What is available?

Microsoft

Proprietary software that you will pay a lot of money for: Microsoft Office. I have used MS Office for years on my Windows desktop. There are plenty of good reasons to use it: it's slick, it performs well, it looks good, it has useful features, many of my colleagues use it and we can easily share documents, etc. But why would I want to purchase expensive software when I can get a good alternative for free, or for less?

Sun

Sun bought the Star Office package and continues to develop it. Get Star Office 5.2 for free at the Star Office web page. Star Office runs on Linux, Windows and Solaris operating systems. I found compatibility with MS Office documents good in version 5.2, but it isn't perfect.

Open Office

Open Office is another viable alternative. It runs on Windows and Linux operating systems, so users can download the program and install it on their machines. In fact, the original Open Office code (program) was provided by the Star Office project.

Differences between Star Office and Open Office

"Those things which are or will be present in StarOffice but are not available on OpenOffice.org include:
- Certain fonts (including, especially, Asian language fonts)
- The database component (Adabas D)
- Some templates
- Extensive Clip Art Gallery
- Some sorting functionality (Asian versions)
- Certain file filters
For more information on the current features of OpenOffice.org, please see the "Features" page."
FAQ page at openoffice.org">

You will probably have to pay for the new Star Office

The new version of Star Office, Star Office 6, may not be available for free: take a look at this article (it's machine translated by Google into English - try the original here if you understand German).
Slashdot has a detailed discussion around all three of these packages, but especially Open Office and Star Office.

Political reasons to use non-Microsoft products

I do not advocate that all Microsoft products are bad, or even worse than Linux/Unix. Personally, I feel that many of their software packages are excellent. Just because my preference is Linux does not automatically disqualify other systems - I think that would stupid and narrow-minded. However, I do object to Microsoft's history of non-regard for personal privacy. I do object to their commitment to obliterating competition offering excellent, free (or cheaper) software that will ease fiscal hardship for NGO's and educational institutions. I do object to their 'funding' policies which donate software that will soon need upgrading - at a big, Microsoft price - as hardware and software become upgraded and change.

Further, I find it interesting that certain open-source projects like Star Office and Open Office make their software cross-platform (you can use it on Windows or Linux). Microsoft is hardly flexible. They are committed to eliminating Linux as a market threat. They have sophisticated sales strategies in place to compete with Linux (our organisation received a copy of their package). But of course, that's another story - if you are interested in Microsoft's "evil empire" activities, you can take a look here.

Final comments to prospective Star Office/ Open Office users:

For the above reasons, I feel inclined to use Star Office or Open Office. For the added bonus of functionality and the promise from dedicated development teams of better and better programs as the software projects evolve, I will happily install them. Be warned, though, that the download time is large. The files are big.

Of course, these packages are not as slick and well-developed as MS Office - yet. They are new projects and I hope you choose to support them by using their software.