will finally be some serious progress with a native Quartz-based Open Office/Star Office on OS X. Sun is putting their weight behind it along with Apple. There is a story here:

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-946714.html

One of the Sun guys says he would like to see Apple bundle it with their hardware. I'm definitely looking forward to this.

Yes, I know Apple has AppleWorks and its not bad, but come on, nobody uses it in the corporate world. Star Office has a really good chance at ending the MS Office monopoly on the desktop.

[fryke]

I'm still hoping that Apple makes its own push with an Apple Office Suite. Make AppleWorks 7 free (like iMovie) and AppleOffice 99$ (free on professional hardware?)

[SCARECROW]

I'm still hoping that Apple makes its own push with an Apple Office Suite. Make AppleWorks 7 free (like iMovie) and AppleOffice 99$ (free on professional hardware?)

I thought you guys were all gung-ho about Apple charging full price for their software..

Whats the difference here, fryke? You mean that you think they should bundle this NEW software that Apple will undoubtly throws tons of money and resources into, with computers they sell. WHy would that be? ... To sell more machines? To reduce their dependance on MS and get more people to switch?

Why should they offer this for free... Apple is a COMPANY damnit!!! They need to make money on this... and we should all have to pay full price for it, because it is the right thing to do, and is what Apple wants us to do!

[themacko]

I am waiting to buy Office v.X until I need it this fall semester (It's gonna hurt dropping $200). Anyhow, I would be willing to just use the StarOffice if it works right. Here's my problem: I download/upload and email TONS of MS Office files back and forth to teachers and other students during the school year. Naturally, 80% of them are using some sort of MS Office on Windows, while the other 20% are using anything from Office 98, 2001 on OS 9 to v.X on, well X. It's the standard and there's no way around it.

I need to know if StarOffice is/will be fully compatable with MS Office. Does it do a good job with Excel spreadsheets? Also, and here's the biggie, does StarOffice have an answer to Power Point? Many of my presentations and notes provided by other professors come in the Power Point format.

If StarOffice can't handle this stuff and handle it near-flawlessly, I can't consider it an option. I can barely afford giving $200 to MS, but I absolutely cannot afford the possibility of screwing up a class paper because I'm using some off-brand Office wannabe.

[sheepguy42]

Originally posted by SCARECROW

Why should they offer this for free... Apple is a COMPANY damnit!!! They need to make money on this... and we should all have to pay full price for it, because it is the right thing to do, and is what Apple wants us to do!

Just because Apple wants us to do something (esp. pay them $$) does not mean we should. As you so clearly state, Apple is a company, and I say that any company lends itself to at least a little doubt. I will pay an appropriate amount for a good product - NOT because the company wants me too, or because it's supposedly "the right thing to do," but because I am a consumer in a (supposed to be) capitalist state.

I believe a better argument for Apple charging money for Appleworks is this: Appleworks is a productivity app, designed for you to get work done. The i-Apps seem to be geared toward organizing and managing your digital life, and are all free; apps life Final Cut Pro, AppleWorks, DVD Studio Pro etc.. seem to be geared toward getting work done, and they all cost money.

[Koelling]

This will be great to have an alternative, however how is this going to be different than openoffice.org? They have a head start, they plan to go cocoa (verses java) and it will be free no matter what.

I guess I did read that the star office will have fonts and technologies which need to be licenced, hence the fee so if you need stuff for compatibility that would be a good choice at 20% the cost.

MS is not going to be happy

[chemistry_geek]

Read it here:

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0208/02.sun.php

It seems after all that a version of StarOffice/OpenOffice might make it to the Mac with the help of Apple and Sun. Sun denies that Apple is actively coding Star/OpenOffice for Mac OS X, but I think this may be a nice little surprise that Apple will pull out of their hat. If M$ discontinues development of Mac Office v. X, Apple will probably have an OpenOffice varient ready to take its place. This is really great because OpenOffice is open source, just like Darwin, Apple gets it cheap, and Sun gets to push its technology through open source, and we get an office app that works reasonably well.