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Amazon.com has Home and Student 2007 for $70, should qualify for Super Saver Shipping which is free, or if you have Amazon Prime you can get it for 2 day shipping free or $4 for next day, $7 for Saturday delivery. In any case, it's well over half price. I suggest picking up a copy if you've wanted the newest Office, or Office period - cheaper than any other Office suite, even cheaper than the solo versions of Office programs. I didn't check stores to see if this is an overall price point or something specific to Amazon, but BestBuy.com is showing $100 plus shipping and tax. If you don't need Outlook or Access, this is good stuff.
Besides, if the higher court ends up banning Word (doubtful, but still)...
OpenOffice is not an appropriate business tool which is why the majority of businesses use Microsoft. Period.
OpenOffice cannot properly handle a lot of Microsoft-created documents. OpenOffice documents are incompatible with Sharepoint (for those businesses that use such a tool). OpenOffice does not have the same built-in collaborative tools as Office. It also can't handle the more advanced items that Microsoft does naturally, such as embedding objects from other Microsoft Document types within other documents (i.e. a spreadsheet table within a Word document). OpenOffice can't even hold Google Docs' jock. And that's sad. Plus, requiring Java is a big negative.
When consumers, or businesses, need to work documents, they need said documents to "Just work". No futzing around with anything, it should just fire up and handle docs properly and efficiently. Of every application Microsoft has ever created, they've done three better than most other companies: Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Sharepoint, and SQL Server.
Your original post refers to MS Office Home & Student edition, which is a crippled version of MS Office and is NOT suitable for business use. For that you'll need MS Office Professional edition, which is retailing in Amazon at $329.99. Also, if 'stuff' doesn't work outside of MS Word, is because Micro$oft has decided to use propietary formats, instead of embracing open standards. For home and students, OpenOffice is perfectly fine.
Your original post refers to MS Office Home & Student edition, which is a crippled version of MS Office and is NOT suitable for business use. For that you'll need MS Office Professional edition, which is retailing in Amazon at $329.99. Also, if 'stuff' doesn't work outside of MS Word, is because Micro$oft has decided to use propietary formats, instead of embracing open standards. For home and students, OpenOffice is perfectly fine.
Let's step through this slowly.
Customer A corresponds with Business A.
Business A sends a Word document to Customer A to print and sign (and no, not every business sends PDFs.)
Customer A needs to open said document.
OpenOffice will fail. Guaranteed. The fact that they use proprietary formats is moot. The bottom line: Microsoft is the standard. That customer needs to have Microsoft Office, not OpenOffice. If he/she tries to use OpenOffice, the document will get screwed up every time.
Here's another one for you.
Employee A works at Business A.
Employee A needs to work on a spreadsheet from home and has no laptop to do so. Spreadsheet is due the next morning.
OpenOffice will fail. Again, it's guaranteed. The spreadsheet will get screwed up if it has any sort of macro or advanced things going on, or stuff that is Microsoft specific like AutoFilter or Freeze Panes.
Stop limiting your view. If businesses use Microsoft, consumers who might need to access documents from those businesses has better also use Microsoft or they're screwed. If you want to stick with your free solution go ahead. But for others, it's only one of two choices: Deal with frustration and maybe get lucky, or get stuff done. Don't even get me started on students who are working on assignments where the teachers are giving work in Word, Excel, or Access formats.
OpenOffice is not an appropriate business tool which is why the majority of businesses use Microsoft. Period.
First the OP was talking about the Home and Student version of Office, which has the following license restriction "Office Home and Student 2007 is licensed only for noncommercial use by households. It cannot be used in commercial (business) situations." Plus it is clearly designed, featured, and marketed for the Home and Student users.
And finally, why all the rage over free open source software?
First the OP was talking about the Home and Student version of Office, which has the following license restriction "Office Home and Student 2007 is licensed only for noncommercial use by households. It cannot be used in commercial (business) situations." Plus it is clearly designed, featured, and marketed for the Home and Student users.
And finally, why all the rage over free open source software?
First you quoted me, as I AM the OP. Second, either you didn't see my post just before yours or ignored it, and third, I can't tell if your question is directed towards me (meaning you're also praising OpenOffice) or Trucker (meaning you're questioning his praise of it).
Customer A corresponds with Business A.
Business A sends a Word document to Customer A to print and sign (and no, not every business sends PDFs.)
Customer A needs to open said document.
OpenOffice will fail. Guaranteed. ...
Right at that point you lost me. I receive .DOC, .PPS, and .XLS documents all the time and have no problem whatsoever opening them on Open Office. Something tells me that you work for M$ or at least have a vested interest. and have never tried Open Office.
Right at that point you lost me. I receive .DOC, .PPS, and .XLS documents all the time and have no problem whatsoever opening them on Open Office. Something tells me that you work for M$ or at least have a vested interest. and have never tried Open Office.
.doc, .ppt, etc. files aren't the problem, it's the Office 2007 files that create the headaches in Open Office. And less people are saving their files to those old formats anymore.
I am all for open source software. I love UNIX/Linux and I am currently getting intimately familiar with it in my program at college. Open source projects, or even just free programs are something to stand behind and support so that they can rival the big leagues (Mozilla Firefox for example).
That being said, Open Office is pretty awful. Putting business applications aside, from a simple usability perspective Microsoft Office is leaps and bounds ahead of Open Office. The ease of use is wonderful in MSOffice. I'm an advanced computer user in an advanced computer program in college, and it still took me unnecessary amounts of time just to find mundane tools or formatting options that would be a click or two in Word, Powerpoint, etc.
And it's true, MSOffice is the standard for practically everything. I don't know how many times I've been at school and downloaded a .pptx or .docx file that we were supposed to enter information into and resubmit, and finding upon opening it that the formatting had been all screwed around and entire pieces of text disappeared.
Open Office is fine for someone who wants to write up a document and maybe send it to a buddy. But as soon as you start start doing anything remotely intensive with it, no thanks. I'd rather walk down to my school's IT department and pick up my free copy, or pay the $70 then spend however many hours trying to figure out mundane features.
A few people at college have been toying around with the 2010 Microsoft Office Technical Preview and that impressed me far more than anything I've seen in Open Office. That's one niche I can never see Open Office making a major gain in.
Amazon.com has Home and Student 2007 for $70, should qualify for Super Saver Shipping which is free, or if you have Amazon Prime you can get it for 2 day shipping free or $4 for next day, $7 for Saturday delivery. In any case, it's well over half price. I suggest picking up a copy if you've wanted the newest Office, or Office period - cheaper than any other Office suite, even cheaper than the solo versions of Office programs. I didn't check stores to see if this is an overall price point or something specific to Amazon, but BestBuy.com is showing $100 plus shipping and tax. If you don't need Outlook or Access, this is good stuff.
Besides, if the higher court ends up banning Word (doubtful, but still)...
Might be worth it at that price to put it on the shelf for upgrading to Office 2010 next spring.
Ebay has a couple of people offering Office 2007 Pro Enterprise CD's with 3 machine COA's in the $80.00 BIN range.
I have bought NFR and OEM before, but am a little nervous about that opportunity.
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