Star Division Corp. is allowing non-commercial users to download StarOffice 5.0 Personal Edition, an office productivity suite that
runs on Windows 95, 98 and NT, Solaris, Linux, OS/2 and Java.
The suite provides a powerful and extensive set of applications, including word
processing, spreadsheet, graphic design, presentations, database front-end,
HTML editor, mail/news reader, event/task scheduler, charting and formula
editor. The vendor plans to attract 10 million new users over the next year.
Recently, Star Division and Sun Microsystems have formed an alliance to
bring the StarOffice suite to the education market worldwide. So far, 600
universities and 25,000 K-12 schools around the world are using or evaluating
it. The vendor offers a special StarOffice Campus License that allows
institutions to deploy the suite on all platforms throughout the campus–both
educational and administrative–for $995 per year including support and
enhancements.
Other deals currently being offered include the StarOffice 5.0 Personal
Edition Deluxe, that comes on CD-ROM with the manuals, user guide,
technical support, and a collection of Web graphics and 250 fonts, for $39.95.
For commercial users, StarOffice 5.0 Professional Edition is priced at $169,
while a Small Business License for five users costs $499.
StarOffice 5.0 is said to provide seamless and easy interoperability with
Microsoft Office products up to Microsoft Office 2000. Its interface will be
familiar to existing users of Microsoft Office, says the vendor, allowing them to
be productive immediately.