Microsoft's Alan Yates would like you to believe that you need the latest MS Office because OpenOffice is (to paraphrase) "where MS Office was 10 years ago". Read his comments here for the full story from IT Wire.
A rebuttal article from OpenOffice user Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, has a headline that says "OpenOffice is ten years behind MS Office? That's just fine!" So is it?
After reading both articles, I really have to agree with Steven. There is nothing new in MS Office that hasn't already been done by any of the competitors, including OpenOffice. Nothing new has been added to the basic word processor in 10 years for a simple reason, there was nothing to add. MS would have you believe that a "new and improved" user interface (UI) is worth spending a few hundred bucks for. My quick looks at the new UI in MS Office 12 (or whatever they want to call it) is nothing more than eye candy that gets in the way of doing what you open Word for in the first place, to write! Imagine that, being able to get to the functions and tools that you need to write whatever document it is you need to write. OpenOffice has that functionality. It is simple and just plain works. MS Office 12 might have that functionality, but why should I spend any extra time to learn a new UI just to do what I could already do in previous versions of MS Office? 'Cause I can look cool doing it? I don't think so.
Are there any compelling reasons for me to pay to upgrade my MS Office XP/2003 installations? So far, the answer is no. I can make Portable Document Format (PDF) files with Acrobat or OpenOffice, or any number of other tools designed to do just that. I can do mail merge, labels, charts, graphs, drawings, newsletters, technical reports, research papers, letters, notes, etc., with OpenOffice and not have to worry about being able to open them again 10 years from now or have my intellectual property (things I have created) come into doubt because of using a proprietary file format. I can even convert my old MS Office files into Open Document Format (ODF) files, although imperfectly at times, shedding another layer of MS dependency and making those same files more accessible in the process. But with OpenOffice, not anything new from MS Office. Hmm...I didn't have to pay anything extra for this either...
Mr. Yates would have you believe that the integration of MS Office with Outlook, Internet Explorer, Exchange, and Windows server is a good thing as well. Why hell, I have OpenOffice, Pegasus (or Thunderbird), Firefox (or Opera), and at least one FreeBSD server somewhere where I can host and exchange my OpenOffice files with my writing/business partners and not have to worry about some new worm or macro virus trashing it all up. Oh yeah, and it doesn't cost me anything for all of that software.
Of course the choice is your's, but it seems pretty clear to me - pay now and pay more later via MS Office upgrade lock hell, or don't pay now and still not be paying later for OpenOffice and other FOSS. My wallet thanks me.
J*
A rebuttal article from OpenOffice user Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, has a headline that says "OpenOffice is ten years behind MS Office? That's just fine!" So is it?
After reading both articles, I really have to agree with Steven. There is nothing new in MS Office that hasn't already been done by any of the competitors, including OpenOffice. Nothing new has been added to the basic word processor in 10 years for a simple reason, there was nothing to add. MS would have you believe that a "new and improved" user interface (UI) is worth spending a few hundred bucks for. My quick looks at the new UI in MS Office 12 (or whatever they want to call it) is nothing more than eye candy that gets in the way of doing what you open Word for in the first place, to write! Imagine that, being able to get to the functions and tools that you need to write whatever document it is you need to write. OpenOffice has that functionality. It is simple and just plain works. MS Office 12 might have that functionality, but why should I spend any extra time to learn a new UI just to do what I could already do in previous versions of MS Office? 'Cause I can look cool doing it? I don't think so.
Are there any compelling reasons for me to pay to upgrade my MS Office XP/2003 installations? So far, the answer is no. I can make Portable Document Format (PDF) files with Acrobat or OpenOffice, or any number of other tools designed to do just that. I can do mail merge, labels, charts, graphs, drawings, newsletters, technical reports, research papers, letters, notes, etc., with OpenOffice and not have to worry about being able to open them again 10 years from now or have my intellectual property (things I have created) come into doubt because of using a proprietary file format. I can even convert my old MS Office files into Open Document Format (ODF) files, although imperfectly at times, shedding another layer of MS dependency and making those same files more accessible in the process. But with OpenOffice, not anything new from MS Office. Hmm...I didn't have to pay anything extra for this either...
Mr. Yates would have you believe that the integration of MS Office with Outlook, Internet Explorer, Exchange, and Windows server is a good thing as well. Why hell, I have OpenOffice, Pegasus (or Thunderbird), Firefox (or Opera), and at least one FreeBSD server somewhere where I can host and exchange my OpenOffice files with my writing/business partners and not have to worry about some new worm or macro virus trashing it all up. Oh yeah, and it doesn't cost me anything for all of that software.
Of course the choice is your's, but it seems pretty clear to me - pay now and pay more later via MS Office upgrade lock hell, or don't pay now and still not be paying later for OpenOffice and other FOSS. My wallet thanks me.
J*
