Another Office alternative

For around R5K they can keep it.
Will just use OpenOffice,thanks.
 
Who can ever forget WP 5.1? At that kind of price though I can't see them gaining market traction.
 
yep, i too will stick to openoffice. thus far i have also converted most of my friends to openoffice, they wouldnt believe that it doesnt need a crack/serial to get it to work lol
 
Why would any business risk going the Wordperfect route? MS Office is the standard and OpenOffice is free. OpenOffice will also have a new release soon. In my opinion Corel is riding a dead horse here. Corel should stick to Corel Draw ... and sort out the annoying bugs in X4.
 
BeVonk! said:
Why would any business risk going the Wordperfect route? MS Office is the standard and OpenOffice is free. OpenOffice will also have a new release soon. In my opinion Corel is riding a dead horse here. Corel should stick to Corel Draw ... and sort out the annoying bugs in X4.
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Here I will have to disagree with you. Microsoft have too much of a hold on this market hence their ridiculous prices. Open Office, whilst very good, still needs a lot of work.

What we need are MORE software vendors designing and distributing newer alternatives to the MS Office Suite.

The standards should be set and software designed around these to try and bring down the price of proprietry software as Open Source will long be viewed as secondary or a viable alternative.

One of the reasons most people are on this forum was and is to call for and lobby for more competition in the Telecommunications arena. The same should be supported in the Office Suite and other software forms.
 
RVFmal said:
Open Office, whilst very good, still needs a lot of work.
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Like what? Everyone keeps saying this, but once I ask them to give me an example of the "work to be done", they can't give me one.
 
EtienneK said:
Like what? Everyone keeps saying this, but once I ask them to give me an example of the "work to be done", they can't give me one.
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The main gripe that most people have is when they try and open MS documents. Yes a lot of people will say, but you are not using Office, but the reality is that due to the huge number of people using MS, inter-operatability (sp?) is paramount.

They are a lot closer than they were with the previous versions, but there are still issues when it comes to opening PP Presentations, Excel Spreadsheets and the like.

There was a very good comparative article written on ZDNet about this (and I will try and find the link later to post).

I for one am a big supporter of OS programs and try and use them where I can, but due to proprietary programs still garnering a huge share of the market, the onus rests on the developers of the OS products to try and ensure that the programs are as close as possible in terms of functionality and cross-platform operability to make it worth the users while to switch.
 
RVFmal said:
The main gripe that most people have is when they try and open MS documents. Yes a lot of people will say, but you are not using Office, but the reality is that due to the huge number of people using MS, inter-operatability (sp?) is paramount.
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Which is why MS is trying so hard to stop that happening (xlsx, docx) which older ms office cant open without a plugin as well.

Other than that OO works fine, it takes a bit to get used to but I find it does what I need it to do.
 
My 2c.... I'll stil to OpenOffice thank you very much. Especially with its Office2007 whipping version coming out in a few months.
 
RVFmal said:
The main gripe that most people have is when they try and open MS documents. Yes a lot of people will say, but you are not using Office, but the reality is that due to the huge number of people using MS, inter-operatability (sp?) is paramount.
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A problem of course other vendors will face unless they fork the cash out to MS. Which will make their offerings less competitive.

The solution is to create a standard that everyone can work to. Oh...
 
eltherza said:
Which is why MS is trying so hard to stop that happening (xlsx, docx) which older ms office cant open without a plugin as well.

Other than that OO works fine, it takes a bit to get used to but I find it does what I need it to do.
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It all boils down to personal preference really and if one feels comfortable in the fact that OO will give you what you need, then who is anyone to argue :)

The problem comes in in a corporate or office environment where there is a lot of file sharing and even more so when documents are sent to clients. PDF has done a lot to alleviate this problem, but it still exists where documents are sent from one company to another where these have to be amended. this is where the cross platform interoperability is so important.

Obviously MS will do everything to throw a spanner in the works, but hopefully that will change in the future and will have to change as more people move over to alternative Suites.
 
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