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Microsoft says Open Office.org 10 years behind!

itwire.com.au — According to Microsoft, there are very good reasons for people to pay $500 or more for Microsoft Office as opposed to paying nothing for a copy of Open Office 2.0.

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  • Chris_F, on 10/12/2007, -46/+86Bull *****. I stopped using MS office, now I only use OpenOffice 2.0.
    • memphysema, on 10/12/2007, -31/+23Right on! The only creative thing thats come out of the office team in the last 10 years has been outlook
    • ScoTTeh, on 10/12/2007, -22/+36Actually they are probably close to right, ***** all has been added to Office since the 97 suite.
    • kabz, on 10/12/2007, -10/+23Yeah, it can hard to tell the difference between all the different versions of MS Office in use. Of course, having to more or less standardize on the Office 97 format has been what enabled OpenOffice to cooperate.

      There are a couple of things that can happen here:

      1. Everything can more or less keep going the same way it has for 10 years, and OO will gradually improve and gather user share.

      This is bad news for Microsoft, as erosion of Office will lead to an erosion of Windows. OO is pretty much already there for regular users, who, like me, probably don't use much more than the features of Word 2, basically fonts, headings, TOC, header/footer. (Think TEX style doc)

      or 2. Microsoft can start using some of the features in Vista / Office 12 / TPM to lever people into upgrading to Vista.

      I believe that they've already done this once, between Word 6.0 / Office 4.2 and Office 97, where there was limited interoperability which behaved remarkably like there was a counter that once it hit 5 it would trash your doc. I know it sounds paranoid, but it has the desired effect of forcing the company I worked at to ditch Word 6.0 ASAP and buy a crapload of Office 97 licenses.

      Hilariously enough, as I now own a Powerbook, this also rapidly accelerated an already in progress migration from horribly unstable Macs to the very marginally less unstable Windows 95.
    • mglmouser, on 10/12/2007, -20/+114I dont want to sound as if my only digg comments are negative towards to Linux community (displaimer: i'm a Mac user/developer), but I think MS is right.

      Last I checked, there still wasn't anything in OO that's comparable to Clippy.
    • sohmageek, on 10/12/2007, -58/+30@"Last I checked, there still wasn't anything in OO that's comparable to Clippy."

      who wants clippy in their office suite anyway?
    • Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -10/+14All new $500+ updates to Office has been "new theme, Frontpage bundled with every other release." Where's the innovation?

      Good job adding Base in OOo 2.0 to cover the lack of an Access clone. All Open Office needs now is a Publisher-like program to make fun stuff, and a Mac-only PIM program like Entourage... and they'll be all set.
    • Dradis, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17Same here, I switched a few months ago. I refuse to pay $500+ for a software suite that I can just get a free equivalent of.
      Critics of OO.org say it's slow.. maybe, but I'll take a little slowness to keep my cash in my wallet, ready for more deserving products than MS Office.
    • C00001, on 10/12/2007, -14/+18Really, though, who can live without Clippy on their desktop?
    • gmwatkins, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5Haven't used office of an incantation in quite some time.....go go LaTeX and ispell. However, if you want the GUI go for OO.
    • riah, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13$500 for clippy? Count me in!
    • EmileVictor, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4I don't think OOo really stands up to the microsoft office suite. For instance, their calc graphing functions are really confusing and rather unusable, the diagram functionality doesn't exist and numerous other little annoyances.

      THAT SAID, IT'S FREE. But it isn't comparable to the overpriced Microsoft suite.
    • iamsam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Maybe Microsoft Office has advantages. Maybe. But for my humble purposes OpenOffice is excellent. With every version it has gotten better and will continue to. I owe a great many thanks to the developers, great work fellas.
    • kherrick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Stink Digg! I was really into this threaded commenting, but it only goes one deep! Okay, anyway, you can use Draw or Writer as a Publisher replacement... I have several times... Two limitations though: When using Writer, it would be nicer to be able to draw stuff (layout is easily accomplished by using frames)... When using Draw, I can't seem to get word wrap going on. :-(
    • petiejoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You only use Open Office, and I only use Open Office at home, but that doesn't mean that this guy doesn't have a point. Take Excel for example. If you do any engineering work in the real world, you're bound to use a lot of Excel spreadsheets that couldn't possibly be made in Open Office (please correct me if I'm wrong, but Open Office does not seem to have the extensive macro capabilities that Excel does). That's not to say that you should buy Microsoft Office for what you do at home. You really don't need it to keep track of personal finances or write a letter or look at porn (or whatever it is that you do on your home computer).

      So- Microsoft Office if you need the features of Microsoft Office. Open Office if you need the features of Open Office.
    • brink668, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i totally agree with your point as theres really nothing you could compare here. Microsoft vs. Open Source!
      Think there are 2 different levels. and for microsoft to even say that i think is really bad, wonder why there behind. hmmm think think think....open source their not paying people there not making money. hmm you ever think of the obvious over in that building? Microsoft? ever?



  • evilgold, on 10/12/2007, -56/+25Microsoft is just becoming a huge joke these days. Better then open office...pfft
    • Tux42, on 10/12/2007, -13/+91MS office has lots of features that Open office does not have. Unfortunately far to many of those "features" are just worthless junk, like that stupid idiot paper clip! ;)
    • sporkwitch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15Not only are most of thoes features worthless junk, but most of those pieces of worthless junk aren't just that, but actually intrusive and obstructive automatic formatting trash that makes you spend hours debugging your formats because of the autoformatting you can't disable.

      My father makes a newsletter for his hiking club and he spends literally an entire weekend just fixing it after MS office ***** up all the formatting after he puts pictures into the boxes the template assigns for pictures.....
  • just2digg, on 10/12/2007, -68/+44They're absolutely right! C'mon guys don't be a UNIX zealot and tell the truth! OpenOffice is damn slow and is really 10 years behind MS Office, no exageration!

    And what Sun guys (StarOffice) are doing is nothing but copying on MS Office user interface; no innovative work!

    OpenOffice will never be successful.. But MS Office also is about to die. We should say hello to web based office productivity tools like Writely.
    • 10scott10, on 10/12/2007, -6/+34the reason the copy the interface is to make it usable. they use standard interface so more don't get frustrated trying to learn how use it and give up.
    • Protoss, on 10/12/2007, -4/+27Indeed the reason they copy is because they want to make it a 'free alternative to MS Office', anything different from MS Office, and it wouldn't be a viable alternative. Like uTorrent/Azureus, notice they look the same? Because it works.
    • peace, on 10/12/2007, -11/+34To be fair, IIRC, the interface of MS Word is copied from Lotus Word perfect and that of MS Excel is copied from Lotus 1-2-3.
    • pocketmonster, on 10/12/2007, -5/+25"To be fair, IIRC, the interface of MS Word is copied from Lotus Word perfect and that of MS Excel is copied from Lotus 1-2-3."

      Uh, no. There's no such thing as Lotus WordPerfect. Lotus never had anything to do with WordPerfect. Lotus had Word Pro (formerly Ami Pro, formerly just Ami), and that was released a year before the first version of Word, but I wouldn't really say there was direct interface copying involved.

      WordPerfect itself was very late to the Windows market (Word was on 2.0 by then) and never got a good start in the Windows world.

      Lotus 1-2-3 was similarly late-to-market for Windows (Lotus was cheering for OS/2) and Excel had a good head-start there as well.

      Some history:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPerfect
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Word_Pro
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_1-2-3
    • Lung-Dart, on 10/12/2007, -20/+13"They're absolutely right! C'mon guys don't be a UNIX zealot and tell the truth! OpenOffice is damn slow and is really 10 years behind MS Office, no exageration!

      And what Sun guys (StarOffice) are doing is nothing but copying on MS Office user interface; no innovative work!

      OpenOffice will never be successful.. But MS Office also is about to die. We should say hello to web based office productivity tools like Writely."

      I disagree
    • veracon, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15Let's say they did just steal the UI. No innovation. That'd mean you could get the same for $500 and $0.

      Choice?
    • NOFXY, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Lets assume (not saying it is or it isn't) that OO IS 10 years behind. The majority of users really wont notice the difference. They see a program to type, do spreadsheets, and make power point presentations. That's all they care about. They're not all geeks like us wanting the latest and greatest features.
    • Mambo, on 10/12/2007, -12/+13I for one hate open office. Every ***** time I have used it has crashed on me. Try writing a paper with some formulas in it, and have it recover the document that made it crash the last time, every time. That was fun stuff. And it never even recovered it right. Watch me get buried by the zealots! YEAAAHHH
    • takeda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=62256
      I agree with you, exact same problem (you and I are proof that this bug exists, and they still mark it as "resolved, works for me").
  • svidrod, on 10/12/2007, -28/+32no way open office is even close to the functionality of office 12 or the GUI.
    • senfo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I actually have to agree with you. If you haven't used Office 12 yet, you really shouldnt't comment. There have been a great number of improvements made. Integration with Windows Workflow Foundation, for instance, is one amazing step in the right direction.
    • iamsam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Who cares? How much functionality do you need? For my purposes and the purposes of the majority of computer users Open Office is more than sufficient. The right tools for the job depend on whose using them and what they are being used for.
  • themuffinman, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17I exclusively use openoffice, mostly the writer (word) part, and have never found something that I can do in word and not in openoffice. In my mind the only problem with it is that it is slow.
    • argoff, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22Lets not forget we are talking about Microsoft here, that company which in 2001 called Linux a hobby OS that would never be taken seriously commercially. Then in 2003 after Linux seized a huge chunk of the server space, called Linux their primary competitive threat.
    • mmcmonster, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10Actually, I agree that OO.o is slow.

      I have a spreadsheet that is a few hundred lines long (maybe a thousand rows by twenty colums), with a simple line graph based on the sheet. In excel inserting a column is fast enough that I don't realise that it takes any time. In calc, there is a noticable half to one second delay.

      Also, ever try to insert a .avi file in Impress? Or try to open a powerpoint file that contains multiple .avi files in impress?
    • EndofEternity, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5No OO is behind of Word in terms of functionality. As part of my IB course, an important issue is to maintain word count in certain section of your courseworks. Without a "Word Count Toolbar" it is quite annoying and it makes OO a lot less effective for writing essays.
    • riknik, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I agree. I hate that OO.o is java-based because my computer and java just don't mix. But after a few seconds of start-up, Open Office is item-for-item equal to Office. Most of the features that MS put into their product just bloats it, and the few options that OO offers--like one-click exporting to PDF--are hard to live without.

      That, and the Open Document standard I've found saves documents in about half or a third of the filesize of the .doc format, so that's nice too when you're working with 50+ page documents.
  • estvir, on 10/12/2007, -30/+15openoffice has been playing catch up to office since the project was announced -- actually, all the foss 'office' rip offs are the same.

    they'll be even further behind when 12 is out.
  • SoberEmu, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2710 years sounds about right to me. I think OpenOffice is most comparable to Office 97. Especially in terms of UI design.
    • bradbeattie, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Agreed. While it might be a modern office system in terms of functionality, it certainly sucks in UI design. I'm guessing that's because the open source movement mainly attracts programmers. Any idea how we can recruit more UI designers?
    • shakin, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11Let me know when Excel can save a CSV file without screwing up the format (removing quotes, etc). Also let me know when Excel can import a space-delimited file and give me control over where the fields are (selecting the size of each field in the original text file). I work with 150 MB+ documents that come in various formats, none of which are Excel. Excel is absolutely brutal at working with text data.

      Everybody in my office who needs to work with this data has switched to OOo Calc. It does a great job.
    • veracon, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4That'd have to depend on how your systems UI looks. If you're on Windows, you just need to pick a better GTK emulation theme. If you're on a GTK-native system, just pick the style you'd like and it should follow (does for me, at least).
    • cosmotic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The UI in word hasn't really changed at all since Word 95. They changed the 'skin', but the dialogues and tool bars and menus are all REALLY REALLY close when you compare 95 to 2003. It went from Normal tool bar buttons in 95 to mouse over buttons in 97 to a non-standard mouseover look in xp to a non-standard gradiant look in 2003. I fail to see how the interface has changed. It only looks different. It still operates the same It still operates how OOo operates.
  • t0ny, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13I would say most people that use office don't use any advanced features. Like vb. What do most people do? Write letters make flyers. Can openoffice do that? Yes? Well then why pay $500? Even thou I could get ms office from my work for free. One of the higher level editions I still use open office :).
  • lukas88, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7I still prefer Word but Open Office will probably pass it up sometime soon. The main problem is that it doesn't save to .doc as a default. This alienates most users. Maybe it is a question of legality.
    • oooo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8It can, just set it in the preferences to always save as .doc
    • Lung-Dart, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I've had nothing but troubles saving to .doc and importing them to word. But thats to be expected. .doc format is closed source and the best OO programers can do is trial and error on importing/exporting these file types. Besides, who needs docs when open office is available in most languages for most OS's while MS word is only available for two OS's in a handful of languages.
    • frizop, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Better yet, who needs .doc when you can directly export to .pdf
  • lukas88, on 10/12/2007, -21/+8Oh, and get the .org off the name, that confuses people
    • qwerty967, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16They have to put it there because some other company holds the trademark to openoffice.
    • LtData, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4As was said above, they have to. From the OpenOffice Distribution and Linking page:
      Trademark

      Because of trademark issues, OpenOffice.org must insist that all public communications refer to the project and software as "OpenOffice.org" or "OpenOffice.org 1.x," and not "OpenOffice" or "Open Office."
      http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/OEM_and_CD.html
  • GeekyGirl, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24OpenOffice should be thought of as another office product, not as a rip off of Microsoft Office. I use both products, selecting one over the other depending on what I am trying to do. Like any product, OpenOffice has its strengths and weaknesses, but it also has some features (like export to PDF) that Microsoft Office does not have as part of the default product.
    • mightymouse, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13Just an FYI, I've been testing Office 12, and I'm glad to tell you that that feature is IN. So are many other features that everyone has been requesting. I personally think that Office 12 looks like a winner.
    • Odweaver, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13For the cost of microsoft office I can completely upgrade my system from and AMD athlon 2400+ to an AMD 64, along with a PCI express Graphics Card, along with more ram, and I would still be able to get openoffice.org and ABIword. So personally I'd rather upgrade my computer than buy microsoft office.
    • SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@odweaver:
      *Really*? You can get hold of an AMD 64, a good PCI express graphics card, AND more RAM, all for less that $139*? Really? Where? I'd like to get me some of that!

      * Source: http://snipurl.com/office2007home (URL links to the Amazon page for Office 2007 Home edition for $139)
  • philovivero, on 10/12/2007, -10/+17Meh. Whatever, Microsoft. OpenOffice works great for me. Print to PDF is an awesome feature. I can just send a PDF to all my co-workers so they can see the document just as I created it (I use OO Draw to create system architecture diagram documents).

    All the parts work together well. The file formats are open. The software is free. If I send you an OO.o document that you can't read, you can download the software for free to view it. The reverse cannot be said (I run a 100% Linux environment, and if you send me a broken .DOC, I literally have to tell you to send it to me again in ASCII or some other format that Microsoft doesn't know how to screw up).

    Microsoft Office is just useless to me anymore. I don't understand why anyone uses it.
    • jijin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I use it because I got the last 3 iterations for free

      I do however tell people about OO
    • myxyplik, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Actually, Office 12 will have native pdf export capabilities.

      That having been said, I use OpenO for all my home correspondence. I even use the Calc portion to keep track of my budget. I agree with those who say that OpenO is bloatware though. That's why I still use version 1.x.x.
    • DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Actually the file format is not Open. It has proprietary patented Sun bits in there.
  • theone3, on 10/12/2007, -22/+10Grr.. Has anyone else noticed that any comments that are against this article are dugg down? 'Og find bias. Come. Quick!'
  • leodavinci, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11I love OpenOffice, I use it for school all the time. I write my paper, save it as a .doc, email it to myself, and print it off at school with Word and i have no problems. I'm sure that Microsoft Office has features that OpenOffice doesn't, but the VAST majority of users don't use anything more complicated than Centering text.
  • jijin, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6http://www.itwire.com.au.nyud.net:8080/content/view/3517/106/

    (as always with non precached pages Coral is having a problem caching it)

    I'm going to start taking heads if people don't have the courtesy to coral cache pages first
    • TheKidd, on 10/12/2007, -36/+5bad link, no description, this is why comments get thumbs down from me.
    • jijin, on 10/12/2007, -18/+10@TheKidd

      It's the ***** CACHE for a definition of cache try here:

      hxxp://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3Acache&btnG=Google%20Search

      and the reason the cache is down is because the site itself is down (sometimes coral cache can get a copy before the site goes down thus allowing us to read/see the content)

      (If you're too lazy... A Coral Cache is a distributied way to archive content on a large amount of servers instead of a single Digg-rapeable/Slashdottable server)
    • darthmdh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'd appreciate it if nobody coral cached by default. Many people sit behind a firewall not under their control that blocks http traffic on ports other than 80, making coral cache completely unusable - and attempting to manually extract a real URL from a coralised one is tedious.
      greasemonkey makes it trivial to automatically give a link to coral & other cache networks to any link on the page for sites like digg - the scripts to do this are freely available.on userscripts.org
  • TheKidd, on 10/12/2007, -10/+12I switched to OO last year and have never looked back. The spreadsheet app is a bit slower than excel, but I'm willing to accept that just to stick it to M$.
  • MoeB, on 10/12/2007, -14/+8ya its off 10 years in terms of software engineering. ssssloooowwwwwwww
  • ammoniaslip, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23This is all ***** FUD for small businesses. Why spend money on licenses to install MSO just to be able to do some basic document editing and tables with Word/Excel?

    I installed OO.org, saved myself the money and noone complains. It may not be as pretty as MSO, it may not be as glossy and "used friendly" (another word for "idiot-proof") as the stupid paperclip makes MSO to be, but it works. And that's good enough.
    • funderbolt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I agree this is some a FUD post.

      For any casual user any office suite is a great thing. The power user needs something that doesn't hinder them or be "helpful" when the person knows what they are doing.

      In my job, I could probably use OpenOffice for many tasks, but where I work, it is really about the ubiquity of Microsoft Office.
  • targetOO, on 10/12/2007, -12/+11Microsoft is ten years behind OO!
    It is fairly easy to see that office software will be very cheap (to free),
    open formats to be widely adopted and open source to become mainstream - all
    within the next 10 years.
  • 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -16/+15Open Office is really not up to par in terms of UI, features, and stability. My brilliant plan when I got my new computer was to use OO 2.0 instead of buying Office, but for what I need to do Open Office just doesn't do the trick. It's extremely buggy and seems to crash constantly. It came with Ubuntu also and that version crashed constantly. It's all well and good that there's a competitor to Microsoft Office, but you can't just pretend that it's better just because it's a competitor. It's far less functional. If I needed to print to PDF I'd just get one of the 1000s of free plugins for Word that give that function. OO is going to be ever farther behind when Office 12 comes out. OO is just not a quality piece of software all around.
  • Brennan, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9I don't think the spreadsheet in Oo is anywhere near as good as Excel. The word processor I could care less about, but I just don't like using the spreadsheet in open office.
    • rhawk301, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3Unfortunately, you are right. Open Office sounds like a good thing, and maybe it will be some day but real Office has it beat and most likely always will. Keep up the pressure though!
  • chrisu, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11Even if M$ office does have features that OpenOffice lacks there are features on OpenOffice that I can't find in M$ office (such as the ability to convert to PDF). As for the stuff that OpenOffice lacks, is £300 per license really worth the missing features?
    Also there's the issue of trust, OpenOffice is Open Source, MS Office isn't.
    • 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -9/+10Really, who's paying $500 per license? I just checked the price at my local store and it's $42.45 a license. I think that's more than reaonable for Office 2003 Pro. If you're talking enterprise level, I've got two words for you: Sharepoint Server. You have to be either really brave or really ignorant to deploy something as shoddy as OO 2.0 across any number of business computers.
    • chrisu, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3http://tinyurl.com/rrnm5
      Office Proffesional 2003
      Maybe its just people outside the USA that are getting ripped off then.
    • 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -15/+3http://tinyurl.com/kgs9v
      Even cheaper than I quoted it before.
    • chrisu, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Wow!
      Well if you can find it that cheap outside of the US, point proven :) But I would bet that theres some clause in the EULA of the US version saying it can't be used overseas.
    • Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Wow 7of7, while you were trying your worst to come off as a Microsoft fanboi, you just promoted pirated software. Way to go! I'm sure your beloved Microsoft really appreciates that!

      Although I COULD be mistaken and you really CAN legally buy Windows Server 2003 Enterprise for a mere $22. I'll send the link to Microsoft and ask them if it's a typo.

      If you're gonna use a stolen copy of software, might as well download it yourself for free.
    • jinexile, on 10/12/2007, -1/+57of7 is also linking to a media volume license which basically gives you the right to make a copy of your existing purchased software, you still need an the license for the extra PC you'll be installing it on as well as an a license for the original full version.
    • troydoogle7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Actually those cheap prices for offfice pro are for media kits only... ie they charge you 40 bucks just for the cd! Hmmmm good deal!
    • rhawk301, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The link above is a media kit only. The other Amazon link was actually 271 pounds. Any legit fully licensed copy of pro is going to be around $275-$350 US dollars, never too much less. I think I saw one for $221, but that's it. Other than that, you can get used, but make sure the license comes with it. I bought the Micro$oft Action Pack which gives me 10 copies of most everything Microsoft has, and a couple copies of different servers (including lifetime updates), for a perpetual update fee of $299/yr. Action Pack is like a mini Enterprise agreement, and you don't spend a crud load of money up front, or when updates come out. They ship them to you automatically every quarter.
    • 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Whoa, damn, sorry about that. I just picked one at random from a Froogle search. The point being that Office really isn't $500 unless you go out and find the most marked up version available. That site definitely looked weird, but I was in a bit of a hurry.
    • SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@rhawk301:
      > Any legit fully licensed copy of pro is going to be around $275-$350 US dollars, never too much less.

      True; but since everyone in this thread is talking about buying copies online or in stores anyway, the price of the home edition is probably more relevant than the pro/enterprise editions. Amazon has the home edition for $139 (http://snipurl.com/office2007home).
  • Murmillo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2To be honest, i think it would be better for both of them, if they were ten years behind, because Office 95 was much faster then any modern office-bundle.
  • JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6There's FUD on all sides in this story. Who pays "$500 or more" for MS Office? Noone that I know.
    • ripter, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I bought mine at school for $5 :D
      I have to agree, every time I try to switch to OO.org It just feels *old* and slow. Plus the spell check and grammar check can't even compare with MS Office. I would so switch to AbiWord if the speck check worked.
  • jav1231, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I think OOo will catch up as long as the developers understand it's limitations. OTOH, do I think Office is worth the money? No. It's way overpriced and MS is dependent on you buying it. Naturally, they will tout it as the best etc. Office is way too fat. They could have stopped at Office 97 as that was really where it all hinges. Rarely is anyone using more functionality than that. But with the crashes and sluggish response, OOo isn't exactly on par with 97. Yet.
  • Derrekito, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5M$ propaganda? Seems so far the only thing M$ office has over Open Office is spell/grammer check... which isnt worth paying hundreds of dollars... so I write my essays in Open Office.... and go to school and spell check everything there. So I get to use both for free; woot.
  • verucasalt, on 10/12/2007, -14/+410 years?

    I thought it was more like 15
  • thepaul, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5Yes, perhaps Office does have some wonderful new features coming but I can come up with 500 reasons and more for going with Open Office 2.0, which is quite a good suite.
    • 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -14/+9The whole $500 thing is pure FUD. It's straight unsubstantiated BS. As I said, I can provide a link to MS Office 2k3 for $42.45. A not unreasonable cost given how many programmers work for MS and like to be paid to feed their families and all. Or do you hate Microsoft employees enough that you think they aren't worthy of feeding their families?
    • archiesteel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+642$ bucks, really? Please do post the link. I'm curious to see if it's legal (and not an "Education" copy).

      Here in Canada, Future Shop lists Office 2003 at 489,99$CAN. Even the Student Special is at 199.99$CAN, so you'll excuse me if I find your claim a little dubious...
    • The_Decryptor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3http://www.ow.com.au/shop/index.php/cPath/23_51?osCsid=e91ec6af6efa10555e5e152f1650c822

      It's not $500, but $250 is still a lot for somebody who just wants to write letters (and the features MS say are more important, like collaborating, cost even more)
    • hypersniper, on 10/12/2007, -7/+0yes
    • Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -5/+57of7: Buying pirated software does not put food on the table for those software developers' children. Ass.
    • MoeB, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3please list those 500 reasons. seriously.
    • 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2I posted a link elsewhere in the thread to $27 Office 2k3 Pro for everyone. As for $42, here ya go. 'course it is for U of M students, but it's really not my problem if your university doesn't provide a similar service.
      http://tinyurl.com/mur9g
    • archiesteel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No, 7o7, a Student license at a particular university doesn't count. We're not talking special cases here, but the lowest common denominator, i.e. the basic Office 2K3 package for Joe User, whose not a student nor a teacher.
    • SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1> the basic Office 2K3 package for Joe User, whose not a student nor a teacher.

      Definitively, Amazon has the home edition at $139 (source: http://snipurl.com/office2007home). Although this is for the 2007 version, rather than the 2003. If you're buying new, though, I can't imagine the 2003 version will be *more* expensive than the 2007 one.
  • Karyyk, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7For most users, Open Office is all they'll ever need. The sad fact is that most of those same users are rather uneducated and will go and pay $250+ for whatever low end version of MS Office is available at Best Buy.

    I use MS Office at work, and though I have it installed at home, I find myself using Open Office more and more. At this point, I'll go so far as to say that MS Office is a bit more polished, as it should be (how much longer has MS been at it?), but is it really worth the difference in cost? Absolutely not. Like it or not, Open Office will continue to garner more and more converts, because most people aren't made of money. If given the choice to have to pay the money for Office or be able to download something that's free and open source and functions adequately, people will choose the latter, IF THEY'RE AWARE OF THE SECOND OPTION. More are now becoming aware...
  • SolariPicasso, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7I used open office for a while, the Severly poor performance made me switch back to Office 2003. Then again I barely use it except for outlook. I like Notepad2 for most things.
  • dnaspydir, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9microsoft says a lot of things...
  • darylsws, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Digg effect - bah!
  • Demagogue, on 10/12/2007, -12/+7Open Office is REALLY far behind office. Office has so many more tools than open office does right now.
  • chrislhardin, on 10/12/2007, -14/+8This is the biggest bunch os BS I have ever heard in my life. The idiots who made such a statement need to be shot, hung, stabbed, drawn and quarted and beheaded. Although not necessarily in that order. Microsoft just keeps pulling these statements out of their butts because they are threatened.
  • johnnyspade, on 10/12/2007, -7/+8I know it's hip to hate Microsoft, and Bill's statement is a bit of an exageration, but it's true. If you compare the 2 side by side, and you're just a novice user, then the basic word processing and spreadsheet applications are pretty equal. If you dig deeper than that, you can see that Microsoft's development path is far greater. Not that OpenOffice will never get there but it's not there yet.
    • drycounty, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I like the concept behind OO and most of the web-based wares out there, and firmly believe in the 'less is more' strategy against bloatware, retarted upgrades, additional "clippies/doggies", "IT LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE WRITING A LETTER? CAN WE HELP YOU?" etc. etc. etc.

      However, in terms of most enterprise-level organizations switching? Never. It'll be business as usual now and in ten years from now.
  • Phatlip12, on 10/12/2007, -9/+5Open Office is great software if you are using it to do simple activities however MS Office is the best when it comes to doing more in depth things.
  • cdman98, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7For a home user OO.org is better than MS office because you don’t need all the "frills" (do they even have any) in MS office or have to pay for basic functionality.

    Free OO.org, or at the very least $150 for a student edition of MS office, I choose free and so would most people if they knew about OO.org.

    I mean MS works is not exactly a great option for home users because its crippleware. You loose so much by not being able to open and save other popular formats with Works as well. OO.org breaks down that Works wall and brings free MS Office functionality home.

    Sure OO.org has to catch up in very minor places to MS Office. OO code needs some optimization because it can be a little rough on some systems and load times aren’t on par with MS office either.

    Still free is free and $150 - $500 is just a lot just for a good un-crippled word processor and office suite
  • astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6Microsoft things 'they have the better mousetrap' since they own a good chunk of the OS market. this of course
    is a bunch of bananas.

    Not only do I use Open Office, but I turn on folks to Open Office who don't have or want to pay the outrageous price that Microscum wants for their office suite. So far at least 90% of the people I've turned on to Open Office love it
    and don't see why PPL pay so much for almost the same concept but from Microsoft.

  • ModernTenshi, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11I've been using OpenOffice.org as my main office suite for a little more than a year now, and so far I don't miss Microsoft Office in the slightest. I can see where Microsoft Office would be a boon for large corporations, but for small businesses, students, and hell even your general computer user, OOo should be all they really need. I ran a workshop at my school that went over FOSS, specifically Firefox, OOo, and GIMP, and at the end gave each attendee a free CD with all the software I demonstrated on it. Nearly everyone who attended that I talked to later on said they absolutely loved it. One guy, literally the very next day, said that he had already given copies to three of his friends and his parents!

    This is why I like FOSS: it actually lets me HELP the end user. No longer do I have to simply tell them, "well, you're using WordPerfect, and that's not compatible with the systems here on campus, so what you need to do is go and buy Microsoft Office," then tell them they have to spend $150 to do so (Student and Teacher Edition in this case). Or, I can say, "well, you're using WordPerfect, and that's not compatible with the systems here on campus, so what you can do is go download OpenOffice.org, free of charge, install it, and use that instead."

    Now, out of those two scenarios, which do you think the user is: a) going to be more happy with; and b) likely to go through with?
    • 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2Where exactly do you go that they have a $150 student license? That's outrageous. Whichever store is selling that is definitely on the take. I'm all for giving away free software though. A little Firefox, Paint.net, Dev C++, perhaps some SSH Secure Shell or Putty and some NVU for easy webpages. It's all good. It's too bad the fans of free software are so annoying with their FUD sometimes.
    • ModernTenshi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6It's not a $150 student license. There is a version of Office called Microsoft Office 2003 Student and Teacher Edition. It's really meant to be sold only to, well, students and teachers. The supposed benefit is that this version allows you to install it on up to three machines. Microsoft claims this as a benefit because parents can buy it for their student, then turn around and install it on their machines as well.

      I actually bought this before I started college, then learned about OOo. Needless to say, after messing around with OOo, I was pissed that I paid $150 for what I considered to be a comparable office suite. This is exactly what spawned my idea for the workshop that I talked about. I wanted to let students know that there was a free alternative out there that would allow them to type their papers, but they won't pay out of pocket to do so. I go to a private Catholic university, where tuition just for commuters is $20k a year (around $25k for resident students), and $150 could be used for two text books. By showing them there's an alternative that gives them what they need, but they can get it for free and legally share it with anyone they know, they learn about FOSS and its benefits, and hopefully carry that forward for the rest of their academic career.

      This is why I say that software like OOo is perfect for students, home computer users and small businesses. It gives them basically everything they need in terms of office productivity software, but doesn't cost them a thing. Tell a college student something is free, and you have their undivided attention.
    • ArmandoM, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3For 7of7:

      http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832102528

      Ok... not quite $150, but close.

      If I were a starving college student, I'd definately rather have that $150 in my pocket.
  • gekkokid, on 10/12/2007, -12/+6Microsoft are scared.


    Wait till Google purchase Sun Microsystems and openOffice is called Goffice (or something) and give it a more uptodate UI, MSOffice will lose all its share.
  • aten, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4and yet its still free...
  • Zukunft, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5Office 12 seems to have some new improvements. But for the nerd on a limited budget like me it's best to go open office.
  • cdman98, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6!0 years behind? Then give away a free version of Office 97 instead of MS Works crippleware.

    Yea I thought not. Lets face it even though office 97 is 9 years old it still can do all that most people need it to do, just like OO.org.
  • Novous, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5The fact of the matter is that OpenOffice does lack many of the features many businesses use and expect, and that's where this idea comes from. Stop being zealots and realize that a open-source product is still a product, and subject to ranking (regardless of being free).
  • barbobot, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3h@barbobot:~$ time ooffice

    real 0m3.865s
    user 0m1.837s
    sys 0m0.119s

    slow my ass.
  • CrazyZ, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7Nobody commenting uses macros? OO is useless when collaborating within a business unless everybody else is using it. The first time you get a macro laden document or spreadsheet, you are screwed.

    • in4mation, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6My company filters documents with macros as a security measure.
  • Bender, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6The school district I work for is about to change all of its teacher(and some office) computers from MSOffice to OpenOffice. OpenOffice can do 99.999% of the things that teachers need and It will save the district over $10k!
  • DarkEnder, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Personally, I haven't found many features that OO has over Word, but I still don't like Open Office. It took a long time to start up and had way too many bugs that interfered and slowed my writing. I ended up switching back to Microsoft Office after using OO for two months, and I'd have to say I like Microsoft's product better.
  • SniperGX1, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5M$ is scared
  • jtrost, on 10/12/2007, -8/+7I have to agree with Microsoft. Using Open Office reminds me of using MS Office on WIndows 3.1.
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