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Summary: StarOffice 6.0: Inexpensive, Efficient and User Friendly
Review: This program is easy to install, easy to use and is backed up by a great support staff at Sun. I was able to adapt my PowerPoint and Excel programs seamlessly into StarOffice 6.0. The book that comes with the software is very well written to get you off to a fast start. The software can be used as a single user or for an office staff where each logs onto a server. The StarOffice 6.0 Office Suite Companion text book (by Haugland & Jones) can be purchased together, with the Suite, to round out your office for less than $100! A great buy.
Rating:
Summary: Not a bargain!
Review: This is being sold in Staples and other retailers for the same price. The difference is while you have to pay state sales tax, no shipping and you can take it home the same day!
Rating: 
Summary: if your budget is really tight only...
Review: I didn't have the opportunity to try the actual commercial Star Office 6.0, but have both SO 5.2 and current Open Office (used versions 0.6.x-1.0.1.x), which should be fairly similar to the SO 6.0 - these programs are inferior products when compared to Microsoft OfficeXP. I used SO and OO under SuSE and Redhat, as well as under Win2k/XP - the experience is like to compare Coach (SO-OO) vs. Business Class (OfficeXP), you get the idea ....I noticed that many reviewers are recommending SO as "sufficient" alternate product to "expensive" MS-Office; this is really not right, because even home users deserve to have the work done with minimum effort, instead to fight quirks of OO & SO, which is inferior even to the old Office97/2000; I would personally use it only under Linux environment, and even there I would rather give a closer look to CrossOver Office implementation - the work with OO/SO is sluggish, buggy and with ugly surprises every once a while (encountered the following issues: formatting, font handling, file saving / file imports, installation/removal issues).
Rating:
Summary: Absolutlely Fabulous!!!!
Review: If you are looking for an Office Suite, but don't want to give into Microsoft's ridiculous restrictions, THIS IS THE PROGRAM TO GET!!!! I bought this mainly to help me when I have to bring my work home, and I found so many wonderful things included with it that I never imagined I would need or use. The Spreadsheet program, StarCalc, is exactly like Excell (even has the auto calc feature. The PowerPoint program, Impress, is just like its name says, impressive. It comes with a 450 page manual, which is very easy to follow, and although it is massive, it is necessary in order to describe everything included.
The absolute best feature about this program is its compatibility to Microsoft programs. It will automatically convert any MS Office files you have loaded, and make them equally as readable. For this I have two words : AutoPilot. Thats the feature which makes it all possible.
And obviously, you cannot beat the price anywhere. And you can even load it on more than one of your PCs without any licensing hassles, unlike you know who.
Bottom line, if you want a reasonable Office Suite that does everything MS does and more, this is the one to get. And yes, it will work on XP. No problem there.
Rating: 
Summary: Basic Office compatibility & good features
Review: Star Office is a bargain (especially if you consider that the license permits install on up to 5 PC's.) For a home or small office / home office user, it may be all you need. If you have to exchange complex or highly formatted documents with MS Office frequently, you may be less satisfied, but that's a function of your environment and no reflection on what is clearly a good product. What you get are a word processor, spreadsheet, presenation program, and a graphics program. The programs have basic to intermediate compatiblity with their MS Office counterparts -- if you're using advanced features in Word or Excel, you will find minor glitches here and there but if you are doing routine documents you'll be ok. You don't get an Outlook counterpart, although if you're using Linux, Ximian Evolution is a perfect way to fill than "hole". Top level menus in the Star Office applications are nearly identical to the Office counterparts, but as you go deeper into the menus looking for features, experienced Word and Excel users will find themselves a bit disoriented at times. Star Office features clipart and some other features not in Open Office (with which is shares a common origin). I'm not one of the MS haters, but clearly competition is good, and Star Office is well on its way to being a contender...
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Summary: Stay away!
Review: I purchased StarOffice 6.0 hoping to save some money; the fact that I wouldn't have to patronize Microsoft was a bonus. Alas, I have had nothing but troubles with this program. I create and work with numerous text documents daily in my job, and there were always problems converting StarOffice docs to Word docs and vice versa. Formatting would be changed or lost virtually every time. Track Changes wouldn't stick. Worst of all, twice my StarOffice documents simply ceased to exist. They disappeared for no reason and couldn't be retrieved (believe me, I tried); the second time the same document disappeared from both my hard drive and my floppy within minutes. I really wanted to like this product . . . now I'm buying Word 2002.
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Summary: Star Office rocks!
Review: Star Office is a great program that works as good, if not better than Microsoft Office. It is very powerful and I would recomend it over Office any day!
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Summary: Works like a dream on Windows XP
Review: Before buying StarOffice I read a couple of reviews saying that users had a problem installing and using StarOffice on Windows XP. I took a chance and bought it anyway. I installed it, have been using it for a few weeks now, and haven't had a single problem from day one. StarOffice has been able to open all my MS Office files just fine, and vice versa, if you save in office formats. I enjoy the ease of use as well as the amount of control you have over all the features, something that is harder to acheive in Office XP, even after two years of using it. The Draw Function in StarOffice can handle most of the projects you would use MS Visio for, as well as complex 2D and 3D graphics creation. Over all I would reccommend this product over an expensive MS Office upgrade any day of the week. My one caveat is the manual. I have to assume that it was translated from German (much of the code that went into StarOffice was written in Germany) and the grammar in the manual makes it nearly impossible to understand what the writer was trying to say. However, the online help is clear and useful, so you don't need to worry.
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Summary: Excellent Office Suite
Review: I find Star Office 6.0 to be exactly what we need. I am responsible for all purchasing of hard and software for a small business named Gean Overseas, Inc. Recently, we were faced with the decision to upgrade our Office suite. All of the machines in the office were over 5 years old, and many were starting to fail. As such, we were also faced with OS upgrades. Knowing that I do not have time to retrain the office to a new OS and that certain applications like Quickbooks are not available for alternative OSes, we had to stick with MS Windows. Since our office suites relied on OEM hardware manufacturer bundles, we were faced with expensive licensing fees to achieve the same level of productivity. We did not go with prebuilt machines this time because of maintenance concerns (we were tired of having to fix broken and malfunctioning prebuilt units). StarOffice6 really saved our bacon. It offeres all of the office functionality we really need at less than a third of the cost of similar office suites. For all machines that did not need access to our databasese, we even went with OpenOffice.org. Sun Microsystems is now one of my favourite companies. They saved us more than a thousand US dollars. That may not seem like very much to someone in a large corporation, but to us it is a significant one time savings that seems to predict a much less expensive upgrade path for our future.
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Summary: OpenOffice, anyone?
Review: Why pay for this when the free open source equivalent known as OpenOffice(backed by the same people) is available for download? I've had it up and running for months hassle free along with Xmian Evolution(the free Outlook clone).
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