Poll: Work/Office Suite

[Inspector Jihad]

Anyway, what do you use? I'm asking cause a lot of my friends keep asking me for MS Office when OpenOffice is available for free...is MS office that much better? I use MS Office on my comp, but my dad has Open Office on his and I havent used it extensivly but it seems to work the same for the most part.

 

[tfinch2]

MS Office 2003 Pro academic licensing, $10 FTW!

 

[bigrash]

I use MS Office at home and work. I tried Openoffice before, but I'd rather use MS Office

 

[MysticLlama]

MS Office w/Corporate License.

If you read the agreements carefully, sometimes you can put a single license on both a desktop and a laptop, and some MSDN users can also put it on home computers.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: tfinch2
MS Office 2003 Pro academic licensing, $10 FTW!

Same for me, but I have Office XP. 2003 just didn't seem to have any appeal.

 

[GeekDrew]

I'm using Office 2003 & OpenOffice at the same time. My poll option?

 

[DaiShan]

I've got MS Office on my laptop, but Open office on all of my desktops (linux boxes) We also used the windows version of OO at my last job. They both get the job done, plus OO can save in .doc so you can just give the document you've been working on to someone else and they won't have any problems opening it

 

[monk3y]

I got it through school for ~$15 or so.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

Originally posted by: GeekDrew
I'm using Office 2003 & OpenOffice at the same time. My poll option?

which one do you prefer and why?

 

[Jzero]

I use Office at work and OOO at home. I have found Office to be more stable, but unless you can get Office free or cheap, OOO is good enough most of the time. Just save frequently.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad

Originally posted by: GeekDrew
I'm using Office 2003 & OpenOffice at the same time. My poll option?

which one do you prefer and why?

I have MS Office 2003 Pro on my laptop, because Microsoft sent me a free copy... I apparently made it onto one of their "this guy can influence purchasing decisions" lists.

I can't give a generalized opinion comparing both office suites against the other. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. MS Access, IMHO, is *FAR* better than OOo's Base. MS Office's apps seem to launch much faster on my PCs than OOo's apps.

Also, MS Office has Outlook, and OOo doesn't come with a mail/PIM client (nor is there one in existence, IMHO, that is able to compare to Outlook). And FWIW, I use Thunderbird on all of my machines, because I don't feel like running pirated software on some of my machines, and I need the same mail client to be on multiple machines, so that my mail store can roam with me (and IMAP is not an option).

Over all, I prefer MS Office when I'm going for familiarity & speed, databases, or need PIM/Mail interoperability. I prefer OOo for compatibility with multiple file formats and I just like parts of its interface better. I'm not nearly as familiar with OOo as I am with MS Office, but there are certain things I do in each.

<edit>

My official recommendation is to use OOo for home users that can use Thunderbird for mail, and that do not need databases; those that do not meet those requirements should buy MS Office Pro. For businesses, I think that MS Office is a requirement. If OOo could be included as well, even better. OOo can save their files in MS Office file formats, so it's interoperable. That's one of the features that I like best about it.

 

[farmercal]

Got Office 2003 through work for $20.

 

[kami333]

MS Office.

I've used OO on and off but it's not something I would use in a production environment (in an office) or when collaborating with others using MS Office.