Office poll: Do you use or support users who prefer non-Microsoft business software?

I fought against the switch to Office 2007 but eventually was forced to give in and start using it. After the initial pain, I've found that it actually IS better and easier to use. The initial learning curve is steeper than I'd like to see for our standard user but they can (and have) converted successfully to 2007 and all but the diehard 2003 fans admit that it is generally better.

For any Legal Documents and as I have used it since the DOS Days it's easy to use, no major issues with new versions and you do not need to upgrade every time there is a new release.

It also does a lot more than M$ Office can hope to do. I have WP Office 12 which is more than a couple of years old now and it has better features than Office 2007 and doesn't require massive cost in retraining staff to use the new version and get used to the Ribbon.

Of course WP Office X4 the newest version is even better.

Col

Who doesn't think that having the full power and compatiblity of MS Office isn't worth $9 a month?

Using your numbers for a company of 100 employees, the four-year cost for MS Office is $45,000. OpenOffice provides the same basic functionality for most users at a license cost of $0 and I don't have to train them to use the ribbon. If I'm doing the money management and can save $45k in licensing costs and eliminate associated training costs, you'd better believe I'll be doing it, especially if that $45K could make the difference between profit and loss in a bad month.

Do I think OpenOffice is the be-all end-all? No. OO Base is not yet the equivalent to Access, and although OO Impress has improved greatly, it still has problems rendering native PowerPoint files. But for the vast majority of office software users who only require basic spreadsheet and document generation functions, Write and Calc do everything Word and Excel do at minimal cost.

edit: clarify