OpenOffice.org

I know OpenOffice has been around for long enough.. and I have actually resired to try it on (however it never really worked coz the environment I've been working in depends too much on Microsoft Office).

But now I've got a chance to use it in a more independently from Microsoft Office.

I'm so glad that my boss wanted me to try some alternatives for office applications beside Microsoft, I've finally had my eyes again towards OpenOffice.org.

Considering the complexity of the utilization of office application (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations) in my company, I do not see the compulsion of Microsoft Office. Instead, OpenOffice.org is good enough.

The main use of th office apps are:

• typing letters, simple WYSIWYG documents, and reports
• spreadsheet documents with simple calculations (SUM, AVG, etc)
• viewing presentation files

in which all of the functions can be found in both OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office.

Now the difficult part is the users.. it has always been the users.. that they're used to Microsoft Office and (at some point) not willing to update their knowledge to other options. So... for now, I and some of the IT guys i've managed to persuade are trying it out; making it default office apps; get the hang of it; and eventually write a report (conclusion) of the research (comparison between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office).

As of now, I can only point out that there are two products from Microsoft that are not available in OpenOffice.org:

• Microsoft Visio
• Microsoft Project

especially considering the compatibilities of both OOo and Microsoft Office products.

I'm still looking for other alternatives for it.