The Computing Infrastructure Support (CIS) Department is sponsoring an evaluation of Star Office, an office productivity suite that runs on multiple operating systems, including Solaris, Microsoft Windows, and Linux. Star Office is provided by Sun Microsystems and is based on the code base of the open source product, Open Office. (Star Office version 6.0 is based on Open Office 1.0.)

LBNL has a site license for Star Office (this is the fee-version of the software that Lab users will get for free). Star Office 6.0 has significantly better font support than Open Office 1.0, which some users may already have tried.

An informal steering committee has been created. It includes John Staples (AFRD), Joyce Cordell (ASD/EETD), Mark Rosenberg (CIS), Gayle Peuser(CIS/Mac/PC Support), Greg Kurtzer (CIS/Mac/PC Support), Cindy Tiburcio (CIS/Help Desk), and Charlie Verboom (CIS)

The goals of the evaluation are to:

1. Determine how useful Star Office can be for the UNIX/Linux Community at LBNL.
   
2. Determine how interoperable Star Office can be with Microsoft Office on Windows and Mac platforms (for the purposes of exchanging scientific and administrative documents, spreadsheets, and presentations).

If you are interested in trying the software and interacting with other Lab users who have similar interests, join the mail list.

The Star Office evaluation page also has a link to the CIS download page where the software can be acquired for testing. References to Internet resources that might help in our understanding of the software will also be posted, along with lessons learned.