Just how good are alternative Office Suites? Some swear by them, others won't even take a glance at them. Reviews of software don't happen all that often, so a lot of times the only way to find out is to try it yourself. Newsforge has a review up of StarOffice's latest version 8.0, one of the most common alternative office suites. It's pretty in depth and you can read all about it now. Although the main focus points on StarOffice seem to be directed at why it is better than OpenOffice, it has a few things that many people in corporate environments need such as phone support. The linked article goes into detail about the new release, and highlights some of the new features such as the ability to import password-protected files from MS Office. All in all, as an alternative it's worth a look, and StarOffice has been pretty decent in the past.