Of greater concern is the limited support for macros and VBA programming within and between documents. Therefore, many document templates or applications intertwined with Office will need reworking (e.g., vertical office templates such as legal templates linked to case and matter management systems, document workflow applications). In addition, handling embedded objects (e.g., an Excel chart embedded in a PowerPoint slide) can be problematic.

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We expect minor incompatibilities to be an ongoing problem and may in fact increase during the next few years as Microsoft works to expand the collaboration features of MS Office. Given that more than 85 percent of businesses are likely to stay on MS Office through 2010, exchanging documents externally would be problematic for StarOffice organizations (as current SmartSuite and Corel Office users have discovered). Furthermore, we believe that going forward, knowledge worker productivity boosts will require integration with collaboration tools (document exchange rather than creation); therefore, StarOffice's lack of integration with an e-mail client or teamware product (e.g., SharePoint Team Services) will hamper long-term productivity gains.

Vision
Our biggest concern is Sun's lack of a strong strategic vision for StarOffice. Sun openly acknowledges that it purchased StarOffice primarily as a way to reduce its own reliance on Microsoft software, and marketing it seemed to be almost an afterthought. At this point, the road map is unclear, focused primarily on minor enhancements and basic administrative tools rather than extending the product. Furthermore Sun does not have a business model attached to StarOffice which would encourage investment by either Sun or third parties. A serious risk exists that Sun will at some point decide to cut its losses and withdraw from supporting the product, turning it over to the open-source community or otherwise spinning it off. This is particularly true given Sun's questionable track record in the end-user space (e.g., Communicator, JavaStation).

StarOffice is best suited for closed environments not needing any significant interchange of documents with others using MS Office. This includes small organizations without a large legacy of Office documents and limited need to exchange documents with outside clients. Even then, they should also investigate Corel Office because Corel has a stronger history of end-user software support and is committed to remaining in the end-user software business. Many organizations have considered rolling out StarOffice for a specific group of non-knowledge workers who do not require all of Office's functionality. Although this process can be workable, it will also raise support costs (by requiring staff to support multiple platforms), complicate image management, require additional user training, and could result in limitations on application delivery to those users. Organizations must also check with third-party software suppliers to ensure that there are not MS-Office-specific dependencies with vertical applications. Customers should also re-examine StarOffice at future inflection points (e.g., release of new versions of MS Office or StarOffice).

For most organizations looking to reduce Office licensing costs, the best approach is to more closely match the version of the product (e.g., not buying Office Professional for all end users) to the users' needs. Companies should also plan to upgrade less frequently, because every second release of Office is likely to be often enough. Even with the recent licensing changes, this approach can still save significant licensing costs.

Business impact:

Corporations must always look beyond upfront costs when examining possible ways to reduce costs in the end-user computing environment or risk serious operational costs or functional impairments that will harm overall corporate productivity.

Bottom line:

StarOffice provides an alternative for small organizations or some self-contained business units within larger corporations requiring only basic office automation without collaboration. However, for the vast majority of corporate users, remaining on Office, even older versions, would be preferable.

StarOffice: Sun's Shining Star?
First published September 10, 2002
By Steve Kleynhans

Is your company using StarOffice 6.0? TalkBack below or e-mail us with your thoughts.

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