OpenOffice.org, MS Office 2003 Compared, Evaluated

kotj.mf writes "eWeek is running a relatively lengthy article comparing OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office 2003, as part of an IT decision whether to migrate a 300-plus userbase office away from Office 97/2000. The not-so-surprising conclusion: OO.o can be a better deal for smaller companies that can't fully leverage Redmond's volume licensing. Hell, it'd be cheap at twice the price."

Not only volume licensing...

[jargoone]

I work for a not-for-profit company that qualifies Microsoft's charity licensing. I haven't ever seen the actual prices, but from what I hear, the per-seat costs for Office are less than even the highest-tiered volume licensing.

Kinda hard for me to fulfill my conquest of moving our mail away from Exchange. :-(

Re:Not only volume licensing...

[sid crimson]

Volume Licenses:

$67 Office Pro License
$35 Media
$7 Exchange CAL
$135 Windows Server 2003 License ....

Cheap!

-sid

Re:Not As Cheap As It Sounds

[jargoone]

Since I've been out working in the real world for a few years now, I've realized something that wasn't apparent to me at first: one of your dollars != one of your company's dollars. If you truly work at an organization with 100,000 employees, $6.7 million is pocket change.

Re:Charity Pricing

[MartinG]

The Microsoft charity licensing is pretty nice.

Well it seems nice on the face of it.

Some believe that Microsoft only offer it cheaper to charities because if they didn't then open source would ne used instead, and they would rather reduce the price just enough to stop that happening.

Re:Charity Pricing

[Mr. Neutron]

Some believe that Microsoft only offer it cheaper to charities because if they didn't then open source would ne used instead, and they would rather reduce the price just enough to stop that happening.

If an organization chooses a commercial product for $62/seat over an open source product for gratis, is that the fault of the commercial product? Seriously, either the organization doesn't know any better, or the open source product lack sufficient goodness. But don't blame Microsoft for pricing themselves competitively.

OOo Educational Pricing

[XaXXon]

If you go to the book store at your local college/university, you can pick up OOo at an educational discount.

Re:OOo Educational Pricing

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I wasn't aware that a free product was ever provided at an educational discount. That just seems wrong. However a day after netscape released netscape for free again, the campus bookstore was still selling it for an educational discount of $50. It was funny then, but it was even funnier 3 years later when it was still being offered at that price.

Re:OOo Educational Pricing

[mst76]

I asked about it, and the discount was $0. Better stick with MS, where the discount runs into the hundreds.

Re:OOo Educational Pricing

[schemanista]

Your browser may not display sarcasm tags correctly.

Re:OOo Educational Pricing

[sweet cunny muffin]

"I must be missing something"

A sense of fucking humour?

My personal feelings

[AKAImBatman]

OpenOffice is Good Enough(TM). Things are sometimes in places you don't expect them thanks to MS Office training (e.g. Word Count is in document properties), but once you're used to it, you'll use it by default.

Despite having Office X on my Mac, I use OpenOffice all the time now. It's amazing how much it grows on you despite the initially underwhelming first impressions.

Re:My personal feelings

[abischof]

Despite having Office X on my Mac, I use OpenOffice all the time now. It's amazing how much it grows on you despite the initially underwhelming first impressions.

I like OpenOffice.org as much as the next guy, or maybe even more -- I've used OOo on my Windows box exclusively for about two years now. But, I just can't get used to OOo on my PowerBook. I really wanted to like it, but the OS X version left me wanting more. Really, it's hardly a port at all -- it's just the Unix version running under X11 for OS X. So, it has the Unix interface and it's lacking the usual Mac OS niceties such as the Aqua look and even the nifty Finder-ized open/save dialogs.

At this point, I'm just torn between trying to find MS Office/Mac for cheap (perhaps an older version) or just waiting for the proper Aqua port of OOo (even though that could be a while [theregister.co.uk]).

Re:My personal feelings

[AKAImBatman]

I agree that OOo on Mac is pretty painful. But for some odd reason, I keep using it instead of OfficeX. If it *really* bothers you that much, you can try one of the builds at:

http://www.neooffice.org/ [neooffice.org]

It's semi-beta stuff, but it's supposed to be all of OpenOffice without X11.

from the site

[commodoresloat]

As this is still a prototyping project, it is merely a proof of concept intended for software engineers to examine the methods used and hopefully provide a springboard for focusing our discussions and thoughts on the final, and arguably most complex, stages of this port.

This is hardly even "semi-beta stuff." It's "proof of concept." Which means it's great if you're a programmer and want to tinker, or you just want to see what Open Office for OSX will look like in a year or two, fine, but if you actually have to use Office to, I don't know, prepare documents or something, you're better off sticking with the X11 version. And if you want a real OSX interface, you're better off with MS Office. I don't like MS, but that's what I use, because it gets the job done.

If you're interested in development releases of Office products, you might also check out AbiWord [abisource.com] which has also just been released for OSX, but again, it's not ready for prime time.

NeoOffice is *REALLY* reliable.

[VValdo]

it's great if you're a programmer and want to tinker, or you just want to see what Open Office for OSX will look like in a year or two, fine, but if you actually have to use Office to, I don't know, prepare documents or something, you're better off sticking with the X11 version.

I know they have that disclaimer, but I've used Neooffice/J (the Java version) for work-related purposes for about three months now. The newest version [planamesa.com] is really stable and has a lot of Mac-specific bells and whistles including Mac fonts, traditional apple-key commands and shortcuts, the OS X mac print dialog, and much, much faster reaction time than the x11 version (in my experience).

I'd recommend giving it a try. For actual use. Really.

W

Re:My personal feelings

[JWW]

Thats because that while everyone moans and complains about how you can't live without office, its still just a word processor, spreadsheet ... to most people.

I rebuilt a PC for my inlaws last year and when they asked about office, I said it would cost them about $300 (consumer version, no student discount .....), plus they are not willing to run an "unlicensed" version.

I installed openoffice and it worked like a charm. A couple of weeks getting used to it and then it was no trouble. The only extra help needed was instruction in importing and saving to office formats. I know the filters aren't perfect, but being that the machine was only being used for basic word processing and spreadsheets, it wasn't an issue.

Re:My personal feelings

[StacyKr]

I love using Open Office! The only thing I miss is that it doesn't offer the Flescher-Kinkaid garde level scale in its word count feature - being a pre-service teacher, I often use it to determine if test items or other text written for kid's assignments is way to easy or dificult. OO is great - and I have never had any of these Power Point/Word compatibility problems, I am always sending and exchanging files with MS Office users.

Re:My personal feelings

[AKAImBatman]

Indeed. The core of the problem for businesses is that they have invested heavily into MS Office software. Converting all of their "documents" (really mini-programs or desktop publications that should have been done with a better program) is a time consuming and expensive task. When companies look at the cost of converting and the cost of an Office upgrade, they end up dipping their heads and purchasing Office.

Nobody does lock-in like Microsoft. :-/

point of comparison

[donnyspi]

The only thing that matters to me is whether OO.o comes with Clippy or not!

Re:point of comparison

[Greedo]

Yup, except he's called "Gully", the deranged, fish-toting seagull. [slashdot.org]

Re:point of comparison

[TGK]

I would pay for this feature. If any open source project generates a convicing and sufficiently amusing Old Burned Out Hippy (TM) that does Hackish spell/grammer check, decent syntax checking, and is customizeable enough I will be first in line to download it and first in line to donate to their project immediately thereafter.

"Dude, you've got like, mail and stuff"

"You forgot a semi-colon. Dumbass."

"Oh for the love of Christ man! Visual Basic? Did your mom drop you?"

"[long drag] I can't find the SMTP server man. Try again later"

according to Microsoft

[dicepackage]

Open Office is free and you don't get anything good for free therefore if something costs more such as Windows or Office it must be better.

Re:according to Microsoft

[Enigma_Man]

According to Microsoft's add on the frontpage of /. Linux is actually _more_ expensive than Windows... Are they now conceding that it is better? :D

-Jesse

It seems obvious

[The_Mystic_For_Real]

It seems obvious that something that is distributed for free will be cheaper than something that costs money. The true test comes when users are exposed to a new program for doing something everyday. I have known a few people who have had serious problems switching to Open Office after using MS Office for a long time. These were not computer illiterate people either.

Re:It seems obvious

[delcielo]

A transition doesn't have to be painless to be worthwhile. It certainly doesn't have to be painless to be cost-effective. Microsoft has gone a LONG way to make sure that any transition will result in a good dose of pain. Break it sooner or it only gets worse.

You start by telling your employees that your switching. Explain why you're switching. Explain that you know it will be inconvenient or even a huge pain in the ass. Tell them you're counting on them to put out a lot of effort and come up to speed as quickly as possible on the new software. You're proud of you're employees, and you know they'll make you proud again.

That won't eliminate any of the end-user frustration. It will, however, make the transition a success; because it lets the users know that the decision is made, and that there is an expectation for them to adjust to it.

You don't want to ignore your employees by any means; but you sure don't want to give up significant cost savings (which by the way indirectly benefit them) just because they can't learn the new menus.

After all, who's in charge?

The true test is your ability to make good financial decisions and to make those decisions work.

But slashdot is telling me something else...

[GoofyBoy]

"Independent research analyst META Group found that Linux costs are not lower than Windows."

Such conflicting views.

Re:But slashdot is telling me something else...

[Havokmon]

"Independent research analyst META Group found that Linux costs are not lower than Windows."

That was just the headline. The body of the article stated that Windows running on old 386's in Nasa training rooms was much cheaper than loading linux on a Tandem system to be sent to Pluto.

Wonder what Sun thinsk of this.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Remember that StarOffice is supposed to be the "Stable" branch that is purchased in quantity for large corperations. Sun really doesn't want large coperations using the free version.

Re:Wonder what Sun thinsk of this.

[jargoone]

Sun really doesn't want large coperations using the free version.

This isn't a worry for corporations. They don't care about open source, they don't care about cost. The name of the game is support. If there's no support, it's not going to fly.

Sad, but true.

Re:Wonder what Sun thinsk of this.

[koreth]

Why is that sad? The name of the game is not, in fact, support. That's just an aspect of the real concern, which is predictability. If you know a piece of software -- open-source or otherwise -- will cost $X a month in support fees, and that in exchange you'll get any problems looked at ASAP so they cost your people a minimum of time, then you can do your budget numbers at the beginning of the year and be pretty sure you'll hit them. The definition of "ASAP" depends on how much you're willing to pay; it's a tradeoff. Even Microsoft will give you very snappy support if you're paying them enough for it.

With no paid support contract (again, either open-source or closed) you're at the mercy of the developers' spare time. There is no guaranteed response time, no escalation procedure if you're not getting good results. In the case of open-source software, 95% of the time you'll get a bugfix faster than you would from a commercial vendor. But the remaining 5% of the time your problem won't interest the developer for whatever reason, and your organization may end up wasting more money due to the bug than it would have spent on support.

If you're in a big organization whose budgeting process is complex, predictable-but-expensive can be a completely rational thing to choose over probably-cheap-but-maybe-not. You're buying reduced risk, and that can be worth various amounts of money depending on the context.

I should point out that I use OOo for my business and it meets my needs 99% of the time -- but that's my situation, not a universal truth.

Needs better MS Office compatiblity

[Neil Blender]

I have been using OO for quite some time. I am using the most current version but it still fairly frequently mangles documents when passed back and forth between MS Office and OpenOffice. Same with Powerpoint. Even if your whole company migrates, you still have to deal with people who use Microsoft Office.

Re:Needs better MS Office compatiblity

[mopslik]

mangles documents when passed back and forth between MS Office and OpenOffice

As someone who also has to transfer documents between the two applications, I can honestly say that most of the time, Office does far more mangling than OO.o does. Hell, Office often can't even properly read older versions of Office itself!

OO.o isn't completely in the clear, but I find it's more consistent.

Re:Needs better MS Office compatiblity

[yamla]

This is true. But note that MS Office also has a tendancy to mangle documents between versions or, and especially, when you transfer to and from the Mac version of Office. Granted, I have not yet tried this with Office for OS X but I had massive problems with earlier versions of Office for the Mac.

So, yes, OpenOffice has problems from time to time with MS Office compatibility. However, it is also true that MS Office has problems from time to time with MS Office compatibility.

What kills OpenOffice

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Here are the 3 things that will prevent OpenOffice from replacing MS Office massively:

- Lack of good specialized dictionaries (in particular, a good medical dictionary)

- .DOC compatibility

- .DOC compatibility

Oh, and did I mention .DOC compatibility?

I mean, I know it's hard to be compatible with a format that never was disclosed by Microsoft, but there it is: I personally can testify that, while using OpenOffice internally would be roughly equivalent in functionalities to MS Office, exchanging files with the rest of the world is a total bitch.

Microsoft's stranglehold on the Office suite market rests almost entirely on keeping its formats undisclosed, and on shifting them all the time to keep the target moving. I wish the OOo people could stop doing anything else but supporting at least one incarnation of .DOC almost 100%. Then they'd take over the market IMHO...

The answer is PDF

[Gothmolly]

For all the documents you absolutely must exchange with people, PDF fits the bill 99 times out of 100. How often do you email an EDITABLE document to someone, have them edit it, then send it back? OOo's "Export to PDF" fits this nicely. I have a 'stealth' OOo install here at work, most other people fear the fact that somehow I scored Adobe Acrobat. PDF simply rules.

Re:The answer is PDF

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

How often do you email an EDITABLE document to someone, have them edit it, then send it back?

Well, I do often enough that it's a big problem for me. But that's not even the problem. The problem is the rest of the world insisting on .DOC, whether it's justified or not, just because they don't know any better. Last time I was looking for a job, most emailable job application required a resume in .DOC format. If you send PDFs instead, people will plain and simply dismiss your application immediately, as someone who don't want to follow the rules.

single best feature

[mephinet]

the single best feature of Openoffice, when compared to any other text program, is the direct export to pdf, that works flawlessly. Nothing new for us, but a great deal for the windows ppl 8)

MS Office is unbeatable

[Philmeeh]

I tried Openoffice for about 5 minutes before becoming completely lost.

I was trying to write a letter and the lack of an animated paperclip popping up and offering to help meant that I couldn't complete it

Microsoft's volume pricing

[claar]

At the university where I work, MS volume pricing is amazing compared to retail. We get the latest version of Office Pro for around $60, and Windows XP Pro for around $50.. not to mention that both come sans product activation.

It's hard to justify going with something non-mainstream at those prices.. but of course all of the professors end up paying retail prices to get the same software on their home computer(s), so Microsoft still makes a bundle from it.

From the article

[Anonymous Coward]

They are both very slow to load.

They both feature plain white backgrounds.

The comparison remains ultimately unresolved as the website cannot be found.

Arg... slashdotting!!!

[wild_pointer]

Okey... I'm home now and wanted to read few stories. Could everyone please not visit any articles for the next hour or so?

Thanks in advance,
Gunnar

PowerPoint/Impress comparison lacking

[therblig]

It was a short review, but one problem I had with their comparison of PowerPoint/Impress was that Impress had a hard time working with a PowerPoint file that had a lot of imbedded Excel and Word information. Frankly, PowerPoint isn't nearly as good at handling those things as it ought to be either. Most of the testing was done to see how well an office could migrate from MS Office to OpenOffice, so the concern is a legitemate one, but I think that one will see that Impress will handle Writer and Calc files as well or better than PowerPoint will handle Word and Excel files.

Compatibility

[ryanw]

The article appears slashdotted, but the biggest problem I have with OO isn't 'features' compared to MSOffice, but it's compatibility. I can typically open MSOffice files just fine, modify them in OO, save them, send them to people with MSOffice and they look HORRIBLE to the MSOffice people. The data is typically all there, but all garbled and derranged like I screwed it all up or didn't know how to format things to look nicely.

Until OO is 100% comptible with MSOffice, it will not be likely a small business would switch to it. It puts them at a disadvantage when trying to look like a big company. Image is everything when you're a little guy playing with the big boys.

Re:Compatibility

[Joey Patterson]

Until OO is 100% comptible with MSOffice, it will not be likely a small business would switch to it.

But there's the problem -- because MS Office file formats are proprietary and can change at any time, OpenOffice (and other third-party apps for that matter) will probably never be "100% compatible" with MS Office. This is why we need open standards.

See here [umn.edu] for the outline of a talk that one of my college professors gave a couple years back regarding this.

Well, nearly...

[Xerp]

Open Office is obviously the better choice for most small to medium sized companies. The problem is that people are resistant to change. The Office zealots will steadfast refuse to change, regardless of cost. People are also scared of change full stop; they feel it would somehow threaten their jobs. They've had a hard enough time getting Microsoft Word to work, having only just figured out how to turn off all the auto-"correction". Now you want them to use Open what? People love their computers AND applications. ;-)

Another problem is the integration of Microsoft Outlook into the Microsoft Office suite, which is turn has its hooks into Microsoft Exchange. Without the "full monty" people aren't going to change.

You've got to be kidding...

[winkydink]

How can they possibly say it's a potential good fit for smaller companies? From the article:

- It doesn't work for advanced Excel (read: The Finance Department).
- Support options are limited (read: DIY in a small company with limited/nonexistent IT resources to begin with).
- It takes as much as 10 seconds longer to open big docs sent in Office format (read: anything sent to you most people outside the company).

And, let's overlook Outlook in the comparison. (Evolution, Thunderbird, et. al. do not offer the same functionality)

Oh, and feel free to mod me into oblivion for taking a controversial (for /.'ers) stance.

Re:You've got to be kidding...

[ejdmoo]

I was also pissed that they didn't include Outlook in the comparison. Anyone who's worked with Outlook 2003 will know what I mean. It's by far the biggest upgrade to Office since 97. I can't stand Outlook 2002, no less 2000! To say it's a fair comparison, then leave a competitor's strongest asset, is totally bogus. And, just in case you're wondering, no you can't buy Office without Outlook. The lightest weight version (retail) still has Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook. proof [microsoft.com]

Re:You've got to be kidding...

[doktorstop]

Totally agree
I have a small company and really TRIED to switch to OO. That's why I gave up:
- lack of comprehensible, user-friendly database. Sure, you can hire a MySQL expert, but it is cheaper to buy MSAccess. And for any business, it's not wordprocessing that counts, it's databases!
- presentations one can create are quite nice, if not for one thing.... I would NEVER show then to any client. ONE world-lack of antialising makes any drawing/schema look totally unprofessional and amateurish. I'd rather show them a sequence of JPGs instead. - any post-creation work on a document is a mess. Notes are just supersmall yellow rectangles that you can't see when you review something, and the whole logic of reviewing is in its infancy.
Do not misunderstand me, both OO and StarOffice are great products. But for businesses where efficiency is the key and the OS you run is quite irrelevant, every single piece of functionality is a very valuable asset.

Re:You've got to be kidding...

[Ogerman]

How can they possibly say it's a potential good fit for smaller companies?

Small companies are able to adapt quickly, so they are the first candidates for cost-saving tools. Large companies, in comparision, cannot adapt as quickly, but *can* invest in making improvements to Open Source software that is almost but not quite useful to them (such as to save money by removing the need for the proprietary standbys)

- It doesn't work for advanced Excel (read: The Finance Department).

So have everybody else use OpenOffice and let the finance people keep their existing Excel. There's also Gnumeric, but I'm not sure what the comparison is as of late..

And of course, finance data should be kept in a database anyways, not in spreadsheets. C'mon, this is 2004, not the 80's. But that's another discussion..

- Support options are limited (read: DIY in a small company with limited/nonexistent IT resources to begin with).

How often do people need "support resources" for an office suite? And since when does MS Office come with amazing support resources for small customers?

- It takes as much as 10 seconds longer to open big docs sent in Office format (read: anything sent to you most people outside the company).

This is so trivial it's not even worth mentioning.

And, let's overlook Outlook in the comparison. (Evolution, Thunderbird, et. al. do not offer the same functionality)

I assume you refer to Exchange, not just Outlook itself. There are plenty of alternatives to using Exchange/Outlook such as OpenGroupware and Kontact. And beyond that, Web-based groupware solutions are superior anyhow in most cases.

Oh, and feel free to mod me into oblivion for taking a controversial (for /.'ers) stance.

What are you talking about? Controversial stances, regardless how stupid they are, get modded up on /. these days. I call your karma whoring. (-:

Re:You've got to be kidding...

[StarTux]

"- It doesn't work for advanced Excel (read: The Finance Department). "

A small company with a Finance Department? Do they have marketing departments too?

Seriously though, what constitutes a small company? To me its too small to have any real departmental structures, finance is done by the owner as is a sundry of other tasks...

"- Support options are limited (read: DIY in a small company with limited/nonexistent IT resources to begin with)."

Yes and they don't want to call MSFT either for the dollars they charge, or have to rely on 3rd party to come out that often.

"- It takes as much as 10 seconds longer to open big docs sent in Office format (read: anything sent to you most people outside the company). "

That could be a nailbiting problem, 10 seconds can easily seem like an eternity.

"And, let's overlook Outlook in the comparison. (Evolution, Thunderbird, et. al. do not offer the same functionality)"

Evolution is not part of OpenOffice, nor any of the other ones. Again though small businesses have different demands tend to be much *smaller* than medium to large businesses and may not need all those bells and whistles that Outlook can offer.

"Oh, and feel free to mod me into oblivion for taking a controversial (for /.'ers) stance."

Nah, nice arguments. Although pointed out my experience in small businesses. Biggest reason MSFT will not port Office to Linux is because people will have much more of a reason to switch, unless the port is botched :). Apple are a little more expensive and don't directly threaten MS like Linux does.

Large Corporations?

[4of12]

I'd agree that small businesses, shoestring budgets, home, school, charity, underdeveloped nations would be better off going OO.o.

At large corporations, smooth 2-way compatibility with MS Office is a must have and OO.o is not there yet.

It's ironic, though. If a few of the larger MS Office licensees were to pool their resources they could contract out to improve OO.o so that it would be sufficiently compatible.

But there's the tragedy of the commons: even though many would benefit from lower costs, etc., everyone hopes "George will do it" I'll just wait until its good enough for me and meanwhile I'll shell out for MS Office.

But the more small time users lap over the barrier, the more it wears down.

A day will come when a Fortune 500 company makes the jump. It will look impressive, but it will just be the culmination of years of work by others on OO.o

Compatibility.... Right.

[Chordonblue]

Uh.. I hate to tell you folk this but let me let you in on a little secret... .DOC documents have incompatibilities with varying versions of MS OFFICE! :O The HORROR!

Geez, people treat .DOC as if it's some sort of Mecca of compatibility. Truth: It SUCKS and it's BROKEN. I mean, everything's cool, as long as you don't go back too many versions, or use the wrong copy of Works, right? Well... In light of this, how can it be said that OOo is any less compatible only being 3 years old?!

You know, not every .org can afford to keep up with General Electic's IT budget. Smaller schools such as ours can't just plunk down this kind of money every two years to insure compatibility with MS's latest fashions.

With OOo's XML I do look forward to being able to see my documents 20 years from now just as they are today (hopefully on a flat screen the size of my house of course).

Seriously. When I arrived at this school we had students using different versions of Works and Office at home and in the dorms (not to mention Wordperfect and even Wordpad!) Then you had international issues with MS Office, which I understand most of these are resolved now in 2003. Still...

Open/StarOffice let us completely standardize our documentation here. It allowed me to offer a free copy of the software to every student, parent, and teacher. It's not perfect, but then neither is MS Office.

Being someone who has converted a whole office..

[SCSi]

The only real pain in the ass is the inital conversion.. So you go through hell for a week, maybe 2 depending on how well OO converts the existing documents.
After that, its all gravy.. No need to worry about the MS licensing fees, support, license goon squads. Everyone uses OO's native format, and everything else thats not in-office (docs, etc) get exported to PDF's..
The only complaint ive heard is from the tard^H^H^H^Hpeople who spent money to get that "Microsoft Office Expert Guru thingym" license..
Of course we dont do anything really fancy with MS Office/OO either, just your plain office spreadsheets.. So your milage will vary..

Our experience

[dtfinch]

OpenOffice loads most of our documents perfectly. It supports a wide variety of file formats. Its default compressed xml format produces files that are a tiny fraction of the size of equivelant Office documents. My bosses especially like the fact that it's free of charge, and we install it on every new pc we get.

The main issues I have with it are its slowness and high memory usage under Windows compared to Office. I also miss having an equivelant to the Excel solver utility, which can optimize hundreds of variables at once to minimize/maximize a result. My first use of it involved stock prediction. It performed quite well at optimizing a set of over a hundred weights to predict a stock based on years of past data, if only to prove to me that numerically predicting a single day into a stock's with a profitable level of accuracy is almost impossible. I'll be using NN's in my next attempt. Did I mention I have ADD?

Sorry eWeek... I've got it cached...

[Anonymous Coward]

By Jason Brooks
April 26, 2004

In recent years, open-source alternatives to Office have matured to the point where IT managers are beginning to investigate the viability of moving from the Microsoft Corp. suite to a license-free alternative. So when eWEEK Corporate Partner Ed Benincasa shared his desire to perform a user-based comparison between the OpenOffice.org project's OpenOffice.org suite and Microsoft's Office 2003, we saw a perfect opportunity to compare the suites under real-world conditions.

Click here to see how we tested.

Click here to learn why we think open-source office suites are a better fit in small shops.

Benincasa is vice president of MIS at precision machining manufacturer FN Manufacturing Inc., in Columbia, S.C. Microsoft Office 97 and Office 2000 are deployed to the 300-plus users at the site, and Benincasa is evaluating whether to move to Microsoft's latest suite, Office 2003, or the open-source OpenOffice.org 1.1.1.

Benincasa is looking to upgrade because Microsoft has discontinued distribution of new licenses for Office 2000 and Office 97. Benincasa is exploring his office application suite options because he is concerned about the high cost of an upgrade to Office 2003. He also wants to prevent Microsoft's product release and support road map from dictating FN Manufacturing's upgrade timetable.

"I'm not an anti-Microsoft person, and I think Office is a good product," said Benincasa. "However, we are cautious with our IT budget, and I'd prefer to spend money that directly relates to our business, like investing in things like hardware. Office 97 does everything we want it to do, and we would stay on that suite if we could. It pains me to have to spend money for features and functions most of my end users won't even begin to need."

eWEEK Labs traveled to FN Manufacturing to put the two office suites to the test. We worked with Benincasa and members of his IT staff, as well as several representatives of the user population at FN Manufacturing and its related companies--Browning Arms Co., in Ogden, Utah, and parent company Fabrique Nationale (National Weapons Factory), in Herstal, Belgium.

Also participating in the testing were Corporate Partner Kevin Wilson, product line manager of desktop hardware at Duke Energy Corp., in Charlotte, N.C., and Jeff Worboys, Duke's product line manager of desktop productivity applications.

For a complete list of eVal participants, click here.

We worked with three groups of users, all of whom currently use Office 97 or 2000 for productivity tasks. We tested OpenOffice.org and Office 2003 with sample documents provided by eWEEK Labs and with the testers' own files. We concentrated our tests on the applications' capability and compatibility, as well as on user training requirements.

During tests, most users had little or no trouble moving from their current suite to OpenOffice.org. However, for more advanced users--especially advanced users of Excel--OpenOffice.org did not fare as well.

"The advanced users already push Microsoft Office to the limits and are constantly looking for more functionality, which OpenOffice. org may not be able to provide," said Tina Sanzone, application analyst at Browning. "For other users, however, we can easily customize OpenOffice.org to make it look pretty close to what they already have."

Users who tested Office 2003 found the suite more polished and easy to use than Office 97 and 2000. However, only a few testers--again, mostly advanced users of Excel--said an upgrade to Office 2003 would provide them significantly more useful functionality.

Benincasa said that he has rolled out OpenOffice.org on shop-floor computers for basic document viewing and that the application works well there.

Those who participated in this eVal seemed, for the most part, receptive to a move to OpenOffice.org, but it's important to keep in mind that they volunteered for the test and, therefore, may be more open to a move than the bulk of

some typical FUD

[happyfrogcow]

CON: ...
Lack of traditional support Office suites typically do not require much vendor support, but the fact that OpenOffice.org is an open-source project means software support must come from the community, generally spread out across various Web sites and newsgroups.

Ok, so tell me again why the guy was thinking about switching from MS to OO? Oh yeah, "Benincasa is looking to upgrade because Microsoft has discontinued distribution of new licenses for Office 2000 and Office 97"

So MS won't support what they deem "old" products at all, and that isn't listed as a "Con" for them. Yet distributed, widely available support is a "Con" for OO?

And in the "Con" for MS high licensing costs, it doesn't mention that these will be recurring costs, at the whim of Microsoft and their End of Life policies.

No PDA support

[cexshun]

Sadly, OpenOffice is not supported using Documents to Go for palmOS. Even when I save the document as an excel spreadsheet and try to transfer it over, Documents to Go throws a hissy fit and spits out an error. Documents to Go claims no plans to support native OO format, either.

If this company utilizes pda's, then OO is not the way to go.

People Didn't Notice

[sigemund]

I work at a school -- We don't license MS Office for the students, but this year is the first that we have put MS Office on every faculty machine (about 60). I also put OpenOffice on every machine. We have been 100% Wordperfect until this year, but the new president "likes MS Office", so he's slowly forcing everything that direction. When I rolled out this year's install image, I had made a bit of a mistake (completely unintentionally). When someone double-clicks on a MS Office document, it opens in OpenOffice instead of MSOffice. This has basically "forced" everyone to use OpenOffice.

And HARDLY ANYONE has noticed. Only two or three of the faculty (those who call themselves the Techno-elite . . . yeah right) have switched it back to MS. Most people don't realize they're not using MSOffice. I'm of the opinion that I could COMPLETELY remove MSOffice, rename all the OpenOffice icons to the MS equivalent, and we'd be in business.

International support on OS X

[.com b4 .storm]

One of the main problems with OpenOffice on the Mac is that it does not yet use Aqua for its user interface, and a side effect of this is you cannot use the different international input modes in OS X to type in OO. So I can't just switch to Chinese and start typing in OO, as it does not know how to handle it. Without that, half my use for a word processor goes out the window.

There may be a way to rig the X11 environment or OpenOffice itself to allow Chinese input in another fashion, but it's just one more usability knock against the program when run on Mac OS X. Ugly UI, incosistencies with the Mac's interface conventions, international input kludges, etc. Not to mention the performance issues, and missing niceties like AppleScript automation (which can be done on ANY native OS X app, even if it's not designed for it), non-crappy file dialogs, etc.

Microsoft Word may have its share of problems, but at least it can start in less than 45-60 seconds, and it follows most of the Apple UI conventions. So while OpenOffice is nice, it definitely is not a decent substitute for Office X at this stage.

Article fails to mention Sharepoint Office 2003

[Forgery]

Unless I missed it, the article fails to mention anything about Office 2003's Sharepoint portal. Although sold as a separate product, this is the next step in the evolution of office products. From what I can tell, OpenOffice is still competing with 1998-2000 era products for base functionality. For small-medium offices, Sharepoint can become an entire document management system and workflow all integrated very tightly with Office 2003.

Say I'm creating an Outlook 2003 group appointment. With 2 clicks (inside Outlook), I can create a portal site for the meeting which includes a discussion list, document/picture library, agenda, surveys, etc. No programming and very easy for the average user to accomplish.

Say I'm in Word working on a document and I'd like to get my attorney to look at it. With 2 clicks (inside Word), I can create a portal site to allow him to review the document. We can discuss it using the discussion features, and he can create different versions. Using the web folders functionality, this entire process is seemless (no downloading the file locally, editing it, and uploading...just hit save and it saves automatically back to the portal).

Sharepoint is MS's take on a Wiki...

[Spoing]

(cut and paste from email)

Microsoft SharePoint is Microsoft's take on a Wiki.

Search google for "wikiwiki"/"wiki wiki" for details.

Important: If you haven't delt with wikis before, I suggest taking some time to look at them. Very very interesting stuff. Very practical as an information collaboration and storage/search system.

The differences in Microsoft's approach are basically;

* Document-centric -- specifically MS Office document suite from Word through PowerPoint with very tight integration with the FrontPage way of page design.

* Good for checking or logging existing documents into the system.

* Good for people who basically want a filing cabnet for Microsoft Office documents.

These good points cause problems that are not usually an issue with other Wikis;

* SharePoint is not easy or practical to use if the primary tasks involve;

+ Colaboration in general.
+ Searching existing data.
+ Editing/creating links and subdocuments.
+ Auditing.

IF you deal with folks where Microsoft lock-in is perfectly fine (as SharePoint inceases lock-in), and the negitive parts of the software are also not concerns, go for it. Otherwise, treat it like any other Wiki and decide from the list of available ones not just this one brand.

Specialized Software Supports MS

[cenonce]

I have put OpenOffice on three machines in our office, but mostly for the ability to open and use Excel and PowerPoint files. I have used Writer in place of Word and it was pretty quick to learn and I wouldn't complain about some of the problems with it when it is free and very full featured.

But, in our field (legal), we need Word or Word Perfect. So, we've been buying copies of Works 2003 which contains Word XP/2002 at 40 bucks a pop on eBay. We just don't need Excel or PowerPoint to pony up for MS Office, and can use OO.org when we need those programs.

I would love to go to OpenOffice in its entirety, but the problem is that many popular and specialized programs in the legal field support Word or WordPerfect and will never support something like OO.org (heck, our scheduling program doesn't support the main file being on a Linux server, which would have saved us some money for getting additional licenses for WinNT).

Our scheduling program (Amicus Attorney [amicusattorney.com]) supports creating documents through its scheduler/address book only though Word or WordPerfect.

Until OO.org figures out a way to interact with specialized programs in specialized fields (legal, medicine, engineering, etc), I think it will be hard for many companies to make a switch.

The most important comparison

[Decaff]

The article misses the most important reason to consider Open (or Star) Office - portability. Its a well-established (but unfortunately often forgotten) good business principle to never tie yourself in to one supplier.

Until a couple of years ago there was no 'good enough for most purposes' alternative to MS Office. Now there is, and companies finally have freedom to choose their desktop systems.

Switch to Open Office and you can migrate gradually to Unix or Linux desktops using the same Office system throughout. The mere possibility of doing this should be more than enough justification for most businesses evaluating Open Office.

Why OpenOffice Will Never Catch Up

[McSmiley]

Newsforge reports on why OpenOffice will never catch up to Microsoft Office [newsforge.com]. Worth a read!

Poisoned

[Trinition]

I feel like I've been poisoned. I used MS Word )and the other Office programs) for years. I recently dumped it in favor of OO. Mind you, I never used Word heavily, nor do I use OO heavily now.

But I still can'y (read: not patient enough to) figure out how to do some of the things I could easily do in Word. The arrangement of the menus and toolbars just feel foreign after growing accustomed to Microsoft's.

This isn't necessarily MIcrosoft's fault (I could just as easily have been addicted to an alternative program, just less likely due to Microsoft's dominance.) And it's not OO's faultm either. They shouldn't make their toolbars and menus look just like Microsoft's and limit their "innovation" (I hope MS hasn't trademarked that word!)

Nonetheless, my mind is poisoned and its taking some time (instead of effort) to purge myself.

Great for 'light' users

[Goglu]

I deployed OpenOffice to our call-center agents, in order to facilitate communication with them. This choice was mainly driven by cost: we couldn't afford the implementation of applications like SharePoint portal and didn't want to invest in license fees for the agents. Although most agents are not power users, they were very familiar with the MsOffice suite. Furthermore, they are allergic to change and don't do any effort to understand what could be the cause of that change, and how it can improve their work. Our biggest worries were that 1) our templates would have to be reworked, 2) the agents would lose all productivity while fighting with this new application, and 3) the application would stop working. These worries were not justified. 1) We had one template to rework, but it was already an approximation of a PDF document that was delivered without source by our supplier. The corporate templates were not used by the agents and they were mostly 'receivers' of the documents. Even if the memos became misaligned, they were still readable and agents didn't complain. 2) The agents required no training at all! As I said, they are light users and seldom produce documents. When they do, they use mostly the tools on the standard toolbar. The only issue was that we had to show them how to 'Save as...' when they had to share their documents with the back office. 3) The application was very stable. We were running it on Windows NT4.0 workstations (the ACD client runs only on NT...) and appart from a slow startup, the agents had no problem. In conclusion, I can recommend using OpenOffice for a targeted group, that doesn't produce many documents and communicates the documents internally.

OO's Style Driven Interface

[Uggy]

Even though style can be used in Microsoft Word, I find that in OO it's a sort of mandated policy. OO encourages you to, out of the box, use styles to define everything. It goes along with CSS web standards. Structure your data first, then style it up. OO forces you do that.

I find that when I get people using the stylelist they are more effective presenters, writers, motivators, can sell their ideas better, and waste less time reusing old documents for new purposes. They sat down and took the time to structure their thoughts.

If they want extra space around all Paragraphcs, bullets, headers (level1-levelx), fonts, backgrounds, anything you can think of, they just click it in their style dialog.

Makes re-using proposals a breeze. Change some content, one click, update table of contents, and bam - new proposal made specifically for that special client.

I find MS Word aids you in being sloppy in the short run. You want a heading, click "bold" change text size, etc. A lot of important documents are rendered un-reusable via this method. I've watched people literally spend all afternoon, changing font sizes, indents, bullets, just because the boss wanted a different look.

Get people on OO and they'll be more effective. It's a no-brainer.

Re:Big difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

And...? There's a lot of stuff that's free. Doesn't make it necessarily better (just as paid items aren't necessarily better). Most of us folk (who have matured to a certain extent) know to use the best tool for the job. In some cases (like when you're working with Exchange) that's Outlook 2003.

Free upgrades

[gilesjuk]

Lets not forget that at the moment it might be less functional, but you will be able to upgrade for free. The more people use and contribute to Open Office the better it becomes.

OR...

[The Spoonman]

you could have a qualified admin who can do BOTH. I realize it's a difficult concept for most unix admins to grasp the concept of being proficient in more than one tool, but...there it is...

Re:Big difference...

[chachob]

show some balls and reply your exchange servers IP address below.

ahh, the irony...telling an AC to show some balls

Re:Big difference...

[Liselle]

Nothing is ever free. Sometimes the costs of migration are more than the cost of staying with Microsoft's licensing. As the now-dead article mentioned, this is why OO is cheap for small companies: They don't have the cost savings of volume licensing that the big kids do.

Re:Big difference...

[jkabbe]

The costs of migration are a one-time cost. The costs of licensing are a continuing cost. Sometimes you have to eat it in the short term to meet your long term goals.

Re:Big difference...

[general_re]

The costs of migration are a one-time cost. The costs of licensing are a continuing cost.

That doesn't mean anything without actual numbers attached to both cases, which will tend to vary from place to place and from time to time - specifically, does the amortized cost of that one-time payment really add up to less cost than licensing for the same period?

Re:Big difference...

[FatherOfONe]

I agree that very little in life is free, but I don't like your reason for possibly staying with Microsoft Office.

Let's take your example. Yes the cost to switch might be more than the upgrade, but you would have to look at the TCO over the long haul. The cost of Microsoft Office in this case will cost that company $$$ every three to five years. This and the fact that they will have no say at all if they want to hold off an upgrade for lets say 6 or 7 years. The company in the article mentioned that this is probably the core reason that they are looking at alternatives to Microsoft Office, they are happy with Office 2k, and don't want to upgrade now, but they have to.

To use another analogy, it is like someone drinking Pepsi in a nice glass, and wanting to switch to drinking water because it is free, but not wanting to because the new glass may cost to much. Yes the one time cost may hurt a little bit, but the long term savings will more than make up for it.

Not to mention...

[bigchris]

... that water is more healthy than Pepsi.

Hey, this part of the analogy even works when comparing OpenOffice.org to MS Office!

Re:Big difference...

[FatherOfONe]

Yep, and when you add that new computer to your network, what version of Office is it going to have? This is one of the reasons the guy in the article is looking at OO. Sometimes you are allowed to load an older version of the software, but seeing that Microsoft is now having you register versions online, the day of loading older unsupported software is coming to an end. At least as far as Microsoft is concerned. So yes you are still on office 97, for now.... What will your company do when it starts getting Office 2003 documents and can't open them?

I will add one more thing. I believe that it will only take OpenOffice to get around 25% of the desktop market before compatibility issues start to go away. I believe that at around 25% Microsoft would be forced to make a converter to open OO docs, much like they had to for Word Perfect for years. Just my opinion though... I would just imagine that their customers would start to demand it though...

Re:Big difference...

[johnnyb]

"Nothing is ever free."

This is true, but sometimes this idea is used improperly. For example, I've heard it said "Linux is free only if your time costs nothing." Well, it could equally be said "Windows is only $300 if your time costs nothing."

So, to say OOo is free is just as wrong as to say Microsoft Office costs $499. If someone said Microsoft Office costs $499 would you correct them? If not, perhaps you shouldn't also be correcting people who say that Linux is free. It's kind of a double-standard.

Re:Big difference...

[zyridium]

You may need help to realise, but those that say that are implying that the cost on top of licensing is dominant.

Many people do say that linux is not free in a perfectly valid attempt to stop a lot of people being burnt by the fact it is not yet ready for them.

For something to succeed it should only be pushed on people when it is ready, and for a home computer user, i don't think we are there yet.

Re:Big difference...

[lfourrier]

I have one version of office. I paid it. It is 97.
And it cannot open recent word documents. So saying M$ as no migration cost is PURE BULLSHIT.

Don't tell me it is normal, it is too old because:
1) the PII/400 I bought it with is still more than enough for bureautic, and I don't see the first reason to upgrade.
2) OOo can open, even if not completely correctly the Word files I cannot open with Office97.

Re:Big difference...

[dasunt]

I have one version of office. I paid it. It is 97. And it cannot open recent word documents. So saying M$ as no migration cost is PURE BULLSHIT.

Go visit the evil empire and download the free converter for Office '97 to open up Office 2k3 files [microsoft.com].

In addition, you might want to check out the other free downloads available for Office '97. [microsoft.com]

For those of us who haven't purchased MS Office yet occasionally need to read MS Office documents, there is always the free MS Office document viewers [microsoft.com] if Open Office.org doesn't do the trick.

Re:Big difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

>Go visit the evil empire and download the free converter for Office '97 to open up Office 2k3 files.

This would be great if it worked for windows versions prior win2000. Bullshit argument holds.

Re:You don't get the point.

[EraseEraseMe]

The defect is in Office 2K3. This is the product which should be changed to have the option to save in 97 doc format, just like Ooo does it when we choose differently from the default sxw.

Why this was modded insightful I don't know.

From the save as dropdown in Word 2003:
Word Document (*.doc)
XML Document (*.xml)
Single File Web Page (*.mht)
5 more formats and then..
Word 97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF (*.doc)
Works 6.0 - 7.0 (*.wps)

Re:Big difference...

[stephenbooth]

True, although the costs of switching are odften short term and the savings long term. Which can be a problem in pitching to senior management. You pitch "OK it's going to save us $200,000 over 5 years for an upfront cost of $10,000 over the first year and $2,000 in the second year." and they only hear the cost part. They see the short term drop in profits and it's effect on their bonus and the share price. Then they say no. In many ways it's easier to sell StarOffice than OpenOffice.org as at least Sun have a marketing department, plus automatic credibility due to being outsiders.

Actually, on the subject of StarOffice. Due to the heavy discount (on purchase, training ("train the trainer") and support costs, remember enterprises like support and training) and free/very cheap consultancy Sun give to public sector bodies in Europe (and I assume elsewhere) it actually works out significantly cheaper to switch to StarOffice than it does OpenOffice.org for such bodies. worth bearing in mind.

Stephen

Re:Big difference...

[ErikTheRed]

Approximate recent pricing for a medium-sized company (~150 desktops, Open License Business):

Office 2K3 Pro: $420

Office 2K3 Standard: $340

Yes, you can get better pricing; this is just intended to give people a ballpark idea of the licensing costs involved (excluding the cost of tracking and managing licenses down the road). With these licenses you can also run Office 2K2 (XP) or Office 2K instead of 2K3 on the machine(s) in question.

Re:Big difference...

[smootc-m]

A key difference between OpenOffice and MSOffice is the file format. OO's is open. MS's is not. As a business or individual do you really want a third party dictating the file format of your critical business or personal information? It is interesting this was never mentioned in the evaluation as an issue.

Most people think MS's DOC format is a standard It is not and MS keeping it closed is the only way they maintain their Office monopoly. MS in effect has control over your information. It amazes me how so few business people 'get it' when it comes to this issue.

Re:Big difference...

[ErikTheRed]

Training is probably the biggest real-world issue. Any migration between platforms should always plan on plenty of time spent getting users up to speed. Document conversion would be the next issue, again follow the Law of the Seven P's (Proper Previous Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance).

Getting support on MS Office from Microsoft is a joke - if you value your time and money, you're better off using Google, just as you would with OpenOffice.

When it comes to advanced features there are a lot of features in MS Office that aren't in OO, however, these are features that aren't used by ~80-95% of your userbase, depending on your industry.

Re:Big difference...

[MikeCapone]

Cost to install is not the only cost. With a free product, your own IT guys are the only resource if you encounter a bug or difficult error situation. If you're paying for a license, you have another level of support, i.e. the developer.

It has been said many times before, and better than I could, but:

When you find a bug in a Microsoft product, can you really get hold of the programmers? Is the helpdesk really helpful? Are Microsoft products (Office, in this case) really more bug-free than the major alternatives?

I has also been said that it's often a lot easier to just email or call the OSS programmers and to talk directly to the person who coded the app you are using, and suggestions for new features have more chances of being listened to in the OSS world.

Re:Big difference...

[johnnyb]

"And while it may seem that OO.org does everything MS Office does, there may be advanced features in Office that either don't exist in OO.org, or aren't compatible from one format to the other."

The converse is true, too. For example, I use OOo Draw all the time, and I don't think there is a corresponding program in Microsoft Office (I could be wrong). In addition, I use OOo's export to PDF/Flash options all the time from Impress, while Microsoft Office does not have those features in PowerPoint.

In addition, with OOo, your IT guys have a much higher chance of being able to solve complex problems, because they have the source.

What kind of MS support have you gotten?

[mveloso]

When people talk about support, they always say "hey, you can always call MS."

But have you? Do you? When a problem occurs, the go-to guy is the IT guy in the company. And that guy (or gal) either searches the net or asks a friend.

Have you, and IT person, ever called the MS helpline? If so, were you able to get an answer?

Re:What kind of MS support have you gotten?

[AuMatar]

I actually have once. When they wanted me to pay for support to submit a bug, I laughed at the guy and hung up.

Re:Big difference...

[njdj]

With a free product, your own IT guys are the only resource if you encounter a bug or difficult error situation. If you're paying for a license, you have another level of support, i.e. the developer.

Why do we keep seeing drivel like this?

It has been pointed out again and again and again that Microsoft support for the end-user of Word or Excel is completely useless. If you believe otherwise, you haven't tried to use it. They'll graciously let you report a bug. That's about it.

In the open-source world, there are mailing lists you can post to, where you'll actually get useful help. And if you report a genuine bug, there's a real chance it will get fixed, based on the seriousness of the bug, not based on Microsoft's marketing-driven release schedules.

Further, third-party support companies can offer support tailored to your needs, if it's open-source software. They've got access to all details of the product - file formats, even source code. Nobody can offer support for Microsoft products except Microsoft, because the internals are not publicly documented.

Effective support is available for open-source software and not for Microsoft products. It really bugs me to see clueless moderators bump posts like the parent up to "+5 Insightful". Should be "-5 Codswallop".

Re:Big difference...

[be951]

In the open-source world, there are mailing lists you can post to, where you'll actually get useful help.

The same, of course, it true of MS Office, only much moreso due to the massively larger user base.

It has been pointed out again and again and again that Microsoft support for the end-user of Word or Excel is completely useless.

Of course it has. MS bashing is a huge hobby for all kinds of people. I've encountered many problems with Office, all of which I've been able to solve with a little help from support.microsoft.com. Microsoft might not be as helpful and efficient as you'd like, but "completely useless" is overstating the case.

Re:Big difference...

[ceswiedler]

You seem to think that the only reason for technical support is a bug in the program. Far from it.

The main reason for technical support is user error, which is not something that freely-donated open-source support handles very well. When Joe User can't format his Word document the way he wants because a feature isn't working the way he expects, he doesn't want the person on the other end of the phone / email to tell him to RTFM. Paid support (through Microsoft, or as you mention, third-party paid support) is generally trained to handle this.

Moreover, I don't have a problem with your argument, but I dislike your disdainful attitude. If you think the software purchasing decisions made by the vast majority of American businesses are -5 Codswallop, then put your money where your mouth is and start your own fucking Fortune 500 company.

Your personal experience at using software (open source or otherwise) does not accurately predict other people's experiences.

Re:Big difference...

[killjoe]

"The main reason for technical support is user error, which is not something that freely-donated open-source support handles very well."

Please forgive me for yelling but apparently many people here are deaf. YOU CAN BUY SUPPORT IF YOU WANT TO. YOU CAN BUY ANY LEVEL OF SUPPORT YOU WANT FROM MULTIPLE VENDORS.

Did you hear that? You can buy support if you want or need it. In summary.

Free support for OSS projects is better then free support from ms (mainly because MS does not offer free support for the vast majority of it's products). Paid support is frequently better for OSS projects because the people supporting are usually the developers and/or have access to source code.

"If you think the software purchasing decisions made by the vast majority of American businesses are -5 Codswallop"

having worked for many american companies I can state without hesitation that the software buying decisions are made by morons based on some magazine they read on an airplane or something their buddy told them on golf course. -5 Codswallop (my new favorite word) sums it up beautifully.

Re:Big difference...

[ecrivain]

Everyone always mentions training as a cost for alternatives to MS Office. My company offers free training on all MS Office products. Does anyone take them? No. They prefer to call the helldesk. So I don't see any difference at all between having the Helldesk look up info on MS Office as compared to looking up info on OpenOffice. Training is a red herring.

Re:Big difference...

[gnu-generation-one]

"Cost to install is not the only cost. With a free product, your own IT guys are the only resource if you encounter a bug or difficult error situation. If you're paying for a license, you have another level of support, i.e. the developer."

Err, let's correct this one right here, and anyone else who's thinking that openoffice is unsupported, could you please subscribe to [e-mail] for a couple of days to see the quality of questions and responses being given to anyone who asks for help.

These are developers answering questions, and there are several people who work 40 hours per week answering openoffice support questions. There is absolutely nothing cheapskate about the OpenOffice support.

Re:OO is expensive if you're billable

[markroth8]

You are assuming incorrectly that:

• Every one of your contractors will burn up 10 minutes every day due to bugs/quirks and they never learn to get around them
• MSOffice never burns up time by being buggy or quirky
• $500 gets you enough licenses of MSOffice for all your users
• All your MSOffice upgrades are free

Not to mention the high costs of security issues with MSOffice macro viruses, etc. and the software you need to purchase to protect yourself from them. My experience with OpenOffice has been quite good. It was a little buggy in its initial incarnations, but has come a long way and is very stable now! If OpenOffice doesn't have quite enough polish for you, check out StarOffice as well.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:M$ compatibility is not a feature...

[The Master Control P]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you're not going to get anywhere at all in the business world by thumbing your nose at the product whose formats control 90% of document exchanges. Although M$ is undeniably an abusive monopoly, and their products suck more the Michael Jackson on technical merits, the fact is that you have to interoperate well the the market leader to have much hope of toppling the leader.

And a slight nitpick: MS office is only compatible with it's current incarnation; The article even says that it's breaking things with 97 and even 2000.