Will 6.0 Shine for Sun?

For long, Sun has flaunted the ‘free’ status of StarOffice as its

commitment to freeware. But with the pricing of StarOffice 6.0, Sun Microsystems

stepped away from its traditional stance and stepped into Microsoft’s turf.

The million-dollar question is–will StarOffice 6.0 able to make inroads into

the office suite market dominated by Microsoft?

In India, 6.0 is priced at Rs 4,300 per license, including support services.

Sun claims its decision to price the office suite was made after due

deliberation. "Our decision to price the software is a commitment from our

side to stand by the product. It also shows we are really serious about the

kinds of support, training and special service options that people expect. If

one has to deliver these services to a mass customer base, it is not possible to

deliver them free of cost. And also, giving away a product free, brings down the

perceived value of the product," says KP Unnikrishnan, country head for

marketing, Sun Microsystems India. StarOffice has always been distributed free

ever since its acquisition by Sun from Star Division in 1999. Even though

StarOffice may not be available free of cost any more, it is still considerably

cheaper than Microsoft’s XP.

Why enterprises may consider 6.0 Cost savings Disgruntlement over Microsoft’s Assurance programs Small organizations using pirated software may be tempted to go for legitimate software at a cheaper price Why people might still consider using MS suites, and not 6.0 Awareness of features of StarOffice is low The strength of the Microsoft brand

Industry analysts are not sure whether the pricing would affect the

marketshare of StarOffice or that of Microsoft’s Office. MS says the response

to its latest suite, XP, has been in keeping with the "seven million copies

of XP sold internationally within a fortnight of the launch". It has also

claimed that about 12 million XP licenses have been purchased in the Asia

Pacific region. Though no official figures are available, it is estimated that

Microsoft’s office suites hold about 85% of the market. But is a comparatively

low cost enough to persuade users and enterprises to migrate from MS Office to

Star Office?

"It is bound to change but not by much. The key accelerator or inhibitor

for acceptance of any office suite is not only price but also features. The

awareness about the full features of StarOffice is very low, as a result of

which adoption levels are still low despite its pricing. On the other hand, its

acceptance at the organizational level may increase as the pressure from Nasscom

on pirated software increases, organizations will seriously consider going in

for StarOffice," says V Shekhar Avasthy, assistant manager for

software/services research, IDC (India). An advantage in favor of StarOffice–a

general perception Microsoft’s Assurance licensing program being expensive.

End-users around the world have voiced their concerns about Microsoft’s

"arm twisting" tactics and this could force them to explore cheaper

alternatives.

Officials at Sun are gung-ho about the prospects of achieving a target of

2,00,000 installations of StarOffice within a next year. "We have pushed

about 30,000 CDs of StarOffice 5.2 into the market and have also have installed

bases in large enterprises like IDBI and JK group. In the last one and a half

months, after the launch of StarOffice 6.0 we have installed about 400 seats. We

are talking to the Karnataka government for use of StarOffice in 300 state

schools," adds Unnikrishnan. But despite the initial optimism, Sun has an

uphill task at hand if it has any plans of loosening Microsoft’s almost

monopolistic hold on this market segment.

TEAM DQ

Features of Star Office 6.0

n StarOffice 6.0 consists of

StarOffice Writer (word processing), StarOffice Calc (spreadsheet), StarOffice

Impress (presentation), StarOffice Draw (business graphics), and StarOffice Base

(database) which are standard capabilities on Microsoft office suites.

n Notably missing is an

alternative to Microsoft Outlook that offers email and personal information

management (PIM) capabilities. Also missing is a Web building tool, like

Microsoft FrontPage

n A standard installation of

StarOffice 6.0 requires serious disk demands 215 MB, while the minimum install

needs 130 MB; Microsoft Office’s default install, by comparison, requires a

minimum of 210 MB.