Eight alternatives to Microsoft Office

Looking for an alternative to Microsoft Office? Our reviews round-up gives you the details of several popular options.

Google Docs beta
Google Docs is part of Google Apps, which includes Gmail and other services. Google Apps offers both a free version and a version with support and additional features for US$50 per user per year.

Price: approximately AU$65 per user per year
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OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org is an open source project supported by Sun Microsystems. It's popular, and offers a diverse range of applications and features, but no support.

Price: free
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StarOffice 8
StarOffice is the supported version of OpenOffice.org, which includes some additional features for a US$70 licence fee.

Price: approximately AU$80
Download link

IBM Lotus Symphony
Lotus Symphony is IBM's office suite, and it's free. It contains a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation program. It can be downloaded from the IBM website.

Price: free
Download link

ThinkFree Office 3
ThinkFree Office remains one of the cheapest proprietary office applications available, at US$50. It offers a free online component that makes it more portable.

Price: approximately AU$64
Download link

Apple iWork '08
Mac users will likely be familiar with this office suite designed to integrate with other Apple services. As far as office applications go, it's also quite cheap.

Price: AU$99
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Corel WordPerfect Office X4
Wordperfect Office X4 comes close to Microsoft Office in its breadth and depth of features, and as such presents a nice alternative for businesses looking for a fully featured, supported alternative.

Price: AU$599
Download link

Zoho
Zoho is an online office suite that offers additions including email, CRM, invoicing, presentations, databases, wikis and more. Some of Zoho's services can be upgraded by subscription.

Price: free
Download link

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Replace Office... Anonymous -- 08/10/08

I currently use Open Office .org and lotus on my computer. These free office alternatives have 1 big problem - ease of printing!
try printing a section of a large worksheet - where there are multiple worksheets, and try adjusting the printing parameters - ie change to landscape, print to fit page and other options - then go to work and print the information using Office because these free alternatives just dont work when it comes to printing.
Peter

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Seriously... Anonymous -- 14/10/08

You just can't talk about Google apps, and Zoho for that matter, in the same universe. Google apps is about as basic as anyone can stand. Cloud computing just isn't as convenient and the technology is seriously primitive.
As for OpenOffice (including it's derivitives such as Lotus Symphony), well the strive to meet the features and functions of Office 5 years ago.
I'm happy to say I use Office, it's nothing to be ashamed about, and under the many current pricing scheme's it's actually cheap (student ed, covers 3 PC's for a hundred and something dollars).
Office IS the standard, why settle for less.

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Kingsoft Office 2009 replaces Office... Anonymous -- 19/12/08

Many office applications do not take into account the difficulties associated with re-training staff to use a different application. It was primarily for this reason we chose Kingsoft Research KSO09.

Presently I have found little information on the Internet regarding comparisons, thus conducted our own, in house.

The key factors must include ease of implementation, compatibility, flexibility and cost. Before everyone breathes a sign of relief at the opportunity of escaping the incredibly high license costs currently associated with Office, they should look at how it will affect business in the short/mid term.

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