StarOffice

A multi-platform office package released for OS/2, Microsoft Windows (16 bit and 32 bit), Macintosh, Sun Solaris and Linux introduced in 1995. Developed by the German company StarDivision that had been developing office application software since 1984, and had been offering some sort of office bundles on the English speaking markets since 1988 and as such in fact predate the Microsoft Office package.

The package later became the basis for OpenOffice.

Applications

 * StarWriter - Word processor
 * StarCalc - Spreadsheet
 * StarDraw - Drawing program
 * StarChart - Charting application
 * StarSchedule – Personal information manager
 * StarMail – E-Mail client
 * StarDiscussion – USENET client
 * StarImage – Image editor
 * Web browser – Web browser
 * StarBase - Database front end.
 * Optional
 * ADABAS D - Database engine.
 * StarSchedule Server – PIM severer & synch.

Versions
This product package for Windows 3.1 consists of StarWriter compact, StarBase and StarDraw.
 * Bundles
 * 1992: StarOffice
 * 1993: Office Pack 2.0
 * Office suite
 * 1995: StarOffice 3.0
 * 1996: StarOffice 3.1
 * 1997: StarOffice 4.0
 * 1998: StarOffice 5.0
 * 1999: StarOffice 5.1
 * 1999: Sun StarOffice 5.1a (last update: 109258-02 (2002))
 * 2000: Sun StarOffice 5.2
 * 2002: Sun StarOffice 6.0 (OpenOffice.org 1.0)
 * 2004: Sun StarOffice 7.0 (OpenOffice.org 1.1)
 * 2006: Sun StarOffice 8 (OpenOffice.org 2.0)
 * 2008: Sun StarOffice 9 (OpenOffice.org 3.0)

The system is relatively bug free but there are a few setup issues. The most common complaint is that the last version of StarOffice (the Sun branded one) installs correctly but fails to start after reboot with an unrecoverable error message, and will not run after that. The issue is actually simple to fix, when the installer creates a program object it does not specify a working directory, simply open up the properties notebook for the StarOffice program and copy the folder from the "Path and file name" section to the "Working directory" section, minus the program name, i.e. if it is "C:\OFFICE51\SOFFICE.EXE" then the working directory should be "C:\OFFICE51".
 * Known issues

This and a few other minor setup niggles made a lot of people believe the last release of SO 5.1 was buggy and reverted back to one of the StarDivision releases of SO 5.1 or stopped using it altogether. Actually the Sun release incorporates all known fixes and is fairly rock solid, what seems to have happened is that someone in Sun's USA office did the final packaging of all the releases and that person was simply unfamiliar with OS/2.

Publications

 * Reviews
 * Volker Weber: Büroelefanten: Corel Office 7, SmartSuite 97, MS Office 97, StarOffice 4.0 - from c't magazin 1997-05-12

Licence
Discontinued commercial software

Publisher

 * StarDivision
 * Sun Microsystems