As the Mac gets more and more market share, it gets more and more updated software and new big name titles. It also reaps the benefit of more open source solutions being developed for it. One of these is a strong competitor to Microsoft Office.

For a long time now Windows users have had the benefit of Sun Microsystem’s Star Office suite. Up until now it was not available in a native Mac application. The suspense is finally over - Star Office 9 is out in beta and it running native for the Mac now.

If you have been looking for a viable alternative to Microsoft Office and didn’t like NeoOffice or Open Office, Star Office might be the solution for you. It offers a word processing program, spreadsheets, presentation software, a calendar plug in for Thunderbird to make it more like Outlook in functionality, and database, drawing and HTML editing programs as well. It is a full featured suite of software written in traditional open source fashion.

What’s New in StarOffice 9

* Read, edit, and save PDF files

* Import your Microsoft Office 2007 OOXML files

* Writer: Improved notes, zoom slider, and support for large monitors

* Calc: Solver feature, improved charting, and collaboration capabilities

The free beta is available until August 17th, with the final release coming later in Fall. It requires Mac OS X 10.4.x or later and 500MB of hard drive space. It also requires a 1024×768 display. there is no word yet on whether the software is a memory hog or suffers from memory bleed like other open source programs sometimes do.

You can grab the beta on the Sun Microsystems site here. You can also grab beta extensions for the installation that extend the functionality of the programs here.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 10:16 pm under Microsoft.  Print This Post

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