Quite a bit of talk has arisen today over two of Microsoft's competitors (Google and IBM) offering free office suites in an attempt to supplant Microsoft as the office king. And now that this is happened, some are wondering if Microsoft will finally face reality and offer its own Office product for free so it can compete.

It's the thought experiment we all like to engage in. What would life be like without Microsoft Windows? To listen to the free open source software crowd, the demise of Windows -- and by extension, Microsoft's hegemony over the PC universe -- would signal a kind of rebirth for information technology. Such thinking is naïve, at best.

IBM and Canonical Thursday announced a virtualized software bundle combining Lotus desktop applications running on top of Ubuntu Linux that they say is far cheaper than running Microsoft's Office suite on conventional Windows PCs.

Microsoft's dismissive attitude of VDI, or virtual desktop infrastructure, calls to mind Red Hat's stance toward the desktop as a viable Linux commercial offering. With its recent desktop virtualization agreement with Microsoft and other work it's done, Red Hat may soon be offering VDI capabilities.

Lotus Symphony 1.2.1 — IBM’s open source office suite — is now available for Mac OS X, according to a trusted source. The release — along with IBM’s expanding Red Hat and Canonical partnerships – could give Microsoft Office a virtual (and real-world) headache. Here’s why.

The Microsoft Office suite takes up a lot of memory, both in hard drive space and in RAM. The full and complete package of Office costs more than some people's mortgage payments. Fortunately, Office is not the only option available to get the work done. Here are ten FREE alternatives to what Microsoft Office has to offer.

Despite what you’ve heard, the online version of Office 2010 announced by Microsoft earlier this week won’t be free to corporate users, and isn’t a threat to the likes of Google, Adobe, or even Zoho, which sells online productivity software to small and medium-sized businesses.

Free and open source software (FOSS) advocates need to stop obsessing about Microsoft. But, just as clearly, many of them won't, if the reactions I received when I blogged about the subject are any indication.

Typing documents, use of spreadsheets and slideshows are essential tools in the life of almost every professional. The largest of the problems found in Microsoft Office according to the vast majority of users is its price. This obligation on having to pay for an Office application suite has stimulated the development of OpenOffice.