StarOffice 8 (normally about $70 from Sun Microsystems) is a recent addition to the Google Pack that already includes plenty of other free applications (like Norton Security Scan, Spyware Doctor, Picasa, Google Earth, Firefox, Google Photos Screensaver, Skype, Google Desktop, Google Talk, RealPlayer and Adobe Reader).
StarOffice 8 is a full-featured office suite that contains:
Word processor - StarOffice Writer:
Spreadsheet application - StarOffice Calc:
Presentation tool - StarOffice Impress:
Drawing application - StarOffice Draw:
Database - StarOffice Base:
Download process is pretty straightforward and requires no registration. Google allows you to select only the components you need:
StarOffice is based on Open Office but includes more proprietary features from Sun like:
• Better spell checker and thesaurus
• StarOffice-only templates and sample documents
• More clip art images
• More fonts
• Support for more word processing file formats
• Converter for converting Microsoft Office VBA-macros to StarBasic
Star Office is compatible with Microsoft Office and allows saving files as PDF. The only difference between the free Star Office from Google and the $70 version from Sun is that Sun's copy includes customer support and is capable of running on operating systems other than Windows.
Our verdict: a copy of full-featured Office for $0 is definitely worth checking out and offers good performance-to-price ratio.
I think you should of said OpenOffice is based on Staroffice
Once upon a time StarOffice was free, and they thought because it was free, people out there thought it was rubbish, like "anything free is junk" So Open Office was born from the StarOffice, and the price tag went on StarOffice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Overclocked
StarOffice is based on Open Office but includes more proprietary features from Sun like:
Free StarOffice 8 - Google Pack Review part 1 
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