COMMENTARY--With the launch of Microsoft Office 2003, Has OpenOffice's time finally come?

Last week Microsoft finally launched Microsoft Office 2003, the latest in its long line of office packages and/or cash cows, depending on your particular slant. At the same time that we've looked over what the new Office "system" can offer you, we've also taken a look at a package that offers Microsoft its biggest challenge in the office arena -- openoffice.org.

Openoffice.org has its roots in Star Office, which at one time was a relatively minor package that got a considerable boost when Sun stepped in and decided that it'd be a great package to needle Microsoft with, especially if it were free. Star Office is no longer free, but its open source offspring, openoffice.org, is. Even with the recent drops in Office pricing, that should make it the obvious choice for everyone, right? Well, as with many things, it's not quite that simple.

From a personal and home user point of view, there's absolutely no reason whatsoever not to give OpenOffice.org a quick run; it's a tiny download -- even if you were to illicitly obtain MS Office 2003 it wouldn't end up as a download as small as this -- and you're really only using up a bit of personal time to install it and learn the interface. For many users openoffice.org is actually overpowered, but then the same is arguably true of most Office iterations of the last seven years, and that hasn't stopped Microsoft from selling a lot of Office software.

From a business perspective, however, things are a little trickier, depending on the size of your organisation and the amount of documentation you produce and, most importantly, import into your systems. The issue is one of file formats. If you get a word-processing document in from outside, chances are it's in Microsoft's ever-changing .DOC format, and openoffice.org isn't quite perfect at converting files. Then again, neither are older versions of Office itself. Some years ago I can recall a co-worker trying to convert a PowerPoint presentation between versions of Office, something that you'd think should be simple enough. The file eventually did convert, but it ballooned in size from around 3MB to more than 300MB for exactly the same content, for reasons that puzzle me to this day.

There are also training issues to consider; openoffice.org isn't the hardest software to use, but at the same time many office workers tend to slip into 'comfortable' ruts where they get used to how a particular application looks and works. It'd be nice to be able to "Officefy" other suites, but a lot of the design choices in Office are backed up by patents, copyrights and a small army of underfed lawyers. If you think you can outlast Uncle Bill in the courts, we'd be more than happy to cover your legal battles in our Newstech channel, but we're unlikely to pop down to the casino and bet on your success.

At this point, you're probably thinking one of two things. The very cynical of you may be thinking that Microsoft's just dropped off a large hessian bag containing cash and libidinous call girls on my desk. Sadly for my mortgage and stress levels, that isn't the case. You may also be thinking that Microsoft wins again, and that openoffice.org isn't worth bothering with. I actually think it is, as long as you can get around the file issues; depending on the size of your enterprise that may be as simple as mandating its use for all internal documents and explaining the situation to your business partners.

Openoffice.org also has the advantage of being cross-platform, so that (in theory) you could harmonise between Windows PCs, Linux boxes and Mac systems with relative ease. While Microsoft does produce a version of Office for the Mac, it's a package that hasn't been upgraded in some time. With Apple moving in on some of Microsoft's key product areas with packages like Safari, I wouldn't be holding my breath for a new version any time soon.

As noted in our reviews, aside from the new and finally somewhat useful version of Outlook, the new version of Office doesn't offer a lot to anyone below the enterprise level. Even there it's heavily predicated on you using other Microsoft technologies to make it all come together. Microsoft's domination of office formats isn't entirely a positive thing, especially given the kind of bloat it can introduce into documents. As our openoffice.org reviewer noted, while the package has an uphill battle ahead of it, if it managed to get into Office's current position, it'd be all but impossible to unseat it.

What do you think? Have you tried openoffice.org, and what were your impressions of it? Does the new version of Office justify the upgrade price for you? Let me know at edit@zdnet.com.au

Alex Kidman is ZDNet Australia's Reviews editor, and he fondly looks back to a time when he used to write up tertiary assignments with the Amiga version of WordPerfect. Now, there was a real word processor..

Copyright © 2009 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All Rights Reserved.
ZDNET is a registered service mark of CBS Interactive. ZDNET Logo is a service mark of CBS Interactive.