Why it's hard not to try StarOffice

Considering that 80 percent of the people who use office suites use them for 20 percent of their features, StarOffice is the functional equivalent of Microsoft Office (as well as WordPerfect Office and Lotus SmartSuite) for most of us.

"You get what you pay for," Microsoft often said when StarOffice was free. But that's also the problem, according to a lot of ZDNet readers. No one wants to pay extra for bloat. So, the burning question of the day is: At $76, is StarOffice really worth considering?

IT'S HARD not to. At last count, over 70 percent of the 3,500 respondents to our online survey agreed that an alternative suite was worth considering. Could StarOffice end up being the same thorn in MS Office's side that AMD has been in Intel's?

A better question is, why pay $76 when you can download the free open-source equivalent from OpenOffice.org? According to Sun's general manager for desktop and office productivity Mike Rogers, the code base for OpenOffice and StarOffice are synchronized daily. "The main differences between the two," says Rogers, "is that OpenOffice must be distributed with open-source substitutes for technology that we had to license for inclusion with StarOffice." Examples of this are the database software, some fonts, the dictionary and grammar software, and the filters for opening WordPerfect files.

More importantly, and relevant to business users, is that dial-up support is not available for OpenOffice. Anyone who decides to go with the free option has no choice but to go online at OpenOffice.org to get support--an option that may not sit well with businesses. If the code bases truly are in synch, another option might be to buy one copy of StarOffice (that gets your foot in the door with Sun's support organization), and set up the rest of your company with OpenOffice. Sorry, Scott [Sun CEO McNealy].

BEYOND A COMPELLING entry cost, businesses typically look at the total cost of ownership (TCO). This includes support, training, ongoing upgrade costs, and, in the case of a potential rip-and-replace like this (swapping StarOffice for MS Office), the price of converting.

According to Rogers, StarOffice ships with one free support incident that expires in 60 days. If you're having a problem with StarOffice, you have 60 days from the date of purchase to call Sun's 800 number, thereby avoiding Sun's $25-per-incident fee. The retail version of Microsoft Office ships with two free incidents and unlimited support for getting the product installed. Beyond that, it's $35 per incident. If it's a non-retail version (if you're an IT professional with a site license, for example), the cost of getting telephone support from Microsoft climbs dramatically to $245 per incident.

There are options to reduce the cost, such as buying a "six-pack" of non-telephone online support in advance or getting support from a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for as little as $25 per incident. Between human and online support, there are myriad options from both companies for different types of buyers.

The best advice I can offer you is to study support options closely when comparing the TCO of these products. Sun seems to have a slight, perhaps negligible edge from a cost perspective. However, Microsoft has been at the productivity software support game for so long that the quality and maturity of its support offerings are probably top-notch.

VIDEO CLIPS

Part one: ZDNet correspondent Melissa Francis looks at how StarOffice could be an integral part of Sun's Web services plan. CLICK HERE to launch player

Part two: ZDNet correspondent Melissa Francis reports on Sun's daring challenge to Microsoft in the office suite arena. CLICK HERE to launch player