-tictech message:
Just a few thoughts on selecting software...
Hasn't our district made a choice to go with MS? Is what you describe below
a situation which would lead us further away from standarization and
alignment? How would it affect e-mail?
Nicole
nwinard@seattleschools.org
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hand, Tony [mailto:tghand@seattleschools.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2002 10:14 PM
> To: 'tictech@learningspace.org'
> Subject: tictech: ** Open Office and Star Office - Wow **
>
>
> -tictech message:
>
> Dear Folks,
>
> Recent developments have brought into focus the desirability of using
> free software in place of our more usual proprietary programs
> when quality
> and usability permit.
>
> Of particular interest are the just-released, improved
> versions of Star
> Office by Sun Microsystems and Open Office by Sun and the Open Source
> Community. Star and Open Office support the Word, Excel and
> Power Point
> formats. Both products are offered for free to the education
> community and
> both are available for Windows and Linux. Open Office will soon be
> available for the MacOSX.
>
> For people familiar with Star Office 5.2, the new 6.0 version is much
> improved . The integrated look of Star Office 5.2 and its odd
> "beamer" navigation feature has been eliminated - although underlying
> modules are still all loaded and ready to run. The resulting
> product is
> much more like the office products with which we are all familiar.
>
> The possibility of retaining the ability to read and write in our
> current office formats without incurring the cost of
> purchasing proprietary
> software, could save schools quite a bit of money and free
> them from the
> shackles of one license for one machine.
>
> Here are a couple of pretty good reviews along with some screen shots:
>
> http://www.winplanet.com/winplanet/reviews/4196/1/
>
> http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1221
>
>
> Here are some testimonials in support of Star Office along with some
> information about the relationship between Star Office and
> Open Office.
>
> Zdnet
> May 20, 2002
> Considering that 80 percent of the people who use office
> suites use them
> for 20 percent of their features, StarOffice is the functional
> equivalent of Microsoft Office (as well as WordPerfect Office
> and Lotus
> SmartSuite) for most of us.
>
> Consulting Times:
> March 26, 2002
>
> One of the things that is least well understood -- is that this [Sun's
> involvement] isn't a one-time drop at OpenOffice.org. We're
> committed to
> the site and the synchronicity between future OpenOffice.org and
> StarOffice releases. Our developers develop directly into the
> OpenOffice.org code base. Then when we build StarOffice, we take that
> base from OpenOffice and add things to it. We are 100% in sync with
> OpenOffice.org and we'll stay so.
>
> The kinds of things that we cannot deliver to OpenOffice.org are file
> filters, fonts, some linguistic technology, and the database
> component,
> which is a third-party deal we have with Adabas.
>
>
> Zdnet
> May 15th, 2002
>
> We spent some time with StarOffice for both Windows and Linux
> recently,
> and came away impressed.
>
> Computerworld
> MAY 01, 2002
>
> SAN DIEGO -- End-user unrest over Microsoft Corp.'s
> enterprise licensing
> plan may prompt some companies to move from Microsoft Office suite to
> rival Sun Microsystems Inc.'s personal productivity suite, StarOffice,
> predicts Gartner Group Inc. Michael Silver, a Gartner
> analyst, said some
> firms are beginning to weigh the cost and licensing terms of
> Microsoft's
> Office against StarOffice's improving compatibility with
> Microsoft file
> formats and its expected lower pricing.
>
> =================================================
> Star Office
> http://store.sun.com/catalog/doc/BrowsePage.jhtml?cid=82799&parentId=
>
> Open Office
> http://openoffice.org
>
> Tony Hand <tghand@seattleschools.org>
>
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