Nine years after Sun Microsystems bought StarOffice, the resulting OpenOffice.org project is ready to roll out its 3.0 release. Enhanced format compatibility and features put it on par with Microsoft Office.When Sun Microsystems bought the little-known StarOffice productivity suite in 1999, and soon thereafter released the product's code base as open-source software, it was unclear how far the arguably quixotic initiative might reach—and what damage it could possibly wreak on Microsoft's ironclad grip on the office productivity market.
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OO.o may never ever become a market leader, but it is certainly an acceptable Office suite for many.
Its still quite enough for me
It's got some way to go to be a good Mac app, but as an MS Office replacement it's more than good enough for most users.
That's hilarious. I'm sure Microsoft is shaking in their boots. Who comes up with this stuff?
As always, you get what you pay for. That's why one title is loaded with features and one isn't.
Vista Ultimate is loaded with features. But a simple home user wanting to simply share family photos online or get emails and such would not be better served with Ultimate (and the increased price tag) over Home. Heck even a free Linux distro can do that super easy - all the while avoiding the malware concerns.
Face it, sometimes the value of what you get is often more than what you paid for it.
The only real advantage Office has over it is the fact that the clusterf*ck they call the ".doc" format is so firmly entrenched in the business world. It's momentum that's keeping Office ahead, more than features.
But this said, for 90% of people, OOo is perfectly acceptable and even better free
SCreenshots: http://www.oooninja.com/2008/03/openoffice...w-features.html
It looks like office 03 to me.
Looks like you could do with it too.
If stuff like this does transition smoothly then MS is in trouble.
Of all the people at work I know, only one knows about VB macros.
For the rest, OO.o can be an acceptable app.
This is the one step I'm waiting it to do:
OpenOffice formatting should NOT BREAK THE LAYOUTS
of my documents, spreadsheets, presentations.
I could live with its crappy clunky slow and dated user interface,
but the breaking of document appearances?
It makes me glad that MS Office is de-facto standard.
I do not want the .doc to be the new .html/css
loaded with "cross-browser" inconsistencies.
Thanks for posting in all bold.
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