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Open Office to Microsoft Office: Be Afraid
By Joseph Hunkins at June 05, 2008 3 CommentsAs my son and I were configuring a new laptop we were given the choice of a Microsoft Office Suite, or free Microsoft Works, or *nothing*. My son quickly chose the nothing, saying he likes Open Office better than MS Office, let alone Works. I was sympathetic to the idea that there’s really no longer much if any need to buy expensive - or even cheap - offline software.
I rarely even use offline software these days since so much of the work is done online using a Content Management System tool like WordPress, online email like gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail, online analytical software like as Google Analytics, or online productivity software like Zoho or Google Docs. As more users move online to do their work and use free tools like Open Office, Microsoft’s marketing department will have to work overtime but I don’t think any collapse is imminent. We are all very stubborn and this transition will happen gradually over many years.
A few weeks back Phil Wainwright was challenging Microsoft’s new approach suggesting that eventually their software can be funded by advertising, and I think he’s right about how difficult that will be, though it’s too early to suggest that no new advertising model may appear such as a form of micropayments to buy instances of Software as a Service.
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3 Comments
Full disclosure notice: I am a former Sun Microsystems employee, and used OpenOffice for many years, frequently along side MS Office.
A few months ago, I had to re-install Windows on my home PC. I didn’t bother to re-install Office and downloaded OpenOffice instead to see how long it would be before I had that “aw, nuts” moment of absolutely, positively needing M$ Office. In the meantime, I also bought a Linux Asus Eee PC as my standard portable machine.
So far, haven’t been tempted to install M$. Everything works fine with OpenOffice - even Powerpoint (which past experience tells me to expect to mess up).
I actually prefer OpenOffice Calc to Excel - just works better for most of the things I do.
OpenOffice seems to have grown up enough to be not only viable, but possibly superior.
I had a similar experience. I switched to a Mac Mini for my home computer, ’cause my old PC was, well, old. 1998 old.
Anyway, I’ve never felt the need to pay for MS-Office. OpenOffice meets my needs. When my XP-using wife needed to do a Powerpoint, I installed OO on her computer and had her use that. She put it on a thumb drive and played it on a Mac running Office.
That said, there are some problems with OO on my Mac — scrolling in Calc is a bit dicey — but overall it’s worked like a champ, and been less of a resource hog than MS-Office.
I agree. We recently upgraded computers, and rather than buy a new version of MS Office, opted for Open Office.
Now I’m sold. I’ve used Write and Calc extensively and some Impress, and find them easy to work with and handle doc xls and ppt/pps well from other sources.
I’ve used MS Office 2007 at work and find it harder to adjust to all of their new menu stuff than OO.
Count me Sold on OO! Be Afraid MS!