Free for all (Sun StarOffice 5.2)

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Product:	Sun StarOffice 5.2
Date:	05/07/00 (116 review reads)
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Advantages: Free, powerful, viable alternative. Compact.

Disadvantages: You won't necessarily be compatible with everyone else.

The recent aquisition of Star Office by Sun has lead to the product becoming free to everybody who wants it (which it was before), without registration (which it wasn't). A completely integrated office suite for free? It can't be any good, can it? Well, yes, it can, and yes, it is.

If you are used to using Microsoft Office, opening one application for each task, and accessign everything from the desktop or Start menu, then then Sun's suite is going to come as a shock. Firstly, it completely captures your screen and replaces the start menu with its own version. Secondly, everything is done inside one program - the same window is used for spreadsheets as is for word processing and databases.

This has several advantages over the Microsoft way of doing things. Integration is now an actuality rather than a slogan, and there are no more cross program editing nightmares.

All the programs are incredibly powerful for a free software suite. Certainly, only developers or very complex users could need more features then the Word Processor provides. Download it now.

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