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Microsoft agrees OpenOffice and MS Office have basically the same features

microsoft.com — Microsoft defines StarOffice/OpenOffice to have "substantially the same features and functionality" as MS Office. The same goes for Wine, OpenXchange and Mono and their MS counterparts. So who wants to argue OSS to be inferior if even Microsoft can't see any significant difference?

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  • oencke, on 10/10/2007, -16/+9I forgot to mention the above programs are all defined as clone products and thus are excluded from Microsofts patent covenant offered to Linspire customers.
    • Reziarfg, on 10/10/2007, -2/+24What exactly is wine a cloned product OF? I understand that open office is the equivalent of MS Office. But, wine is a windows API emulator, there's no windows version of a windows API emulator. That's a bit redundant.
      • turpenine, on 10/10/2007, -15/+1umm yes there is. the thing for mac that lets you run windows. they don't make it anymore though since intel came out.
        • M4cb0y, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10Virtual PC wasn't for Windows it was for OS X.. Plus, that was an emulator, not a clone of wine. (Wine stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator)
          • Reziarfg, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12While Wine isn't an emulator in the sense of hardware emulation(which is why they coined that acronym) they do emulate the windows API. The reason, as I understand it, for them going by "Wine Is Not an Emulator" is because people were confusing them for the laggy hardware emulators like VMWare. But since all Wine does is emulate the windows API and uses your native hardware, it runs everything at native speeds.
            This is how I understand it. Correct me if I am wrong.
          • Directrix1, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2They are reimplementing the Windows APIs, not emulating them.
          • init100, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4@Reziarfg

            "people were confusing them for the laggy hardware emulators like VMWare."

            Which shows that you don't know what you are talking about. VMware isn't an emulator, it is a virtual machine manager. If the host is idle, the guest will run at close to native speed (*close* as the virtualization has some overhead, especially on non-VT-capable processors).
      • xaeon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5"...or (b) implements all or substantially all of the Application Programming Interfaces of the Prior Product."

        I would assume that Wine implements a substantial amount of the Windows APIs, making it a cloned product of Windows.
  • MavRevMatt, on 10/10/2007, -17/+4How long did it take them?
  • theonlyvlad, on 10/10/2007, -16/+196Meh, a BMW and a Moskvich have basically the same features... wheels, engine, steering.... somehow one is marginally better than the other though
    • quomen, on 10/10/2007, -5/+37WTF IS A MOSKVICH.
    • soupir, on 10/10/2007, -3/+6And yet speaking of margins, what's with OpenOffice Writer's default .75 margins? Changing that default, I can assure you, isn't easy.
      • benplaut, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Open up writer.
        Change the margins.
        Open up the template manager, and save the current document as a template.
        Set the new template as the default.

        I put my template inside my FAT partition, so OOo on both windows and linux can adapt to changes. Works like a charm.
      • HonoredMule, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7That's pretty obtuse. One generally doesn't expect to essentially write a new config file (further obfuscated by labeling it as a template) to change a single "default" setting. In fact, I would expect to change the one setting under a "program defaults -> formatting/layout" section and be done with it.
        • emptyother, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Lemme guess... Your the kind of person who manually sets all your font-size to bold and size 26 to make headers in your document?
          Templates isnt "settings". It is a way of making all documents of the same type look alike. If you set your margin-setting to something different. Then when another person are going to write a document when you are done, they have to set the margins back where it belong to make their document match the documents they made before. And god knows what it was then... 0.74? .78? Nah, still doesnt look entirely the same.
          It is easier to use a template. They want 0.75 margins. You want 0.25 margins. You can then make your own template instead of messing with theirs.

          It is a word-processor. For business-use mainly. If you just want a program who makes pretty text, go back to Wordpad.
        • natenovs, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2let me paraphrase emptyother: "the way you want to do something is wrong and you suck. in order to use free software, you must do things exactly like i do."

          you're retarded.
        • HonoredMule, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Let ME guess....you like making sweeping and unsubstantiated assumptions. If I wanted to change my default HEADER settings, I would do so. Templates are a functional implementation of grouped DOCUMENT settings, and the group of program defaults that affect the document layout CAN be stored as a template...that's fine, although you still need somewhere to store display settings, toolbars, etc. But it's conceptually a totally different thing, and the software shouldn't be forcing users to directly deal with implementation issues, while failing to provide a straightforward path to achieving THEIR end goals...changing the way the PROGRAM works by default. Who without conditioning from previous experience is going to assume they have to mess with templates to alter their default environment? That's just not what templates are for, from a basic usability perspective. Templates are a standardized format for a specific class of document, and a starting point for writing new ones of that class. When I want to write such a standardized/jump-started document, I'll pick a template. 90% of the time, even in a business environment, simply choosing classes of local formatting (header classes, quick layout selections, columns, etc.) works perfectly for spitting out a proper, professional document. I assure you, many competent people are perfectly capable of writing a document without always needing to turn it into form-filling game. You should take some time to meet some of them (or at least someone who can teach you to communicate your thoughts without revealing your inner jackass).

          "Templates isnt "settings". It is a way of making all documents of the same type look alike." (And what "type" of document is an empty page I haven't even started typing in? The default environment I want presented to me on startup shouldn't even qualify as a document, so why should I have to know it's controlled by an already in-place template I didn't go out of my way to pick?)

          "If you set your margin-setting to something different. Then when another person are going to write a document..." (I dunno, maybe they'll run the program from within their user account, and it'll apply THEIR defaults? Or just maybe you work in an environment that requires standardized documentation down to anal details, and so both you and they will have to start their document writing by picking an appropriate standardized template provided by the company...thus making defaults irrelevant for any "official" documents that will be shared. Maybe you'd even like to "Apply this template to my default environment settings" but you're still conceptually trying to apply settings to your program, NOT to a document, which is why it's stupid to call those settings a template.)
        • emptyother, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Quote: "to communicate your thoughts without revealing your inner jackass". Did i really sound like a jackass? :( Sorry if you felt that way. Really. I just really tried to talk about facts i have learned about word-processors after working in the local government witk ICT for a couple of years. Hmm.. Might be my not to good english skills who are making me sound rude? If so, i really dont mean to be.

          Quote: "requires standardized documentation down to anal details". Thats whom the word-processors are really made for. Not for common "i want to write a document and want it to look good" people.

          Quote: "Who without conditioning from previous experience is going to assume they have to mess with templates to alter their default environment?" Margins have nothing to do with your program enviroment. Every setting which has to do with the formatting of a document, should stay in the document (or in the template of the document). Every setting which have something to do with your program enviroment should be in the program's preferences.

          Why? Let say you open your document in another word-processor (which also opens odt documents). If the margins was set in the program preferences, it would not follow the document, and you would end up with the wrong design on your document. And you would have to set the margins yourself, and god know if you remember exactly what it was.

          Quote: "I assure you, many competent people are perfectly capable of writing a document without always needing to turn it into form-filling game." Yes, they probably are. And thats why Wordpad exist.
      • stalefries, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Actually, the default margins are .79 inches. If you do a simple calculation (or google it), you'll find that .79 inches is equal to 2 centimeters.
    • stockjones, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7Great analogy
    • daftman, on 10/10/2007, -3/+6define "marginally better"
      For some product, the perception of "better" basically boils down to branding, nothing further.
      Unlike cars, people use software to get the job done, not because of Paris Hilton says so.
      • numberwang, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6I see your point, but MSOffice really is streaks ahead of OpenOffice.org in terms of interface. It just looks and feels easier to use.
        I'm not biased by the way, I use MSOffice on my Windows install and OO.org on my Ubuntu.
        • theaceoffire, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1^_^ I am biased.

          O.o I only use OO.o now... ^_^ What can I say? It works for me.
        • abandonedhero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2While I love OpenOffice and use it on the machines that I don't have an Office license for, I really think that Office 2007 has it beat as far as UI - hands down. That's sad to me, because I'd love for someday to be able to rely only on OpenOffice, and have it be as beautiful as Office 2007 is right now.
        • init100, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1@abandonedhero

          "I'd love for someday to be able to rely only on OpenOffice, and have it be as beautiful as Office 2007 is right now."

          Well, you can forget to do that legally in the US for the next 20 years. The ribbon is patented, and Microsoft won't issue a license to software that competes with theirs.
    • FutureGuy, on 10/10/2007, -4/+1haha, not to mentioned "its a clone", copied, stolen, done by folks with zilch self respect.
      • Novagenesis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Because you know, Microsoft Word was the first text editor
    • deadbaby, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Fantastic analogy. You just explained why OpenOffice (and Linux) will ultimately gain market share. As nice as a BMW might be most people go with the practical lower cost car that is completely functional and reliable.
    • 3adkied, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1I completely agree. Now when Microsoft admits that both of these cars should be able drive on the same roads (by adopting standard document formats), we'll be able to choose if one is worth the added cost to us.
  • crackah, on 10/10/2007, -24/+115Yeah, okay.. but i like office 07, its really good and would pick it any day over open office.
    • newstart, on 10/10/2007, -7/+34Yes I must say. Office 07 is really good. Dont refute it without trying it
      • jpdcarmaniac, on 10/10/2007, -8/+8I also agree. It's got a great looking and easy to use interface.
        • Directrix1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4And since you're locked into their format, you couldn't change even if you wanted to. Personally, I think its just a matter of time before open standards based office software exceeds MS Office (in my opinion it already does). And until then it is not a problem for me in particular. It already does everything I need it to do very simply.
      • jimbo100, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0I did like it until it forced me to type in the code i got with the computer and it blocked EVERYTHING on it.

        I can't even type on Word
        • EXreaction, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1So you liked it until you had to activate/register it?

          What, the whole 10 seconds that took? :rolleyes:
    • azzageddi, on 10/10/2007, -7/+16I look forward to trying it, but only if it comes with a new computer or if it's put on my office PC by my company. Why spend hundreds of dollars when there's OpenOffice, which I'm used to and enjoy using?
    • alamandrax, on 10/10/2007, -6/+10I would have bought Office 2007 too if I could afford it, or felt like I could blow the $300+ I was saving up to buy the iPhone 2G but am satisfied with Open Office for now.

      It's buggy as hell though and crashes quite repeatedly; for example, when navigating through notes (comments in ms office) in a Document or editing slides in a Presentation file or complex formulae in a Sheet. The essential bones are there, but the bells and whistles in office 2007 are missing in OO.org. It needs to be a little more stable.

      I have been bullying my parents into using OpenOffice for all their work, and it's worked so far, but they still insist that OpenOffice sucks and that they can always get a pirated copy of Office '07 from a huge pool of sources. This, I believe to be true, what with living in India and all.
      • EXreaction, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2You ever think that using pirated versions is the reason your's is unstable?

        I have used Office 07 plenty of times and have had no crashing.
        • gildude, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Which is irrelevant since he said that Open Office is unstable.
      • cronot, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Here, I can say anecdotes too:

        I can't say about Office '07 (haven't used it enough), but I had far more problems with instability with previous versions of MSOffice than I had with OO.org. The thing would crash for no reason at all, right in the middle of typing a document on Word (for example). Thankfully, it was able to recover most of the work, usually I just lost a few minutes of work. That happened a dozen times during a week using MS Office XP - I think I've never reached a dozen crashes on OO.org while I've used it for the last 2 years.
    • HUKI365, on 10/10/2007, -9/+4Agreed. Open Office is dead to me until they implement a ribbon. Menu's? Gaah! Can't stand 'em anymore.
      • MatttK, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I couldn't ever stand menus in Word. I actually use features now that I knew I was missing out on all along.
        • sys9five, on 10/10/2007, -4/+1You haven't tried Word 2007 have you...
        • specialK16, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2What the hell, no more level replies?

          2sys9five: That's what MattK is saying. Since the ribbon, he now is using features he didn't use because he didn't want to find his way through
    • Spr0k3t, on 10/10/2007, -4/+10I have to support Office07... to me, it's a pain. I've had to use the ribbon for months and just can't stand it. If OOo ever receives the option of a ribbon interface, I hope it's only available through a plugin.
    • jdhore1, on 10/10/2007, -5/+8I've played with Office 2K7 at home and it has much improved, but i can't stand that horrible ribbon and the fact that it saves as .docx which as far as i've seen is ONLY compatible with O2K7 and without O2K7, there's no way to convert it to .doc or have any other app read/write to it for free.
      • Freddfx, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4but you can just SAVE to .doc
        Why would you save to .docx then convert it to .doc?
      • anoriega, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8Ever heard of Save AS?
      • localzuk, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6The ribbon is the best bit!!
      • abandonedhero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Also, there's a compatibility plugin you can add to Office 2003. It converts docx to doc on opening the file.
      • jdhore1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1@Freddfx and anoriega - I shouldn't have to Save As just to have it work with O2K3 and older and any other Word processing app. Personally, i think Office going to the new formats was the stupidest move they ever made.
        @localzuk - What the hell are you smoking and can i have some?
        • gildude, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1you don't - if your office 2000, office 2002 (xp) or Office 2003 are up to date they can use the new format too. Only people who don't apply PATCHES would be unable to use the new format in Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003.
      • cquinnd, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Then click on the Office Button, go to Word Options, and in the Save section you can customize what format Word 2007 will save to by default.
    • Zettabyte, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13The price, is like grand for Office 2007 (student $75) and OOo is free. I highly doubt that most people here who has Microsoft Office, paid for the license fee.
      • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Bought the Enterprise edition for $100, myself, since I'm technically still a student... Apart from never using Word (InCopy ftw!!), it's very well-spent money, imo.
      • MioTheGreat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Well, I have the free copy from the Power of Together promo, plus by school bought a school-wide license....
        • neuropsychguy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3That was one of the greatest promos ever. Free Office and free Vista.
        • EXreaction, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Agreed. I got Vista Business for free from it.

          But I didn't go for both, because you needed to give them your SS# for tax reasons if you got both, and I wasn't 100% sure it was legit. Wish I would have now. :(
      • jeff4379, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Come on dude, hyperbole? Office Pro upgrade is only $300, christ, the full version is only $450!
      • kiddcode, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Ya I got mine free at an MS promo, but I really like it. To me, its the biggest upgrade in office (I can actually find and easily use the new features!) since the Windows 95 days. Don't knock the ribbon until you try it.
    • boxbox10, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Office 07 for me too. one thing i cant find an alternative in OO is the Get External Data feature with automatic refresh and stuff in excel. I can't use a spreadsheet program without that feature. Maybe i'm looking at the wrong direction. IF OO has that feature, can anyone let me know? otherwise, i have to say OO is essentially the same as office.
    • posure, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Office 2007 = best UI ever made.
    • lastdeadmouse, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1If you hate freedom.
    • theblacknight, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Since there isn't a way for me to try it on any of my machines without forking out money (I would need to buy Windows, unless their demo works on Linux or Mac OS X, which I doubt), I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that it's not worth $300-700 to me since OpenOffice and NeoOffice and TextEdit and TeXShop do everything I need. Add to that the fact that I can bring OpenOffice everywhere with me on my USB key, and it's actually easier for me to guarantee I can read my .odt files than .docx files if I were running Microsoft Office 2007. Add to this the fact that MS Office no longer reads WordPerfect files like OpenOffice does and I would have to spend a lot of time and money to transition to Microsoft Office 2007.

      Think of it this way: someone whose time is worth $100/hour should only buy it if it's going to save them 3-7 hours. If you're time isn't this valuable, then it would need to save you even more time to be worth it. So far my only experience with Office 2007 has been trying to help someone get their data out of a .docx file which was anything but a time-saver. Any learning curve to get used to the new GUI and forced file conversions would add further to time (=money) spent.
  • Waterrat, on 10/10/2007, -27/+35 It's Open Office for me.
  • macbwizard, on 10/10/2007, -11/+2If only the Mac BU would get around to writing the mac version of Office 07...
    • NeoRicen, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9They are, it's called Office 2008 and it's coming out later this year.
  • NeoRicen, on 10/10/2007, -33/+108Open Office sucks balls, it's Ok as a free program but it's ugly, unintuitive and looks about as good as Office 97. I'll take Office 07 over Open Office any day.
    • azzageddi, on 10/10/2007, -7/+17To each his own, but I have used OpenOffice so long that, with a few caveats, I prefer it to the versions of MS Office I've used. That said, I haven't tried Office 07 yet.
      • millerbrad, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6OpenOffice is fairly decent on its own. I tried using it when I worked at a company that used WordPerfect et al. Unfortunately, it didn't play well with files other people had created with MS Office. And files made with OpenOffice often were borked when opened in MS Office.
        • Scruffydan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4thats the kicker, and why I still use MS office
    • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -5/+4I don't see a use for either program. WYSIWYG editing is cumbersome and impractical for large documents. Although FrameMaker is okay, but it's $900. If there were better XML:FO utilities and libraries or a simpler replacement for XML:FO that didn't require you to conform for three dozen different open standards, maybe things like DocBook might be a little nicer. LaTeX is still the most functional, but it's also the hardest to learn. but once you learn it, you can be extremely effective using it.
      • specialK16, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7*stares deeply at the screen wondering what the ***** did OrangeTide just said*
      • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1DocBook is most certainly wonderful... if you can find decent tools to work with it which is still silly hard. Going from there to just about any other format is easily covered by a metric ton of programs, but the actual editing itself is still so-so... well, unless you're a sucker for good old "I write my own XML in emacs" procedures, like some of us are ;)

        The main problem I see with LaTeX is partly one of tools (although things like LyX and Kile make things easier) but mostly one of utter addon insanity -- you can quite easily make it do *kind of* what you want with the right includes and some basic redefenitions, but to get the same level of precision as in a modern DTP is just too cumbersome to be worth it, timewise, especially if when your wants and needs start to conflict with those of the addon developers... Well, unless you have some poor interns to cook up a class template for you ;) It is still unbeaten in the world of math formulae, though, so it's probably going to stick around a little longer.
        • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Well XML:FO supports MathML which is good (but unpopular) for representing formulae. And one day you might be able to cut and paste from Maple to your document app and have it insert handsome MathML into your document without you even having to know about it.

          So far I feel that bad designs like MS Word are blocking the industry from moving forward and using something better. Most users don't realize that Word is the hard way to write a document.
    • silenceHR, on 10/10/2007, -6/+9ohhh ... it's shiny ... that makes is so much better .....
      i really don't see what MS Office has to offer that you can't find in OO.org ... specially for day to day use ....
      thing that made me use OO.org only was simple PDF export when it was PITA to do it in MS
      • MatttK, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15This mindset is why OO isn't a real contender. Shiny = good. A good user interface is very important to the average user. Not everybody likes to type their essays and reports in vim.
        • daftman, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7May be for those who spend 1 hour on the layout of the essay and 1 minute on the content itself then sure, Office is really great.
          Professional reports are done in LaTex, not Office or OO.
          • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Depends -- that is assuming you have a good template to work from. If you don't, you can quite easily spend just as much (or more) time trying to get the layout to work in LaTeX as you would in Word.

            ...then again, once you had that layout nailed down, it *would* *not* *change* (after all, that's the whole point of LaTeX -- it worries about the layout so you don't have to), whereas Word (even in '07) could at any time arbitrarily decide to change your layout because it somehow gets the idea that what you *really* mean isn't what you're actually doing.
          • mcmlxxii, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1This is so true - I used to work in the print industry doing short runs of books so we got the self-publishers rolling up at the door with a .doc on CD. By god it was a howling dog to typeset correctly before printing to postscript. In some cases the book would be in excess of 15 pages longer / shorter which is fine until you realise they've already written a static index and contents page.
      • specialK16, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14My sister has been using Excel 07 for some months now. Yesterday I was using OO, and she needed to do something quickly in Excel, I told her to use OO. She went crazy looking for stuff. Office 2007 is not just shiny, it has really intuitive user interface.
        • pfranz, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6I'm not saying you're wrong, but intuitive and familiar are two different things.
        • WATYF, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3"Intuitive" mostly for people who've never used Office before and don't know computers very well. For many people with lots of experience in Office (and the typical Menu/Toolbar interface that's been around since the beginning of time), the ribbon is hell on earth.
          • jdhore1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I agree...The first time i used O2K7, i was looking around like a maniac for a lot of stuff i couldn't find and after about 15 minutes (more like 2 days cuz i was lazy, but i didn't use it in those 2 days) i uninstalled it and went back to good old Office 2K3
        • r3zonance, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4"I'm not saying you're wrong, but intuitive and familiar are two different things."

          Office 07 ribbon isn't that familiar to users of previous versions of Office, it is however shiny (as already pointed out) and very intuitive. And I normally hate Office, they've just really grouped core functionality together well.
      • MioTheGreat, on 10/10/2007, -3/+6Yes. It is Shiny. An intuitive interface can be very helpful in easily finding the features you need in a word processor.

        Open Office basically copies what Microsoft came up with over a decade ago. No doubt hundreds of usability studies have been done, and today we have the ribbon. It's a vastly superior interface for a word processor, and there's no denying that.
      • Kazbaeden, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5It is better as highlighted by the following example -- Changing page orientation to landscape:

        Open Office: Format -> Page Format -> Page -> Orientation -> Landscape
        Office 2007: Page Layout -> Orientation -> Landscape

        As illustrated, an often used and important function of the editor isn't burried under layers of windows. Important functions are brought to the foreground, making the editor easy to use thereby enabling increased productivity.
    • mcmlxxii, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I know OSS is good but I couldn't get it to suck my balls. Has someone written a macro?
    • m00nmaster, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Fortunately, ugly Office '97 was/is all most people need.
    • lastdeadmouse, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Oh, you forgot it actually works better WITH Office '97 than Office '07. Oh, and Office 2000, and XP, and '03, haha.
    • inveigle, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0opinion aside why bother listing ugly as a negative of OO and then saying it looks like office 97. Subtracting 1 from each side of an equation doesn't change the equation.
  • Lane, on 10/10/2007, -17/+10open office: for the frugal and moral, why their must be 100's of customers!
  • dysfunct, on 10/10/2007, -16/+31Plus one major difference is Outlook - OO.o doesn't even have an email client, while Outlook is one of the biggest reasons Office is so widespread in the workplace.
    • chowmeined, on 10/10/2007, -3/+13There is an open source enterprise level e-mail client called Evolution. It just isn't packaged with OpenOffice.
    • kahlessreborn, on 10/10/2007, -3/+13WHich is what thunderbird is for :)
      • dysfunct, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Yeah, I know. And I did actually use Thunderbird for a while, but the functionality in Outlook is better. Maybe bc we use Exchange.
    • Herostratus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Outlook is the worst e-mail client anyone has heard of
      • cquinnd, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1No, that was Outlook *Express*. I was not fond of versions of Outlook prior to 2007, but I could still find them semi-usable.
        Outlook 2007 is the first version I can actually use on a regular basis without cringing.
    • theblacknight, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Outlook is also one of the biggest reasons viruses have been so widespread.

      Also, you are forgetting that OpenOffice is free. If it cost $300 you could expect it to come with an e-mail client.
  • tnatharik, on 10/10/2007, -11/+5Wow it took them so long to realise that.
  • coheedcollapse, on 10/10/2007, -4/+37As long as I continue getting the Office suite for free through my school, I'm sticking with MS Office. As much of a benefit as OpenOffice is for people without the funds or means to get Microsoft Office, and as much of a cool project the whole thing is, I've found OpenOffice to be more difficult, less pretty, and oddly enough, more of a computer hog (memory and processor...although I haven't really done any strict testing so that could be due to other things).
    • bieber, on 10/10/2007, -5/+9No, it is slower. It's because the whole damn thing is written in Java. Basically the only thing that I really hate about OO
      • generalloy, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10It's not written in Java. You can disable the Java run time environment in fact, in Preferences, which are basically the database program (Basic), the Media Player, and wizards.

        Openoffice's cross-platform interface toolkit is written in C.
      • koreth, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Where on earth did you get that crazy idea? There are a few optional Java components but they aren't needed for any of the core functionality most people use.

        Go browse the source for yourself and look. http://sw.openoffice.org/source/browse/sw/sw/source/core/text/ is one place to start (some library code for the word processor). Browse around from there. You will see a lot of .cxx files but you'll have to hunt around to find any Java.
        • zoom1928, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1sun.com says it is written in Java. Are you calling them liars? Provide some proof.

          If it isn't Java, then why is it so slow? Loading my 1,200 page book and doing a search takes almost seven minutes on my laptop. Doing the same with WordPerfect for Windows (I started the book a long time ago) takes less than 30 seconds.
          • smthop3, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1You do realize that koreth just gave you a link to OpenOffice's source code right? And in that you'll find a bunch of .cxx and .hxx files which are written in C++ so if the actual source isn't proof enough for you then nothing is. Also, just because something is written in Java doesn't mean it's slow. The opposite also applies to that, just because something isn't written in Java doesn't mean it's going to be fast.
    • daza, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11MS are great how they offer MS Office to students for free or really cheaply. They offered all university students in Australia Office 2007 Ultimate (lifetime license) for $75. Or, buy it for one year at $25 and extend it to a full license for an extra $50. Hard to hate on them for that.
      • coheedcollapse, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Yeah they are pretty good with students. A fully licensed version of MS Office at any Indiana University school or branch is totally free and a full non-limited copy of Vista Ultimate (of the 32 or 64 bit flavors) is $20.
        • Scruffydan, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4just wait until u graduate and you are locked in to MS products... for ever!!!
          • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5How do you think MS and Adobe got their marketshare?
            1. Don't worry about casual piracy -- once people need it as professional tools, they'll pay.
            2. Hand it out like candy to kids -- once they get old and need it as professional tools, they'll pay.
            3. Make sure companies that use the software as professional tools pay.
            K-bam! Instant market lock-in.
          • natenovs, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0ok scruffydan. i'm not sure how i can get locked into an MS product .... for ever! i have a brain, i can use it. i could use whatever software i want. it just happens, i enjoy using office for my office needs. quit insulting my intelligence.
        • coheedcollapse, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Hehe, nah I dual boot Ubuntu on both my laptop and my desktop. Like to keep it rounded out over here.
      • snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Students have a high-probabiity of entering senior managment positions as deciders of policy and choosers of software ;)
        A shrewd move by Microsoft - they've probably employed a few crack dealers in their marketing division

        BTW Maybe the RIAA and Co. could likewise learn a few things and employ a few crack dealers to help the music industry sort it's collective act out (instead of actually taking the crack?)
  • anteyekon4myst, on 10/10/2007, -19/+2Open Office is like a woman with a penis...think about it.
    • kerplunk, on 10/10/2007, -4/+3w t f
    • coheedcollapse, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7It's hot until you get it's pants off?
      • coheedcollapse, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7wtf. That ' snuck in when I wasn't looking. Sorry for the grammar mistake before someone yells at me.
    • venom8599, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Best of both worlds?
    • MSweerts, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1I think the correct term is dickgirl.
    • sourwood, on 10/10/2007, -5/+1What's wrong with a woman with a penis?
      • MSweerts, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0It's all good, if you like that you should use it by all means.
        Futanari is popular, and has a certain ring to it...
    • D4r7h3v1l, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3It's fighting to be accepted in the mainstream, but not everybody is able to adjust because women without penises/MS office are/is more attractive?
    • snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5It leaves the toilet seat in the "up" position??? :O
    • bhavinp, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0You can go to downtown and find one for really cheap but they might come with a one too many extra features.
  • aydoubleyou, on 10/10/2007, -15/+2I prefer Google's apps.
    • kretik, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8Yeah, other than not being able to save anything bigger than 512KB, not being even close to WordPad or GNUCash in functionality and having to trust your data to an increasingly aggressive publicly-owned corporation, they rock.
      • tdous, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2They're not aggressive are they?! What? A successful company?! They should stop all that stuff they do right now and move over to selling natural yoghurt from a stall made from the recycled bones of consenting vegetarians whilst hugging each other with massive, beaming smiles and watching the money float away, secure in the knowledge that they were never aggressively competitive, because that's automatically bad and all successful companies should be automatically targetted for criticism, as soon as they stop delivering free pretty flowers to every child on the first Sunday of each month because they're too big and evil and big. Ooooh. Nasty big companies. *shakes fist*
    • soupir, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9Clearly, you do not write many important documents.
      • snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Importance has no relevance to the essential quality, size or complexity of a document

        Some of the most "important" documents I've ever written have been less than 1 page long!
  • WiseWeasel, on 10/10/2007, -6/+27I love Open Office and all, but MS Office is still quite a bit more polished. There's been some great progress, but Open Office still has a couple years to go before I'd consider it as a full replacement, at the current development rate. Nothing comes close to touching Excel's awesomeness. If you try to use the spreadsheet module of OO.org for any serious work, you will RUN back to Excel with your tail between your legs. I think MS has been complacent and misguided as much as the next geek, but Office is still #1.
  • mikehrp, on 10/10/2007, -7/+28Open Office is good for people who can't afford MS Office or can't find a good crack for it.
  • Niomi, on 10/10/2007, -4/+28Okay, I support Open Office but this is just lame.
  • consonance, on 10/10/2007, -0/+22I've read some good arguments in the past against Microsoft, but this one is just stupid. Microsoft here is pointing out products that are derivative of Microsoft products, and that explanation is extrapolated as an admission that competing products are equivalent to those made by Microsoft. This bogus piece should have never made it to the front page.
  • cdmarcus, on 10/10/2007, -5/+15OpenOffice, feature-wise, is actually quite comparable to MS Office. However, OpenOffice's slow performance and dreadful UI really ruin it for me. For an example of its terrible UI design, just go to the Options dialog. They consistently misus GUI widgets, and the organization of the dialog is terrible. AbiWord is fast and has a great UI, but isn't powerful enough, although I do recommend it to anyone who doesn't need the more advanced features that OpenOffice provides.
  • anteyekon4myst, on 10/10/2007, -16/+3I really just wanted to see how people react to totally absurd comments. BTW, through induction

    If OpenOffice = Woman With Penis,
    and MSOffice = Open Office

    Then, most people using them still dont care.
    • daftman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4That's not induction you moron, it's deduction.
  • turok64, on 10/10/2007, -5/+13you joking? ive been using open office 2.0 the last year for grad school. its terrible!
    • bnolsen, on 10/10/2007, -3/+0Why haven't you switched over to using something like Lyx?
      Real power tools, especially for academic documents.
  • reticulate, on 10/10/2007, -6/+17Office 07 FTW. Outlook 07 is a reason to upgrade all by itself, not to mention the rest of the suite.

    This isn't to say OO isn't any good, it's just not really in the same league at the moment.
  • aarona, on 10/10/2007, -6/+21The first time I ever got a resume back from a prospective employer marked with "we can't read this - it's all garbled - please send in a different format" was the last time I ever used OpenOffice for anything official. Bought Office 07 the next day. I've gotta say, as someone who moonlights as a freelancer, I've gotten a lot of use out of Office 07 that I never saw in OpenOffice - especially with some of the neat new features inside of Excel. For maintaining compatibility and consistency, as a small (
    • deadbaby, on 10/10/2007, -9/+7They probably didn't want to hire someone who couldn't figure out how to set OpenOffice to save to Office formats. Good choice on their part.
      • reticulate, on 10/10/2007, -4/+11Yeah, except it doesn't always work, especially if you've done any funky formatting.

        But don't let me stop you feeling superior, please.
      • Sdiggmatism, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3They didn't want to hire someone that uses the space bar to line up text. That makes up a large percentage of the documents that OO won't import correctly.
      • Sdiggmatism, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0They didn't want to hire someone that uses the space bar to line up text. That makes up a large percentage of the documents that OO won't import correctly.
    • bieber, on 10/10/2007, -4/+12So, why didn't you just PDF it? I normally write my documents in LaTeX anyways, but no matter where they come from, any decent PDF reader can read a standard PDF
      • tdous, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7Hardly the point is it?
      • natenovs, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2a lot of places i've applied to have asked for .doc files. this bothers me, not because the formatting could be mangled, but because my document is editable. they should be asking for pdfs or xps everytime
    • quarkie, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13.doc is not a format to send text documents in, neither is .odt.

      .pdf - now that is a format for document interchange.

      Are they going to edit your resume and send it back to you? Do you have macros that have cool features to your resume? No? Then use pdf.
      • pfranz, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7I completely, 100% agree with you, but just today I saw a posting saying 'resume attachments as .doc format only.' I wish this was less common.
      • snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7I'd agree but... unfortunately... DOC has been a de-facto document interchange standard out there in the "real world" for some years now.

        Like many, I've laboured long and hard to encourage PDF use even if only for the security/virus issues - but have to accept I'm banging my head against a wall. (Kinda hurts after already doing it to Cradle of Filth already!).
    • Sewende, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8Export the thing as a PDF.

      There, problem solved.
      • snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Ever tried getting some intellectually-challenged employee at the other end of an email link who does not have Acrobat installed to open the file??? Adobe for one could stop their marketing twits from moving the reader link around and burying it under layers of advertising to encourage visitors to buy the "professional" version. Still I guess they have to make a dollar :(

        It would be better if there was a really good open source PDF reader to replace Acrobat which had a static URL, which was well-known, idiot-proof to install (even by blonde company secretaries struggling to follow directions on the other end of a phone line), and unaffected by demonically-possessed marketing trolls. I'm sure Bill Hicks' advice for those in marketing was best.

        Of course, none of this is to mention constant "versionitis" which Acrobat suffers from - making whether an emailed PDF will open or not on a client's PC even more of a gamble.

        Sigh - oh the pain!
    • snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Crumbs, if I were doing the interviewing and selection you'd have failed at the first fence for not backing up with paper copy and including an accurate description of the document format (with brief instruction on how to open/obtain software if it is not "industry standard") ;)

      Contra - A company which cannot open a document in a popular format when given clear information probably isn't one you want to work for - trust me!
    • mooninite, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4This looks like Microsoft spam. Notice how his comment cuts off at the end. MS has digg bots.
  • danakin, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12Well, OO WAS designed and intended to be a clone of MSOffice...of course it will have the same features. MSOffice just has more polish behind their features.
  • BlackCow, on 10/10/2007, -8/+13Now I am all for open source but Open Office just sucks ass. The Linux community is full of great programmers but horrible artists who can't design intuitive user-interfaces for *****. They need to recruit some artists, maybe some Apple double agents secretly lol, even MS has better UI designers.
    • quarkie, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I wish OO had a good mac version. They are slowly making progress but I don't know when I am going to buy my new computer (I'm going to switch) as I want good software with it.
    • tdous, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9Please, not Apple designers. I could do with less mid-90s brushed steel effect thanks.
    • kasurila, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1Just as a general note: artists aren't really UI designers, although their field is closer to it than coders'.
  • Coy0te, on 10/10/2007, -7/+1let's be honest here, they're both free.... it's just a matter of what interface you prefer.
  • OrangeTide, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8I would read Microsoft's comments as saying that OpenOffice and Wine don't do anything new or innovative.
  • Screwy1138, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11nice try, but SharePoint, OCS, IRM

    The Office base products may be similar, but when it comes to the extended stuff that enterprises NEED, it's a whole different ball game.
  • jdhore1, on 10/10/2007, -6/+17I use OO, but i have one comment about it: Saying Java is good because it works on all OS's (and gives you a pretty standard GUI) is like saying anal sex is good because it works on all genders.
    • koreth, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9You are aware that almost all of OO is written in C++, right?
      • stockjones, on 10/10/2007, -5/+2C, C++ good, C# not bad, java bleh.
        • awesomeface, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2You have a typo...You meant to write "c# bad"
  • mrCdawg, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8i rock the free demo of ms2007 lol. But the biggest differnce imo is the spellcheck. spellcheck on OO isnt all that great. The UI could use an overhall as well.
  • mpancha, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13I love how "basically the same features" become "Microsoft can't see any significant differences".

    Further proof that the education system sucks.
  • CCmachined, on 10/10/2007, -6/+5if they're basically the same, why pay hundreds, making microsoft even richer?
    • PJBonoVox, on 10/10/2007, -4/+4Because Microsoft are wrong here. Microsoft Office is light-years ahead of the ***** that you call OpenOffice.
  • shavenlunatic, on 10/10/2007, -3/+2being a linux user and having tried both Openoffice.org and MSOffice.. I have to submit that MSOfffice is the way forward for me... the reason? Visual Basic...
    • mossblaser, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2VisualBasic killed my ability to learn computer programming - worst thing I ever did - brilliant to use and then you realize how crap it is compared to other languages and then how odd they all seem when instead of using functions you were using goto and other things like that that VB seems to teach people...
      • snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4A serious comment??? You mean BASIC (surely?) - GOTO ???? hahahahahaaha!! PMSL

        It sounds more like you never learned programming in the first place, maybe opened the VB manuals and thought "fok that for a game o' sojers".

        VB is a programming language not a university - it "teaches" people NOTHING - it provides the logical constructs for you to program according to your experience and knowledge. You should post some of your VB code on Digg - it would be good for a belly-laugh if you've managed to write your entire program with one single procedure shot full of enforced local-scope GOTOs lol

        You can also code assembler and C using gotos if you were masochistic (or dumb) enough in the case of "C". http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111571/manual.php?tid=12

        VB is good at what it offers and you can work wonders with it in a commercial environment under pressure and with tight-time and budgetary constraints and a selfish Manager shouting down your neck - but like any tool (even a RAD language) you do need to learn how to use it properly.

        Personally I prefer C/C++ if time and money is not an issue ;)
        • Tippis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1All good assembler is a finely tuned abuse of GOTO... ;)

          Personally, I was more of a GOSUB guy back in the BASIC days, but it *did* make it a bit harder to fill the screen with "hello world"...
      • shavenlunatic, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1er, if you used it, you should NEVER have to use a goto statement.. it's admittedly got some flaws but you seem to be confusing VBA with something else.. also, what else do you suggest to use which integrates into office software? nothing? and if you are confused and thinking of VB rather than VBA, VB has all the functions of VC and even compiles the same so it makes no real difference other than personal prefference and a few functions...
    • MioTheGreat, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2The .NET Programming you can do for Office is much better than that VBA crap.
      • shavenlunatic, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1that may be.. but paying for licences.... it's more cost efficient to just use VBA & Excel.. limitations aside, it is very useful
  • PJBonoVox, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5Microsoft might agree but unfortunately MS Office is a _significantly_ better product than OpenOffice and people will vote by getting out their wallets to prove it. OO will never make a real dent.
    • mossblaser, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Or rather people just haven't heard of it. For big (or in some cases even smaller businesses) then OpenOffice just doesn't cut it, but for people who write occasional letters on their computer OO is ideal. More than enough to do that and free! I think for people like this (and yes, there are lots of people out there that couldn't care less how good MS Word is at [insert feature that most never use here] but some people will never use it. On a technical stand point, MS Office is better but for those people who just don't need all the power, OO is much better, but chances are they just haven't heard of it.
  • dylon, on 10/10/2007, -5/+4Really the open office crowd should really realize that MS Office is the better product. If I'm allowed to smack one open office developer once a day for one annoyance, the open office team would have been hospitalized in ICU a year ago. Don't they ever do usability studies on their product? So please don't read to much into MS "admission" it just a marketing ploy, rather get the open office guys to improve the user interface. Admit it MS did a better a job on office than all the other office suites combined.
    • tugger, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2MS did a better job on office than all the other MS products combined.

      Thats no big compliment tho.
  • roxya, on 10/10/2007, -4/+6Funny, but seriously... Open Office is completely outclassed by Microsoft Office and always has been.
  • stakepie, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Did OpenOffice get its ideas from Microsoft Office?
  • chrismag1979, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Bet they're ready to sue Sun Microsystems
  • RockinRoel, on 10/10/2007, -3/+2OpenOffice Writer is junk.
    AbiWord FTW!
  • jordanlund, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3If Writer had a calendar wizard and Calc had a built in Text to Columns (yeah, I know, there's a plug in for that) then it would be close to perfect.
  • snowball69, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6In my long and tedious professional experience the most surprising conclusion is that the biggest majority of users could seriously do their day-to-day work with a copy of Wordpad.

    Excepting of course, the handful of pain-in-the ass (support-wise) power-users who have a tendency to do things the hard way every time and contribute very little to company profitability - like maybe the clueless company director's secretary I encountered who did every document *entirely* in tables because she hadn't got a clue how to use the TAB key or paragraph indenting!!! (seriously) No surprise MS Word "keeps crashing on me" when working on 100-page tables lol. (Caveat: Company Director's Secretaries - esp. blonde female ones are NEVER WRONG!).

    Much of the discussion is moot - given how few of the advanced features are genuinely used out there in the real world of earning one's livelihood.

    If you are in the support business make it your business to take note of just how many people could genuinely do what they need to do with nothing more than a copy of Notepad. You may be surprised and then realise just how the IT industry is driven on hype and marketing and how even us geeks tend to swallow it.
  • over9, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5Have you guys even seen the horrible kerning OpenOffice has?
    • PRlME, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Yes omg yes i got so mad i installed my old version of Quark just cause the Kerning pissed me off
  • tugger, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5I use Open Office, and have not yet needed a feature offered by MS Office, so whats the point of wasting $350..??

    Thats got to be the same for 90% of windows users.
    On the mac I can understand it more, there's not much can touch MS office... yet! Open office for the mac is just baaaad.
    • meshman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3*cough* Outlook *cough*
    • sp1keNARF, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I downloaded NeoOffice because I refuse to use a Microsoft product on my mac - even though it came with some sort of office 2004 or something. In any event, it's based on Open Office, and as someone who switched from windows, it's very easy to use. hasn't destroyed any documents yet either.
  • CopyNinja, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2In OO for windows i ran into real problems with aligning text columns.. very frustrating. Abiword was a big fan of crashing and even gave me a BSOD at one point.. which makes little sense i have a stress-tested system. At any rate, i found Bean to be a really nice free word-processor for OSX.
  • andrgo, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1Well, if they're going to acknowledge this, why not knock of $600 per product from their obviously-not-unique software?
  • Gatesophile, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I like both Open Office and Office 07. I can't decide between the two. So I have both, and didn't pay anything for either...
  • otbeverly, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Hmmm, I just bought MS Office Professional 2007 for $170 at the student discount .... I need to take advantage of that discount for other items since I graduated last May, ...maybe Adobe CS3 Premium for $500?
  • niallabrown, on 10/10/2007, -2/+0For the past few years I’ve been running Open Office and I’ve never looked back. It not only has everything I will ever need, I also don’t have to pay for licenses to get it on both of my macs and my PC. I mean, do people like dropping so much money every few years on Office for essentially the same programs? Personally I think people are just set in their ways. It may be different, and have a very small learning curve but it’s certainly not worse, especially with the train wreck Office 2007 is. Also with increased interest will come more developers and better features, UI and so it will continue to improve quickly.
  • SirBotchness, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Yea if you compare open office to office 2000.
  • RegalGSX, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Of course OpenOffice and MS Office have the same features, in the same way a Ford Ranger and a Mac Truck have the same features. They can both haul, but one is designed for heavier loads. The only people successfully using MS Office to its potential are large enterprises. Even small to medium-sized companies can make good use of OpenOffice. And, I like to eat my own boogers.
  • 3adkied, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1While it goes off the topic of the article a bit, I find it interesting that none of the comments I've read address the real issue that is currently being debated. Namely, no one is stating a preference for .doc(x) vs. .odf. Personally, I would greatly prefer having open standard document formats so we could freely choose software based on the software, and I haven't seen any comments from people that think otherwise. Why is MS afraid to adopt open standards? The comments would seem to indicate that most people would still willingly pay money for Office simply because they make a better product. They don't need to hold our documents hostage with their closed format.
    • gildude, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I don't have time to read a 6,000 page spec for OOXML or even the smaller one for ODF. However, it has been stated by Microsoft that they needed a format that could support more features than ODF supports (apparently the claim is that if they used ODF they would have to drop some of the features of Office since they can't map them to ODF standards). This does make a certain amount of sense since Open Office doesn't HAVE as many features as Office 2007. Now, they may have been able to hack them info ODF somehow, but that would still have screwed up the interop as opening the file in Open Office would have shown something different than opening them in Office 2007. It's better that they come up with a competing format that does support their features rather than jacking with ODF and crapping it up like they did with Kerberos when they added their SID support to it.
    • cquinnd, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter

      http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_to_Support_OpenDocument/1152166759
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