We would like to bring you up to date with OpenOffice the major competitor to  Microsoft Office, and possibly, the main reason why over the past few years we have seen a decrease in the price for the Microsoft product. Remember, it was not that long ago when RRP for Microsoft Office XP Professional was $1,399. Compare this to Microsoft Office 2007 Business Edition at $899 and you can see what competition has delivered.

Today, we have several software companies and IT regulators pushing for ODF in productivity software like Microsoft Office and OpenOffice. So, what is ODF? ODF stands for Open Document Format and if adopted, it would allow any and all text, spreadsheet, data-base, presentation documents and the like to be open and edited by all competitive softwares irrespective of the manufacture. In other word ODF would become the default standard for all productivity software or suites. OpenOffice is a leading light in establishing this standard. In addition, OpenOffice unlike other productivity suites is Freeware, but unlike other Freeware OpenOffice is free to be used by all – individuals and business alike. Plus, OpenOffice is available in several formats (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X) and many languages. Under such circumstances it’s not hard to see why OpenOffice is so popular and a serious challenge to Microsoft’s dominance in the Office Productivity market. In the very near future OpenOffice will offer users many more options and enhancements which will add to the power of this productivity suite. We should also point out that Microsoft has also agreed to implement ODF in it’s software, but as yet no word about the timetable or if it will be available as an update i.e. in Office 2007.    

If you wish to know more about Open Office, or download your own copy visit http://www.openoffice.org/