Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice.org

[Archonist]

I belive theres already a thread about this, but I didn't feel like searching for it after typing all of this, and I didn't feel like bringing up old topics.

According to a magizine article I just read, Microsoft Office is better then OpenOffice.org. I personally feel I haven't had enough experience with OpenOffice to form an opinion, however the times I have used it I saw no problems. Some of the things the magizine had to say are...

"Features: Offices adaptive formatting and Smart Tags are evolving from aggressive annoyances into helpful, advanced features that detect what you're doing and offer up driving directions when you type an address in a Word document. Additionally, a host of slick new features have made their debut, including support for handwritten input on Tablet PC devices, advanced collaboration and sharing capabilities, and one-click access to online reference sources. In terms of features, Microsoft Office is the steel body-shop toolbox to OpenOffice.org's lunch pail."
Winner: Microsoft Office

"Value: This one's an open-and-shut case. Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 costs $500. OpenOffice.org costs $0. You do the math."
Winner: OpenOffice.org

"Compatibility: The file formats used by the programs in Office have changed slightly over the years, leading to some minor but shameful compatibility issues when reading files created in older versions of the software. However, we didn't experience any significant problems in testing. All in all, Office was more compatible with other file formats than OpenOffice.org—and the new 2003 edition can read and write in XML too!"
Winner: Microsoft Office

"Applications: The latest version of Office Professional Edition drops the FrontPage web development application from the mix, but adds Microsoft's Publisher desktop publishing program (which, along with Word, is capable of outputting documents in HTML format). Office also includes an e-mail and scheduling program (Outlook) and Microsoft's powerful Access database. OpenOffice.org's inclusion of a basic HTML editor and drawing app isn't enough to compensate for it's lack of desktop publishing, e-mail, and database tools, so Microsoft takes this category in a landslide."
Winner: Microsoft Office

"Easy-of-use and interface: If you're used to Microsoft Office, it won't be hard to make the transition to OpenOffice.org. Many (though not all) of the menus and shortcut keys are similar to those of Office, and the interface is fairly straightforward. However, some seemingly simple tasks, like moving toolbars around, are less intuitive in OpenOffice.org than in Office. OpenOffice.org's help system is adequate, but lacks the ability to automatically connect to the Internet for updated help files. And why the hell does each app take three times as long to start as its counterpart in Microsoft Office?"
Winner: Microsoft Office, but it's close

[Arta]

No surprise there. It'll probably take many years for OpenOffice to evolve into a product that really offers some competition to Microsoft.

[Grok]

Don't forget VBA.  In my corporate experience, the availability of the Office object model allows programmers to quickly and efficiently extend the ability of Office documents throughout the workflows.  People forget the strongest thing Microsoft has going for it -- Bill Gates' vision of a document-centric world.  This vision is evidence in all of their products where appropriate (exceptions like SQL Server).  The widespread application of a single coherent vision is what makes Microsoft Windows Server and desktop operating systems, Office, and all the sidebar products easily compatible and learnable by even your average sales manager or secretary.

VALUE:  The article says OpenOffice wins hands down, I say no way.  The value of something must take into consideration the economic cost of ownership, not just the purchase price.  For your average X corporation today, training someone on MS-Office is incredibly cheaper if for no reason than the availability of teachers (your regular corporate trainer and coworkers whenever you have a casual question).  Then there's the cost of integration of OpenOffice documents to distributable formats which everyone can share.  It goes on and on.

[iago]

Features: the feature mentioned there is annoying and pointless.  I doubt anybody has ever used it.  Any real person can open up a browser and type www.mapquest.com.  God no!

Compatibility: how the fuck can MS Office win?  *tries running Office at work* nope.  *tries running MS Office at school* nope.   MS Office works only on OS's made by MS, whereas Sun's OpenOffice works on any.

Applications: If you want to draw, use a drawing program.  If you want email, use an email program. Why do all programs have to be in one big expensive piece of software?  I'm perfectly happy with having 3 ICONS!

And I'm not going to bother talking about the interface.  They're the same thing, or close enough.


But my bottom line: I can't use MS Office at school, at work, or while doing homework.  I'd say that's a pretty prohibitive reason.

[MyndFyre]

Features: the feature mentioned there is annoying and pointless.  I doubt anybody has ever used it.  Any real person can open up a browser and type www.mapquest.com.  God no!

It's not just driving directions.  Smart Tags in Office 2k3 come up for spelling corrections, auto-formatting (which is actually beneficial), etc.  Sometimes I ignore them, sometimes they're really helpful.

As for compatibility, Word can open text/Office/WordPerfect/etc.  Evidently, OpenOffice can't.  That's what they were looking for, apparently.

Apps: I don't know how OpenOffice works, but let me take a gander at my MS Office 2k3 folder: MapPoint, Access, Excel, FrontPage, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, Visio, Word.  That's 11 icons.  The nice things come in when I want to do Mail Merge, put a spreadsheet into my engineering lab, and then send that whole document as an e-mail attachment.  I understand what you're saying (I still prefer the command-line DOS interface to Windows), but the shortcuts -- the things you use that save time -- are the big benefit to having a large package of integrated applications.

What they didn't mention is how friggen hard it is to just find a list of Excel spreadsheet functions -- or to find the right one, even with Help.  :-/

[Eibro]

Features: the feature mentioned there is annoying and pointless.  I doubt anybody has ever used it.  Any real person can open up a browser and type www.mapquest.com.  God no!

It's not just driving directions.  Smart Tags in Office 2k3 come up for spelling corrections, auto-formatting (which is actually beneficial), etc.  Sometimes I ignore them, sometimes they're really helpful.

As for compatibility, Word can open text/Office/WordPerfect/etc.  Evidently, OpenOffice can't.  That's what they were looking for, apparently.

Apps: I don't know how OpenOffice works, but let me take a gander at my MS Office 2k3 folder: MapPoint, Access, Excel, FrontPage, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, Visio, Word.  That's 11 icons.  The nice things come in when I want to do Mail Merge, put a spreadsheet into my engineering lab, and then send that whole document as an e-mail attachment.  I understand what you're saying (I still prefer the command-line DOS interface to Windows), but the shortcuts -- the things you use that save time -- are the big benefit to having a large package of integrated applications.

What they didn't mention is how friggen hard it is to just find a list of Excel spreadsheet functions -- or to find the right one, even with Help.  :-/

OpenOffice has spelling corrections and autoformatting. Also, it can open many different formats, including MS Office formats.

[Naem]

Value: This one's an open-and-shit case.

That's a new one to me.

[SNiFFeR]

I believe the biggest perk here is the price. Since I've got no money, it's either pirate MSOffice (illegal), or use openoffice.

Edit - Grammar

[iago]

Value: This one?s an open-and-shit case.

That's a new one to me.

haha I noticed that too

[Grok]

iago, don't let college get the better of your freedom of thought.  Most *nix zealots are born through the university process, where professors who typically cannot keep a job in the real world, hide out in college and pretend to have all the answers, and push those views on students.  Easy to recognize because they use words like "evil" when talking about Gates and Microsoft.  Students so eager to get their A's tend to regurgitate everything their prof says and thinks.

You just made an argument which I disbelieve, and I think if I question you on it, you're going to qualify it further, instead of saying it was simply wrong.

Compatibility: how the fuck can MS Office win?  *tries running Office at work* nope.  *tries running MS Office at school* nope.   MS Office works only on OS's made by MS, whereas Sun's OpenOffice works on any.

I look at www.openoffice.org, and I see three distributables.  One for Windows, one for Linux, and one for Solaris Unix.  Tell me how this is one program that works on *any* platform?  I don't see it working on AS/400.  I don't see it working on OS/X (whatever version).

Or are you purposefully making incorrect statements for flaming effect?

[iago]

Compatibility: how the fuck can MS Office win?  *tries running Office at work* nope.  *tries running MS Office at school* nope.   MS Office works only on OS's made by MS, whereas Sun's OpenOffice works on any.

I look at www.openoffice.org, and I see three distributables.  One for Windows, one for Linux, and one for Solaris Unix.  Tell me how this is one program that works on *any* platform?  I don't see it working on AS/400.  I don't see it working on OS/X (whatever version).

Or are you purposefully making incorrect statements for flaming effect?

Ok, I apologize - for every OS that I personally use.

And of all my professors this year, only one has survived in the real world for some amount of time, and he uses Mac.  So go figure

[Hostile]

It's not just driving directions.  Smart Tags in Office 2k3 come up for spelling corrections, auto-formatting (which is actually beneficial), etc.  Sometimes I ignore them, sometimes they're really helpful.

yeah, Smart Tags use good judgement AI... but like almost all AI its not programmed to be accustomed to the imperfections of every day use. Smart Tags were introduced in Office XP, which was mainly the only thing new in Office XP.

PS: Stop taking articles out of magazines, Archonist.

[Archonist]

It's not just driving directions.  Smart Tags in Office 2k3 come up for spelling corrections, auto-formatting (which is actually beneficial), etc.  Sometimes I ignore them, sometimes they're really helpful.

yeah, Smart Tags use good judgement AI... but like almost all AI its not programmed to be accustomed to the imperfections of every day use. Smart Tags were introduced in Office XP, which was mainly the only thing new in Office XP.

PS: Stop taking articles out of magazines, Archonist.

Why? I found it intresting, and I didn't say I wrote it. So why can't I?