InfoWorld's Curtis Franklin reviews the four leading contenders to supplant Microsoft Office in business and finds that, while Google Docs is not ready to take on the full mantle, OpenOffice and Zoho provide viable alternatives should IT endeavor to wean business off Office.
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Member since:2006-10-10
Member since:2006-05-01
You are so right, style over substance, MSOffice is foscused on presentation over content. This is a problem in our organisation, with marketing, corporate relations and branding consultants having more resources than staff education or Research and Development. They are the ones using excel for lists, outlook for file transfers and word docs for emails and sharepoint/online help, WTF!
This is a tragic state of affairs and it is not a question of 'could we live with out office', it is an imperative to live with out MSOffice. Especially if you want your staff to be autonomous, smart and effective workers. I find MSOffice users tend to be more apathetic, less inventive, curious and thoughtful than their FOSS colleagues. MSOffice; its users, proponents and its 'easy win' UI are in essence to blame for this.
Member since:2008-05-27
And users of OpenOffice would be smarter? Considering that office suites are chosen by IT management and used "as-is" by office workers, your argument is flawed.
MS Office does allow you to do fancy things with document formatting, but that is *good*. Users going overboard with formatting are *bad*. Tools aren't to blame*. And the same people using now MS Office would still be using typewriters if they didn't have office suites, they wouldn't learn TeX...
* Don't compare this to "guns don't kill people, people kill people", because guns are designed to kill, and the average Joe with a gun is a threat to society, even if he might not mean to be.
Member since:
2007-01-13
The trouble is companies have way to much emphasis on process rather than actual work. That is why staff spend an entire week on a Powerpoint presentation which says absolutely nothing. Bosses waste hours a day sending and reading emails. Sensible employers should be taking away the computers/blackberries/phones of most their staff so they get some actual work done,