Star Office an alternative to MS Office?

Is Sun Star Office catching up with enterprises as an alternative to MS Office? Market estimates show that during the last financial year, Sun Microsystems has sold over 20,000 copies of Star Office to enterprises. On the other hand, Microsoft sold around 1,20,000 copies of MS Office in the last fiscal.

Meanwhile Sun Microsystems, which was giving away Star Office 5.2 version for free, has begun to charge for Star Office version 6 from last year. “Earlier version or Star Office 5.2 was available for free and we didn’t offer any service or training for the buyers,” KP Unnikrishnan, country manager marketing, Sun Microsystems said. “But today it is not like that. We are offering training about the product, conducting workshops, providing 24X7 customer service and we would assist customers with regard to Star Office in all aspects, if he requires,” he added.

According to industry estimates, around 25,000 copies of Star Office 5.2 version were distributed in India. Currently Sun Microsystems is charging Rs. 4,600 per copy of Star Office. If we compare with MS Office (the cost of MS Office is around Rs. 12,420 for standard version), an enterprise can save up to Rs. 7,820. Last November, Sun Microsystems got an order for 10 thousand copies of Star Office from United India Insurance. “It took six months to close the deal”, Unnikrishnan said.

One of the reasons that Star Office is picking up is that banks and call centres are looking at Star Office as a major cost saver for their business. For instance, ICICI call centre uses Star Office for log reports.

Meanwhile, higher ups continue to use MS Office. Similarly, HDFC Bank uses Star Office mostly barring few systems, where MS Office is being used. National Fertilizers is putting Star Office on all its new systems even as old systems continue to operate on MS Office.

“Now enterprises are looking Star Office as a cost saver. Also Star Office provides compatibility with regard to other applications. So when enterprise plans for huge installations, they are planning to go with Star Office”, Unnikrishnan said.

Earlier it was only MS Office, but companies are now trying out Star Office as well. So it is a mix of Star Office and MS Office in some of the enterprises. Probably in the coming days, we might see that Star Office acceptance might go up with the Indian corporates.

Source: ZDNet India