Top 10 Reasons Not to Use Office
The other day, in the process of being told not to install software on a particular computer, I was told not to install “Open Office” (official name: Openoffice.org). I replied, we use Open Office all the time. It was at that point that an onlooker asked, “why would you install Open Office if you already have Office?” The onlooker apparently works in the tech services department and seemingly the only reason to use it in her mind was if you couldn’t use Office for some reason. I was caught off guard and didn’t have anywhere near enough time to explain it to her, so here are the answers I came up with later.
10) Why use Office when you have Openoffice.org available?
9) Openoffice.org is fairly mature (it’s been in development in one form or another since the mid-80s [about]) and has had to compete on its own merits; its growth is due to its value, not due to it being bundled with Windows.
8 ) Openoffice.org uses an open format for its documents. Microsoft recently tried to force a “standard” onto the international community that would have only benefited Microsoft and would have left anyone else trying to use it open to lawsuits. Standards by definition are open and available to anyone.
7) Openoffice.org has the financial backing of Sun Microsystems and IBM. IBM recently committed 35 full time developers and code to the Openoffice.org project.
6) Openoffice.org saves disk space: I have a spreadsheet that is ~47k in Open Document Calc format, over 150k in Excel.
5) Openoffice.org doesn’t lock me out of my documents if I stop using it: files can be simply unzipped and the data extracted if I stop using it. Not so with Office.
4) Openoffice.org is free. I can install it on as many computers as I want for the low price of nothing.
3) If you absolutely have to pay for your office suite (cause you think that’s the only way to get value) how’s $69.95 (which includes code that cannot legally be given away for free) from Sun?
Compare that to $500-700 for Office. (I hear that Microsoft is offering Office 2007 for $89 for school district employees if they buy through the district. Compare that to $0 for a Sun Educational License)
2) Openoffice.org is cross platform. I can open documents on whatever computer I’m using.
And the Number 1 reason:
For the same reason I check the sex offender database; I don’t want convicted criminals around my children.
