OpenOffice.org 1.0 Review Product of the Year? Eric Grevstad
Product of the Year?
We don't hate Microsoft, but we love competition, and we confess we're tempted to give OpenOffice.org 1.0 a five-star, rave review. A free suite with an open file format and pretty-much-as-good-as-it-gets Office file compatibility? Hard not to rave about that, especially with Product Activation and Licensing 6.0 making Microsoft Office look less like a suite and more like a tollbooth every day.
Realistically, however, OOo deserves four stars and slightly lowered expectations — even assuming its volunteer developers round off a few rough edges with quicker startup, minor interface fixes, and more AutoPilots in future, not every user will ever be comfortable with support limited to help screens and user groups. You'll want to keep an eye on StarOffice, if not WordPerfect Office (especially with Corel's announced Deepwhite XML strategy).
But if you're a business seeking a freely deployable, customizable solution? Or if you're a home PC user who has Works instead of Office, and has colleagues who keep sending Excel or PowerPoint files? Or if you're interested in cool software, period? You should check out OpenOffice.org, oh yes indeed.
