Techsurvivors

Archives => 2007 => Topic started by: kimmer on October 09, 2007, 05:45:32 PM

Title: Competitors are chipping away at Microsoft Office
Post by: kimmer on October 09, 2007, 05:45:32 PM

http://www.newsday.com/business/yourmoney/...0,7980595.story

Title: Competitors are chipping away at Microsoft Office
Post by: krissel on October 10, 2007, 12:36:49 AM

From that article:

QUOTE

Both free suites also support the proprietary but widely copied formats that Microsoft used in its basic Office products until the 2007 version. Although Office 2007 programs can read and write traditional Office formats, their native tongue is a new format that only Microsoft has adopted so far.

For now, the free, open-source suites might have problems with native Office 2007 documents. But I think experienced Microsoft Office 2007 users will save documents in the earlier formats, anyway, just to keep things straight with people who might have to read them with older versions of the program.

That's the key to being a competitor to MS. Avoid the proprietary format when possible. Wish more people would take the time to investigate the options when saving a file.

Title: Competitors are chipping away at Microsoft Office
Post by: kimmer on October 10, 2007, 06:43:50 PM

At our local library, they have M$Office -- not 2007, but I'm not sure what version they are running. Apparently tons of folks come in with OpenOffice docs and want to print them out. The folks saved them as OpenOffice, so M$ won't open them, and then the staff has to tell them "save as dot doc" and folks get kinda tiffy and go home and save as ... and I gather this is an ongoing issue.

Sneakers has been talking to the computer guy about getting permission to download/use OpenOffice. It's a tough sell cuz they are all die-hard win folks.

I'm anxious for OpenOffice to work on a Mac without X-11 (which I don't have installed). In the meantime, I'm really happy with Mariner Write and Calc.

I do hope OpenOffice gives M$ a real run for their money -- and comes out ahead.

Title: Competitors are chipping away at Microsoft Office
Post by: eric j on October 12, 2007, 04:44:55 PM

The way I see it, Microsoft Office is not bad. To be fair, you can do a wide variety of stuff with it. More than I need, to be sure, but the (for me) now superfluous functions are always there in case I need them one day. I am now fortunate enough to have lots of space in RAM and hard disk.

For those seeking a partial alternative there is also (among many others) Papyrus, containing both a word processor and a data base. Documents can be saved in Word format. .
It's coded very efficiently with German thoroughness, but not without an occasional hiccup. It's comparatively inexpensive and as download takes only some 10Mb space. I have recently purchased a copy. The interface is nice. A demo version is available.

See:-

http://www.rom-logicware.com/current.htm

I first encountered Papyrus back in the days when I bought an Atari "workstation" because it was then the nearest to a Mac - which I could not afford. The Atari had only a small RAM and hard disk, so programmers had to be code-efficient.

Please note that I have absolutely no financial or other connections with rom-logicware.

eric j

Title: Competitors are chipping away at Microsoft Office
Post by: Paddy on October 12, 2007, 10:19:24 PM

Kimmer, you can run OpenOffice without X11 - it's a port called NeoOffice. It's very good - I have it. And just like OpenOffice, it's free.

http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

Title: Competitors are chipping away at Microsoft Office
Post by: kimmer on October 13, 2007, 01:59:10 PM

I haven't like M$ Word since 5.1a.

Thanks, Paddy. I have NeoOffice. I flat out don't like it. OpenOffice is better (used it on our Linux laptop and on Sneakers machine). Anyhow, I use Mariner Write and will continue to do so.

I'm just glad someone is chipping away at M$.

Title: Competitors are chipping away at Microsoft Office
Post by: krissel on October 13, 2007, 11:23:08 PM

eric, Papyrus looks like an interesting alternative to Word. At present I still use AppleWorks for most of my stuff. I also have Pages but it only opens up when I have something AW can't open.

Papyrus may be a reasonable alternative in due time. I see they are actively working on the Mac version.

Title: Competitors are chipping away at Microsoft Office
Post by: Paddy on October 14, 2007, 01:06:31 AM

Kimmer, I've never run OpenOffice on a Mac (or any other machine for that matter) but my understanding, from various online articles, is that it is much more developed for other platforms than it is for the Mac. On the Mac, NeoOffice apparently has the edge. I've found it handy at times - it has some neat features and plugins.

http://neowiki.neooffice.org/index.php/Neo...ture_Comparison
http://blog.janik.cz/archives/2006/07/28/T14_43_13/

Title: Competitors are chipping away at Microsoft Office
Post by: eric j on October 16, 2007, 05:25:47 PM

Krissel,

I forgot to mention that Papyrus includes a spreadsheet but AFAIK it has no charting facility.

eric j

Title: Competitors are chipping away at Microsoft Office
Post by: kimmer on October 16, 2007, 06:27:52 PM

QUOTE

I've found it handy at times - it has some neat features and plugins.

I agree that it does, but I had major problems getting fonts to italicize and bold and such; but to be fair -- I was still running an older beta version because I have never been able to get the "finished" product to download.

My other grip - and it became the main turn off point for me -- every stinkin' time I launched NeoOffice it opened my browser, moved it to the forefront and sent me to a "Why not donate" page.   I had donated when I first downloaded the program and was using it on a reg. basis. It irks me to be nagged for more money on a consistent basis.  If they need money that bad, then they should require a shareware fee to make the program work. So, that was the killer point for me.

I paid my bucks for Marine Write, it works and they don't nag me every time I launch the program.

Your writing mileage likely varies.