Microsoft Office is the premier applications suite for personal computers. It is the current standard in the industry. The “professional” version includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database, email front end applications and more.
However, not all people can pay or want to pay the $499 list price cost for the package. That may be almost as much as the cost of a basic laptop or desktop PC.
So what are you to do? One option is to look at Open Office (www.openoffice.org.) Open Office is an open source software package that is free to download and use. It contains applications to do word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics and database. It can read and write files that are in the Microsoft Office document “standards”.
Does this sound too good to be true? It depends. My own experience with Open Office says that it is fine for simple documents (I.e. simple reports, letters, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.) Once you start to get “fancy”, the programs can quickly reach their limits and/or possibly break down.
The database application is the weakest part of the package. It is still buggy, has trouble working with existing Microsoft databases, and does not have DBA support.
In summary: If you only infrequently need to use an office applications suite or if you are really strapped for cash, the free Open Office package might be a good choice. As your frequency of use or your level of document sophistication increases, you are probably better served to bite the bullet and migrate to Microsoft Office.
