Hi,
Star office may be the alternative for all and any who are looking for not spending too much on software but at same time want to use some automation software. the star office suite has a word processor, Work sheet, A database and a ppt tool.
The base functionality the word processor can be matched to that of Office but it does lack some most commonly used features like Indexing, word art etc. Also it might be a bit difficult in the intial stage for a person using ms office to migrate to star office. But once you get used to it it is fairly normal. Once good part of star office is that it crashes rarely. The utility is also fast to load.
Worksheet I would rank the work sheet of star office much below excel becasue it restricts the activity that u can do on a worksheet it has just the basic function and does not lets u do complex activities
PPT tool. This tool is quite good and and can stand at par with Microsoft PPT. Only navigation and slide sorting is a problem but once u are used to it it will not be a issue.
Database... I have not used it so cannot comment any thing
Overall I recommend that any one who does not want to spend too much money on software or donot want to get held up in the issue of software piracy I recommend you go for star office. I doesnot have all features of Ms Office but this is free and you could still do all your work still free. Ofcourse if u are ready to pay 18000 Rs u can go in for MS office