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:2008-05-27
"3/ You don't need linux to run Open Office, Google docs or KOffice. "
KOffice 2 is alpha, hardly useable or production ready. KOffice 1.6 is not available on Windows, except via Cygwin or similar - non native install method, feels (and is) alien software to Windows.
"6/ PDFs are editable (this is in responce to a later comment you made). "
Most PDF editors are laughable. Perhaps the best free PDF editor is by coincidence OSS too, and it's Inkscape. And it can edit only one page at a time. Again, hardly production material. There's a Qt PDF editor - http://pdfedit.petricek.net/index_e.html -> pretty unstable, and editing PDFs with it isn't comparable to editing RTFs of DOCs in OO.org or MS Office.
I have used MS Office a lot. Open Office too. And trust me, the deeper you go, more you see why MS Office > Open Office. OO.org didn't even have custom filters for Excel till relatively recently (for Excel power users, as those in an audit firm, for example, they're priceless).
Member since:2007-03-26
I was never arguing which software was better (if you read my other posts in this thread you'll realise that I've said MSOffice is, in my opinion, the best Office package.
The reason for my post (to reitterate what I've already said in the aforementioned post) is because most of the reasons he listed for using MSOffice didn't ring technically accurate and sounded a tad like excuses rather than genuine reasons.
To again reitterate my point: To say that the It admins haven't even heard of other office packages doesn't sound like a good reason to use Microsoft Office or demonstrate how poor the competition is. All that shows is his IT Admin are clearly biased towards Microsoft software and unwilling to discover new software. Thus it's not a reason for not Using MS office but an excuse.
Also, you make a point about KOffice not being Windows native, but that's only one alternative office package out of 3 I meantioned and even then I only name 3 of many other alternative packages which all work adiquatly for the average Joe User.
So my point was this: While MSOffice is in my opinion the best package - the best isn't always required (espcially when you take MSOffice's price tag into account) and sometimes even the best software lags behind it's competitors in some areas (cross platform versions / PDF support / ODF support / etc). Hell, even Lotus Smart Suite 95 has features still not included with MSOffice (Lotus Smart Cam).
So while MSOffice might be good, it's ignorant to at least not consider competitors software as well.
Member since:2007-02-17
Most PDF editors are laughable. Perhaps the best free PDF editor is by coincidence OSS too, and it's Inkscape. And it can edit only one page at a time. Again, hardly production material. There's a Qt PDF editor - http://pdfedit.petricek.net/index_e.html -> pretty unstable, and editing PDFs with it isn't comparable to editing RTFs of DOCs in OO.org or MS Office.
OpenOffice 3.0 will apparently have PDF import and export.
It is fairly typical of posts like yours to mention an obscure feature that MS Office supports better than OpenOffice but curiously somehow fail to mention other obscure features that OpenOffice supports better than MS Office.
Even more typical of posts such as yours is the utter blind spot to the enormous feature that OpenOffice has in spades and MS Office almost utterly lacks ... That feature being that OpenOffice will enable an organisation to use any platform of choice, or even a mix of platforms, but MS Office will tie your organisation to a monoculture of costly, hard-to-maintain, keep-you-on-the-update-treadmill and not-designed-for-the-users Windows platforms.
Edited 2008-07-18 14:02 UTC
Member since:
2007-03-26
I see what you're getting at, but your post just sounds like a series of excuses for sticking with what's comfortable rather than reasons for using whatever software would be best for the users and work required.
Let me break down my reasons for saying this (these points directly respond to statements you made in the above quote):
1/ MS Office and Works are not compatable with each other so you're only creating more problems for your non-technical users by encuraging them to use a suite thats not compatable with other suites.
2/ You don't need to be technically minded to run Open Office, Google Doc or KOffice. In my experience they're just as user friendly.
3/ You don't need linux to run Open Office, Google docs or KOffice.
4/ You don't even need to know the command line to run any of the above office suites in Linux. Plus in many distros of Linux you wouldn't even need to know the command line to install said suites.
5/ If you want to garrentee that documents to work between different computers then you should be using PDFs rather than DOC / PPT
6/ PDFs are editable (this is in responce to a later comment you made).
7/ Just because your IT admin haven't heard of other office packages, it doesn't mean that other office packages aren't up to the job.
At the end of the day though, it's all preference and you are entiled to prefer something for no other reason than an emotional response. I just thought your reasons sounded inaccurate and, at times, like poor excuses.
Edited 2008-07-17 17:34 UTC