posted on Tuesday, April 27, 2004 9:46 AM
by
demiliani
Office 2003 vs. OpenOffice.Org
EWeek has published today the first (for me) comparison between Office 2003 and OpenOffice that is not seen from a particular side (pro Microsoft or pro Open Source).
This is an accurate review, that examines all the tools in details, the migration between them and some business cases.
Read it! Here, a little summary...
Suite Comparison: | OpenOffice.Org 1.1.1 Pros No licensing costs As a free-software project, OpenOffice.org has no licensing. Good integration among suite applications eValuation testers said, for example, that they appreciated being able to create new spreadsheet documents from within the word processor application. Variety of export options OpenOffice.org ships with PDF export capabilities, as well as support for saving presentations in Flash format. Cons File-format compatibility issues Although OpenOffice.org does a good job of handling Microsoft Office file formats, small formatting inconsistencies will require reworking of complex documents. Lack of traditional support Office suites typically do not require much vendor support, but the fact that OpenOffice.org is an open-source project means software support must come from the community, generally spread out across various Web sites and newsgroups. Interface differences OpenOffice.org is similar to Microsoft Office in its design, but users will need some time to grow accustomed to differences between the two. | Office 2003 Pros Familiarity Most knowledge workers use some version of Microsoft Office already, and an upgrade to a new version of Office presents the flattest learning curve. File-format compatibility Microsoft Office file formats are de facto standards, and no rival suite handles these proprietary formats as well as Office does. Advanced features Office 2003 has more features and capabilities than competing suites. Although many users do not require or use much of this functionality, advanced users, particularly of spreadsheets, often find it vital. Cons High licensing costs Microsoft Office licenses are priced at a few hundred dollars each—a cost that can be difficult to justify when your users require only basic productivity suite functionality. Advanced features require latest versions Some of the most compelling features added to the last two versions of Office—such as extensible smart tags, document protection and Smart Document creation—are not backward-compatible with earlier versions of the suite. |
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