StarOffice Zealot? I think not!

I went to Sun's website to learn more about StarOffice 7.0. First, it took me a bit of time to find the StarOffice entry page, Sun runs there website like the only users that come to their site are sysadmins looking for server info. Just for kicks, go to sun.com and see if you notice StarOffice on their home page and then go to Microsoft.com. I think this says something about Suns true intentions toward the desktop productivity market.

So I finally found a document called "What's New in StarOffice 7.0.? Notice some of the GREAT new features of version 7.0:

• Document close: After the user has closed the last document, the application keeps running without having a document open.

Wild, you can now close a document and the StarOffice application will stay open. What will they think of next? Oh, they have more, read on:

• Updated setup and splash screens: The splash screen now has a progress bar representing the progress made during StarOffice setup.

• Indents for sections: To improve MS Office import capabilities, sections in StarOffice can also have indents on the left and right.

After my review, I?ve decided to stay with Microsoft Office, being that Microsoft Office had this functionality about 10 years ago.

I hope you can see the subtle sarcasm. I?m convinced that an executive who decides to standardize on StarOffice is not interested in improved productivity for his employees, he simply does not understand the return on user productivity at an organizational level and thinks he is saving a buck or two.

Prediction: migration to StarOffice is shortsighted and most organizations that do migrate will switch back once they realize that the cost was the only benefit and that wasn't even true. So to them, I'd like to say 'welcome back'.... before they even leave...