Interview: What Will StarOffice 6 be?

[Warren Togami]

http://consultingtimes.com/staroffice.html
Interview: What Will StarOffice 6 be?

Consulting Times interviews Iyer Venkatesan, the StarOffice product manager
at Sun Microsystems.

A few quotes:
CT: When you talk about licensing -- if they're interested in moving over to
Linux -- you're talking about not just the cost of Microsoft Office but that
of the underlying operating system itself?

Venkatesan: Right. And if they are moving to Linux, we are bundled with all
the leading Linux distributions. So if you buy a copy of Red Hat or Caldera,
you get StarOffice with it.

CT: So how would you sum up the benefits for an individual user or
enterprise, thinking of moving from Microsoft Office or WordPerfect Office
to StarOffice?

Venkatesan: You've got value, because you're getting a lot at a really good
price -- $40 retail price, or a no-charge download. So instead of spending
$500, you spend $40. That's four or five hundred dollars you're saving, you
now can put into your core activity. Because of the budget and the economy,
that's becoming very important. A lot of organizations only want to spend on
something that's either going to increase their top line or decrease their
expense line. In that sense, the savings is very key there.  Obviously,
you've got benefits of compatibility, because you'll be able to read and
save Microsoft Office files. So you won't be shut off at all. If you have
StarOffice, you'll be able to read those files that you get from an e-mail.

CT: Do you have a projected release date for StarOffice 6?

Venkatesan: Yes. The first quarter of 2002. We say it's the "first pass",
because we may release some of the languages separately.