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.

Microsoft will release Office 2010 in June but until then there are some great alternatives. In June Microsoft will release a final version of its Office 2010 productivity suite. Naturally many users will upgrade, at substantial cost, to the latest version of the popular Office suite, but for those not so eager to hand over their money to Microsoft there are still many great alternatives.

When you think about office suites, two names come to mind: Microsoft Office and OpenOffice. Although the vast majority of Linux users depend upon OpenOffice for their office needs, the alternatives should not be overlooked.

For the next couple of Linux Monday posts, I'll be testing out my legacy Microsoft Office files in Open Office, Linux world's main alternative. This is, by necessity, a one-way test. Files in Microsoft Office formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) can be opened in Open Office; the open source community recognizes the need.

If you need an office suite there are plenty of free software alternatives to MS Office. But, if you absolutely must use MS Office for whatever reason, that doesn't mean you have to stick with using Windows. You can install MS Office on GNU/Linux and this article will show you how. Some freedom is better than no freedom.

There was a time when office compatibility was a bit of a problem on Linux, but with the latest office suites out there available for Linux, this is not an issue anymore. The applications here mimic MS Excel’s behavior, so switching to one of them should be pretty straightforward.

So you heard some news about alternatives to Windows, called Linux? You might be interested in trying? In this article I will describe some alternatives to try, without having to abandon Windows. That’s right, you can keep your current operating system in any case!

Users regularly cite lack of compatibility with Microsoft Office files as a reason for not using OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org does include Microsoft Office export filters, as well as a number of settings for increased compatibility, but these features provide only good, not complete, compatibility.

Over the past couple of years, Microsoft shops have been increasingly wooed by vendors offering alternatives to Windows, Exchange, Microsoft Office and other Microsoft wares. The competition has grown so fierce that in May, Red Hat went so far as to sue Switzerland (and win).