Microsoft Office vs Open Office comparision

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Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice.org

By Brett Bonfield and Laura S. Quinn, July, 2010

For a while, nonprofit organizations' choice of office suites was limited to Microsoft Office or...Microsoft Office. But over time, a viable open source option has emerged: OpenOffice.org.Should you consider OpenOffice? Will it make sense for your users and organization? In thisarticle, updated in July 2010, we compare Microsoft Office 2010 to OpenOffice.org 3.2.

Once upon a time, nonprofits that wanted a powerful, useful-friendly word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation

package were faced with limited options: Microsoft Office or... Microsoft Office. But over time, an open-source

alternative, OpenOffice.org, has become increasingly popular, making it a viable, affordable option for organizations

seeking a productivity suite.

Should your office consider OpenOffice? Will it make sense for your users and infrastructure? How do OpenOffice

and Microsoft Office differ?

In this article, we will compare key features of the brand-new Microsoft Office 2010

Professional to OpenOffice.org 3.2, released in January 2010. We’ll look at their word processors (Microsoft's Word

2010 versus OpenOffice's Writer), spreadsheets (Excel 2010 versus OpenOffice's Calc), and presentation tools

(PowerPoint 2010 versus OpenOffice’s Impress).

There's more to both office suites, of course. OpenOffice's Base is similar to Access. OpenOffice’s answer to

Microsoft's Visio is Draw. OpenOffice offers an equation editor called Math, while Microsoft Office offers Publisher for

desktop publishing. Due to limits on word count (and patience), however, we'll leave these comparisons for another

article.

Underlying PhilosophyBefore we examine the specific features of Microsoft Office and OpenOffice, it may be helpful to step back to

compare the philosophical differences between the two packages, and how these differences might impact how you

purchase and use them.

With commercially licensed software like Microsoft Office, a product is developed by a single company; sales help

fund product testing and development, marketing and sales, as well as salaries and shareholder dividends. In

contrast, open-source software like OpenOffice is developed collaboratively, often by volunteers, and freely

distributed, allowing anyone to use, redistribute, adapt, or improve the code — all free of charge.

The open-source philosophy is not just limited to software, and can attract loyal adherents who believe that

information should be shared freely. Likewise, some consumers feel more comfortable with a for-profit model they

feel rewards ingenuity and innovation. If you have deep convictions in either direction, we suspect that we're not

going to change your mind here. However, each model does offer tangible advantages:

1. Open-source applications often cost nothing. OpenOffice is free — and who doesn’t love a bargain? Bear in

mind, however, that Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 are available to eligible U.S.-based nonprofits and libraries

for a minimal fee ($20-30 depending on the version and edition through TechSoup, for instance).

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2. Updates to open-source applications also cost nothing. As an open-source product, OpenOffice updates are

free; the same is not always true of Microsoft updates. Microsoft, however, gives Office to nonprofits as part of a

philanthropic program, meaning that it is possible (although not likely, given the length of Microsoft’s commitment

to philanthropy) that if the donation program ended, you would have to pay to update the suite down the road. If

you currently hold a valid license of Office withSoftware Assurance, you may be able to upgrade to the newer

versions for no cost.3. You can do what you like with open-source code. You can study OpenOffice and adapt it to your needs. You can

improve the program or build something completely new with it and release your changes to the public. If this is

important to you, Microsoft doesn't offer anything comparable.

4. Commercially licensed software offers a company behind the code. Microsoft depends on the sales of Office and

its other software to remain profitable, giving it a strong incentive to offer the features, support, and interface that

will make it attractive to users and competitive in the market. Microsoft has built a vast pool of talented

developers, a mature platform, and polished user interfaces, and Office’s success has provided it with a large

user and support base. Although OpenOffice has a formal relationship with Oracle, the mandates for open-

source applications like OpenOffice are a bit fuzzier and tend to be driven by tech-savvy programmers. In

practice, this has resulted in a somewhat less polished interface and more limited documentation.

5. Open-source has code beyond a company. Because its source code is available to all, OpenOffice is not solely

dependent on its current crop of developers and current corporate sponsor. If all these people were to disappear,

the code would still exist and other people could pick of the project. The same is not always true for closed-

source, commercial projects. That being said, it doesn't appear that Microsoft is in any danger of going bankrupt

in the foreseeable future.

Usability and Interface

Microsoft Office is nearly ubiquitous in office settings these days, making its interface the de-facto standard for how

office suites operate. However, Office 2007’s new ―ribbon‖ interface is different enough from the Office 2003’s

interface that the average user may require additional training and support when making the transition. Even

Microsoft Office ―super -users‖ may find the upgrade frustrating, as features they learned inside out have moved.

Office 2010 keeps with the ribbon interface, with only slight modifications. It has also implemented several important

interface improvements, such as adding the File menu back into the tool bar, which makes it easier to find the

controls to open and save documents. The pretty, modern interface lends additional polish to the suite.

OpenOffice 3’s interface, in contrast, is very similar to Office 2003, making it an intriguing option for those who are

concerned about a wholesale move to the ribbon interface. Anyone who has used Word or Excel 2003 will feel

comfortable in Write and Calc. A move from Microsoft Office 2003 to OpenOffice 3 might be compared to a move

from Office 2000 to Office 2003: there are small differences, and users who have learned things by rote may require

some training, but the concepts are all the same. In fact, many regard OpenOffice 3 as simpler, and thus easier to

learn, than Microsoft Office 2010. OpenOffice 3 is also about as polished as Office 2003 — perfectly functional, but

not as sleek as Office 2010.

Some of the more advanced features differ more between any version of OpenOffice and Microsoft Office. For

instance, the available templates are substantially different between the two suites, so those accustomed to using

pre-packaged layouts for documents or charts may need to make some adjustments.

System Requirements

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For most computers that you would actually want to use, both OpenOffice 3 and Microsoft Windows 2010 will work

fine. While OpenOffice is said to run a bit slower, particularly when opening up complex documents in Microsoft's

proprietary formats, the difference is negligible if you've purchased your computer in the last couple of years. Both

platforms also offer comparable support for Macs.

OpenOffice 3 offers better support for older computers than the latest version of Microsoft Office. For instance, Office2010 notes its minimum spec is a Pentium 700MHz with 512 MB of RAM, while OpenOffice lists 256 MB of RAM

(although 512 MB RAM is recommended). While Office 2010 requires Windows 7, XP, or Vista to run fully,

OpenOffice will run on Windows 2000 or 2003. What's more, OpenOffice will run under Linux, and Linux runs much

more effectively on old computers than Windows 7 or XP. This makes Linux and OpenOffice a practical combination

even on older computers, especially those that require few other applications (as you might find in a public computer

lab setting.)

SupportThere's more support for Microsoft Office than anyone could possibly take advantage of: Official support from

Microsoft itself, authorized support from people who have earned Microsoft licenses, professional call centers,

dozens of books, and countless websites offering tips and guides for modifying, configuring, and using Officesoftware. OpenOffice's support is more community driven, and generally free, with a documentation project and

discussion forums led by volunteers. It's easier to find Microsoft Office training and support, and there are some free

resources specifically for nonprofits, but tailored support is likely to cost more.

One final consideration: because OpenOffice has much looser licensing requirements, you needn’t worry about

installing unlimited copies around your office or for friends or partner organizations. When you buy or receive a

version of Office 2010, however, you may only install it on a specified number of computers within your organization,

so you'll need to keep track of exactly where it's been installed.

Document SharingIn general, both Office 2010 and OpenOffice can create files that can be read by others, with some caveats. In the

case of Office 2010, this is because Microsoft has established de facto file standards such as .doc (and .docx) for

Word documents and .xls (and .xlsx) for Excel. Partners that are running Office 2003 or older versions may need to

convert the files Office 2010 creates from the new file formats (docx) to the older ones (like .doc) to be able to open

them. This isn’t done automatically in the older versions, although Microsoft offers a free utility to do it for you.

OpenOffice, on the other hand, uses open standards for its native files, but can both read and write files in Microsoft's

format. In fact, OpenOffice users can choose to automatically save out files in Microsoft 2003 formats by default.

OpenOffice has invested a lot of effort in ensuring that Writer, Calc, and Impress users can share documents with

Microsoft users and has succeeded in all but a few specific cases … as long as you’re trying to share documents in

Office 2003 or prior. OpenOffice can open and save Office 2003 documents with a high degree of fidelity, with only a

few exceptions. If you’ve created Word documents that make extensive use of columns, header formats, and

embedded images, the file is likely to show up in Writer with minor formatting issues that have to be adjusted byhand. This isn’t likely to be prohibitive for a document or two, but could be a time consuming for a whole library of

templates and collateral.

The two applications are also incompatible when it comes to macros or spreadsheet pivot tables. Both applications

support both features (pivot tables are created with a feature called Data Pilot in OpenOffice), but you will not be able

to use the macros or pivot tables created in one application with the other. You may also have some minor issues

with translating charts from one spreadsheet program to the other.

http://support.openoffice.org/index.html



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Interestingly, OpenOffice can open substantially older versions of Microsoft Office files than Microsoft Office itself

can, or even some corrupted files that Microsoft Office can’t open. For an IT department, OpenOffice is worth having

around just for that.

However, OpenOffice does not have complete support for the new file formats created by Office 2007 and 2010. Inour tests, simply saving an Office 2003 document into the Office 2010 file format and then opening that same

document in OpenOffice resulted in a substantial loss of formatting fidelity, particularly from Word to Writer. As these

file formats are fairly new, one would expect the OpenOffice community to improve their support over time.

OpenOffice also cannot save to the new 2007 and 2010 file formats; however, as Office 2010 is able to open the

Office 2003 file formats, this is not a substantial limitation.

Both applications now provide the ability to export any file to an un-editable PDF format – ensuring that viewers can

see the document exactly as you intended.

Remote Access

Microsoft Office 2010 also introduces new web-collaboration features. You can save any Office document toMicrosoft’s ―SkyDrive‖ — the company’s online server — and access it via Microsoft’s new Web Apps, wh ich provides

online stripped-down versions of the office applications. Here, you can view the complex formatting of your offline

versions, although not necessarily edit it. For instance, Web Apps will allow you to apply heading styles that you’ve

created in a desktop version of Word, but not to edit those styles or create new ones.

Microsoft is also moving (slowly) toward supporting real-time online collaboration. Currently, multiple users can edit

documents simultaneously in the Web Apps version of Excel but not Word or PowerPoint. However, this is likely to

change over time. Interestingly, Microsoft has just announced a version of Web Apps called Web Docs that integrates

with Facebook. Presumably, this will allow easy document collaboration among Facebook contacts.

OpenOffice doesn’t offer any of these features, continuing to operate on a pure desktop model. You can certainlyemail files to yourself or others, but you can’t edit them directly on the web, or collaborate with others in real time.

SecurityMicrosoft Office and OpenOffice are both reasonably secure as long as you follow standard security procedures:

install updates and patches as soon as they're released; maintain firewalls, antivirus, and antispyware; and so on.

However, while OpenOffice let everyone know about possible security issues (allowing users to protect themselves

and hackers to potentially exploit issues), Microsoft keeps security issues close to the vest — possibly preventing

hackers from finding out about them, but also forestalling users' ability to take protective measures beyond the

standard security updates Microsoft provides automatically. It's like the dilemma that arises each time police officers

are faced with a serial killer: Should they alert people and possibly make the perp move on to another community, or

should they keep their investigation quiet and zero in on the guy? There are strong arguments for both approaches.

Email IntegrationFor many folks, one of the big advantages of Microsoft Office is its integration with Microsoft Outlook, an email and

calendaring software package (among other things). These features not only allow you to send a document directly

from the Microsoft Office (for instance, you can send a Word document in an email directly from the Word interface),

but to preview Microsoft Office documents directly in Outlook without opening the application.



Specific Features: A ComparisonSo let's get on with it, you may be saying. I want a head-to-head comparison of the feature differences between the

two suites.This is very difficult, primarily as the applications are so fundamentally similar. Each suite has been

copying the best enhancements and innovations of the others for years, so you need to be doing pretty complex

things before you find either suite lacking.

In general, Microsoft Office has a greater depth when it comes to very advanced features. For instance:

Grammar checking. Microsoft Word has a built-in grammar-checking tool. The Open Office community has

provided a few add-ons that you could install to provide grammar checking, but they’re generally considered to

be less robust than Word’s default options.

Document-viewing options. The options to view documents are not as powerful in Open Office’s Writer as they

are in Word. You can only choose to see a ―Web View,‖ which doesn’t show all the formatting that you’ve

included for a printed document, or a full-page layout that shows the entirety of the page including headers,

footers, and margins. Word gives you several more choices, including a nice view that preserves the page layout

without showing margins or headers.

Conditional formatting. Both spreadsheet packages offer conditional formatting (the ability to automaticallyformat cells based on the properties of the data within them), but Microsoft offers a lot more flexibility and control

in this realm.

Microsoft Office’s “Smart Art” diagrams.Word, PowerPoint, and Excel all introduced a new feature in the

2007 version: Smart Art, a useful feature that allows you to easily create diagrams in a many common formats

(like pyramids, cyclical diagrams, org charts, and more). OpenOffice doesn’t offer anything that comes close to

the diagramming power.

On the other hand, OpenOffice tends to be somewhat simpler to understand, and can output to some more useful file

formats. For instance:

A single interface for the whole suite. OpenOffice provides an overall gateway to easily get to any of theindividual components. Using Microsoft Word, you need to open each application separately.

File size. OpenOffice’s native format generally creates much smaller files than Microsoft Office. When saving

files out into Microsoft’s file formats, however – for instance, to create files that can be opened in Word – the file

sizes are similar to Microsoft’s.

HTML production. HTML purists tend to favor Writer's markup to Word's, though few people with knowledge of

HTML use either editor in producing web pages. For simple tasks, Writer’s Web Wizard makes it incredibly easy

to produce pages with HTML, PDF, and images.

RecommendationsWhat do we recommend? If you still haven’t made up your mind, we’ll leave you with a few specific scenarios for

when one package might work better than another:

Your office is happily using donated Microsoft Office 2007 licenses. Are you able to get Office 2007 and

2010 for free or very little money? Is your staff happy with it and comfortable using it to get your work done?

Then we don't see a lot of upside in changing for the sake of change. Upgrading from Microsoft Office 2007 to

2010 is a relatively easily transition.

Your office is happily using donated Microsoft Office 2003 licenses. This is a little more complex. To

upgrade, you’ll need to move to the new Microsoft ribbon interface, a sizable change that will require a learning



curve and possible training for your staff. OpenOffice will be more familiar (and completely free), but you’ll lose

some very advanced features, and the ability to seamlessly open highly formatted documents, charts, pivot

tables, and macros. Is your staff actually using these features? Do you have a sizable repository of complex

document, spreadsheets, and presentations that you need to frequently open and edit? For instance, it may be

challenging to move your accounting staff — which may in fact be creating complex spreadsheets with macros

and charts — off of Excel. In this circumstance, it likely makes sense to take a careful look at what your staff isactually doing with Microsoft Office to decide whether the extra transition and cost is worth it for the sake of more

advanced functionality.

You have a small, technically comfortable staff, philosophically aligned with open-source tools. If your

staff would prefer open-source over Microsoft for philosophical reasons, and can roll with small changes in

interface and less formal support, OpenOffice is a completely viable alternative that doesn't sacrifice productivity.

Your staff depends on sharing highly formatted documents or complex Excel functionality. Do you create

a lot of highly formatted Word documents, pivot tables, or use a lot of macros? Do you share these files with

other organizations? Then it may not make sense to move to OpenOffice.

You need to provide basic office software on old computers. If you are looking to support only basic

functionality and need to use older computers — for a public computer lab, for instance — then a

Linux/OpenOffice combination is hard to beat.

Both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice are strong platforms that will support office productivity. You might want to

consider installing both office suites to allow your users a choice. Personally, we like having choices. If you've read

this far, the same may apply to you.

Nobody disputes that M icrosoft Of fi ce is king of the hil l in off ice sui tes, but if you put marketing and

market share aside, how does OpenOf f ice.org compare?

How does OpenOffice.org (OOo) compare with Microsoft Office (MSO)? The question is

harder to answer than you might expect. Few users have the experience or patience to

do a thorough comparison. Too often, they miss features that have different names or

are in different positions in the editing window. Or, perhaps they overlook the fact that

some features, although missing in one, easily can be added through customization. Yet

another problem when comparing something to MSO is which of the eight current

versions of MSO do you use for the comparison?

To cut through these difficulties, as I compared OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 and Microsoft

Office 2007, I assumed until a search proved otherwise that, if one office suite included

a feature, the other also would have it. I also focused on the three core applications: the

word processors, spreadsheets and presentation programs. The results suggest a close

feature match for average users, but in some cases, a clear choice for expert users.

Navigating the Interface

In Office 2007, Microsoft implemented its Fluent User Interface (better known as

ribbons), replacing menus and taskbars with a combination of both. By contrast, OOo

still retains menus and taskbars. Both use context-specific floating windows that open

automatically when the cursor is at a particular type of formatting. When ribbons first

appeared, they were both attacked and defended vigorously. Yet for all the effort, no



independent study has proven conclusively that ribbons are easier or harder to use than

the classic menus and taskbars. At first, you may have to search for repositioned

features, but neither has a clear advantage once you adjust to it. Most users are likely to

be exasperated with the arrangement of features with the classic interface just as often

as they are with ribbons.

Much the same is true of the on-line help. With MSO, users hoping for help have to drill

down deep to find answers, and the arrangement of topics by questions is both limiting

and hard to scan. With OOo, the problems with help are incompleteness and out of date

and poorly written entries, but the result is equally unfriendly, even though the help

system is more thorough.

As for the editing window, one office suite needs only to implement a feature for the

other one to copy it. For instance, OOo borrows a zoom slider bar from MSO, while MSO

borrowed floating windows from OOo. And, although you can point to areas where the

interface of one is easier or more efficient, such as the template selector in MSO or

OOo's Navigator that allows you to jump from feature to feature, these areas are

counterbalanced by other features in which each suite is at a disadvantage.Verdict: tie.

The interfaces vary in strengths and weaknesses, but neither stands out as particularly

well done. The main reason for preferring one interface over another is that you are used

to it.

Word Processors: OOo Writer vs. MSO Word

For casual users, Microsoft Word is extremely convenient. For every feature,from templates and content pages to tables and bullets, Word offers librariesof standard layouts. These libraries are not particularly sophisticated by typographical standards. Some, like those for tables of contents, are frankly anaesthetic disaster, but for those who choose to ignore document design, they are good enough, especially in documents that will be used once and thendiscarded.

By contrast, the rumor is that OOo Writer's developers were required to usethe word processor for their own documentation. Whether the rumor is true is

uncertain, but it is true that Writer has more to offer for those who areconcerned with document design. Writer comes with very few layout libraries,leaving you to download or create them, but in compensation, it allows you adegree of control that makes it as much an intermediate layout program as a word processor. Kerning, hyphenation, the exact positioning of list bullets,headers, footers and footnotes or endnotes—all these layout features can beset with far greater precision in Writer than in Word.



To help you organize this precision, Writer is distinctly oriented toward styles. As you may know, styles is a feature that allows you to adjust formatting once,then apply the settings where needed, instead of applying all the formattingmanually each time you use it. Styles really save time when you are makingmajor changes to layout and when saved into templates for re-use. Writer

allows you to set styles for paragraphs, characters, pages, lists and objectframes. Even more important, Writer is so oriented toward styles that even asimple act like adding a page number generally requires them. Some features,like outline numbering, are impossible without them. In comparison, Word isfar more oriented toward manual formatting.

Figure 1. MS WORD



Figure 2. OpenOffice.org Writer

Although Word does include paragraph and character styles, you have to seek them out if you want to use them. When you do locate styles, you have to drilldown into menus to change them, a process that is decidedly more awkwardthan Writer's arrangement of tabs in a window. Nor will you find the precisionpresent in Writer's features. Rather than using styles, most Word users, Isuspect, would prefer to stick with its layout libraries. In other words, Writeris more for advanced users, and Word for beginners. Word's orientation inparticular, is implicit in the interface, which makes manual formatting toolseasy to find and styles just one feature among dozens. The orientation isimplicit also in the fact that advanced features like AutoText are so deeply buried, many users still believe that they were dropped when ribbons arrived. A corollary of the difference in orientation is that although Writer is adequatefor documents of hundreds of pages, few experienced users ever wouldconsider Word for documents of more than about 20 pages.

Despite the change in the interface, Word is still crash-prone at greaterlengths. Word does include a master document feature, just as Writer does, but as one commenter said, files that use Word's master document feature



tend to be in one of two states—corrupted or about to be corrupted. Verdict:Writer.

You have to do more initial work with Writer to set up the templates you need, but once you do, the result is more professional, precise and individual than

with Word.

Spreadsheets: OOo Calc vs. MSO Excel

Calc and Excel have been in an arms race for years. Excel extends the numbersof columns and rows it can support in one release, and in the next, Calcmatches it. Recent releases also have seen developers improving Calc's speed when processing complex equations. Consequently, both Calc and Excel now

support spreadsheets that are so extensive, any sane user would have switchedfrom a spreadsheet to a database long before bumping against the limitations.In much the same way, Calc always has been careful to match Excel functionfor function to maximize compatibility. In fact, Calc actually has several dozenmore functions than Excel, not because Calc can do more, but because it oftenmaintains two versions of the same function—one for compatibility with Exceland one with extra features that Excel lacks. Given the sheer number of functions in both spreadsheets, I cannot be completely certain that one hasfunctions the other lacks, but if either does, those functions are specializedones that average users are unlikely to miss.

For sorting cell entries and manipulating formulae, Calc and Excel have aroughly equivalent feature set. The main difference is in some of the names—for instance, where Excel refers to “pivot tables” and “trace precedents”, Calcrefers to “datapilots” and “detective”. With the basics so close, the differences between Calc and Excel remain minor at best.



Figure 3. MS Excel

Figure 4. OpenOffice.org Calc

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For example, pivot tables in Excel are easier to construct than Calc's datapilotsand easier to manipulate later, although the use of cell and page styles in Calcmakes formatting and printing easier. In the end, which application you preferdepends on what extras matter to you. Most users are unlikely to find any great difference in general functionality. Verdict: tie.

Slideshows: OOo Impress vs. MSO PowerPoint

OOo Impress produces slideshows that serve the needs of most users. Italways has been especially strong in object animation, and because it sharesmuch of its code with OOo's Draw, it also is ideal for drawing charts anddiagrams. One particularly useful feature is the ability to save object styles sothat you easily can create copies and modify them all. Yet, despite suchfeatures, Impress always has struggled to catch up with MSO PowerPoint.Over its releases, it has narrowed the gap, adding built-in support for movieand sound clips and more recently tables. However, the gap remains in severalkey areas. For example, although PowerPoint allows the recording of continuous narrations, Impress is limited to adding sound clips to each screen.Similarly, Impress lacks the ability to use the pointer to draw on the screenduring a presentation. If you want a Presenter View —a view that includesnotes that display on your machine but not on the projector— you have toinstall the Sun Presenter Console extension in Impress. And, althoughPowerPoint includes a set of collaboration features similar to those found in Word, Impress's first step to match them is scheduled to arrive in only OOo

3.2, when notes will be added.

Another weakness of Impress is that it is divided into three panes: a slidepane, the current slide pane and a task pane. This makes Impress almostimpossible to use except in a full-screen window. However, althoughPowerPoint occasionally opens a task pane, in general, its ribbon interfacemeans that it does not usually need one.Verdict: PowerPoint.



Figure 5. MS PowerPoint

Figure 6. OpenOffice.org Impress

Other Features







Beyond the core applications, both MSO and OOo include other programs.Both include a small database, although OOo's ability to connect easily toother database sources gives it a slight edge. In some editions, MSO includesMicrosoft Outlook, a personal information manager; Visio, a chartingprogram; Publisher, a basic desktop layout program, and a dozen more. Theonly other application in OOo is Draw, an SVG graphics editor, but as freesoftware, OOo can be supplemented by dozens of other applications. Althoughthese applications may not always interact well with each other, neither do thecomponents of MSO. And, at least an increasing number of free softwareapplications support OOo's Open Document Format, which means that adocument written in Writer can be opened in AbiWord or KWord.

Yet another consideration is that, although MSO has an ecosystem of dozensof trainers and instructional Web pages built around it, instruction andresources for OOo are much scarcer. Conversely, OOo has developed acommunity of extension writers that is second only to Firefox's, while MSO'sextensions are far fewer in number.

The Outcome

The fact that OpenOffice.org is free software predisposes me to prefer it.However, until I completed the analysis, I had no idea what the results would be. They ended (if you haven't been keeping score) with OOo and MSO in a tiefor general interface and spreadsheets, OOo in the lead in word processors,and MSO ahead in slide presentations. What these results suggest, I think, isthat both office suites are mature products. Given a moment's thought, thatshouldn't be surprising, since OOo's development goes back more than 20 years. But we tend to think of OOo as a recent development, so the closenessof the comparison may come as a bit of a surprise.

This is the fourth time I have compared the two office suites. Each time, thedifferences between them have gotten smaller. Now, they are less than ever before. For those of us in the Free Software community, the latest results helpto prove what we have known all along: opting for free software does not mean being satisfied with inferior tools. Of course, you might disagree with my conclusions, depending on your needs and expertise. But what they emphasize, more than anything else is that today free productivity apps canstand toe to toe with their proprietary equivalents, and win as often as they lose.



Bruce Byfield is a computer journalist who covers free and open-sourcesoftware. He has been a contributing editor at Maximum Linux andLinux.com, and he currently is doing a column and a blog for Linux Pro Magazine. His articles appear regularly on such sites as Datamation, Linux Journal and Linux Planet. His article, “11 tips for moving to OpenOffice.org” was the cover story for the March 2004 issue of Linux Journal .

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Microsoft Office vs Open Office comparision