Microsoft today announced the opening of a “test drive” so that people can see what Microsoft Office 2007 might look like when it finally goes on sale.
The OpenOffice.org Community invites potential upgraders to go one better – download the full OpenOffice.org 2 office suite today for a test drive, and if you like it, use it free for as long as you like. It’s the ultimate no-strings-attached test drive – if you enjoy the test drive, keep the car!
As office software becomes a commodity product, Microsoft has been forced to make significant changes to the ‘look and feel’ of MS-Office 2007. Because of this, analysts now agree that migrating to Microsoft Office 2007 will be a major upheaval with a significant cost impact.
Unlike changing to Microsoft Office 2007, changing to OpenOffice.org 2 does not require learning how to use office software all over again. Indeed, reports have shown migration to OpenOffice.org 2 is 90% cheaper than migrating to Microsoft Office 2007.
For more information and references to the reports, please see http://why.openoffice.org
As announced by OpenOffice.org, open source makes sense when you need a commodity product like office software. Combine OpenOffice with a few web applications like Writely, Google Spreadsheets and Gliffy and you’re all set for your business needs.
Harold:
I’m confused. If OpenOffice.org is so impressive, why are you saying that it is a great package after you replace Writer with Writely, Calc with Google Spreadsheet, and Draw with Gliffy? You’re advocating a solution that replaces the three main components of the software but still saying the software is competitive on it’s own? What gives?
Not replace, but enhance for web-based collaboration. For instance, in Writely, I can upload or save OpenOffice Writer documents. The other three applications that I mentioned are for online web collaboration, not to replace OOo (I guess I wasn’t very clear).
For small businesses, I think that a simple, straightforward suite like OOo is a good desktop application. You can then enhance this tool with some web apps for collaborative projects. The money that you have saved on you office suite can be used for any paid web services that you may specifically need. E.g. if you share a lot of photos, you may want a Flickr professional account.
I’ve been using OOo for four years now and it meets all of my desktop office application needs. Lately though, many of my applications are migrating to the web.