"Microsoft is trying to push new file formats that are using ZIP and XML. Are those new file formats any good for Office developers ? In other words, should anyone feel safe to make direct access to file parts, and start getting free of running instances of Microsoft Office and its COM object model, usually through VBA ?"

The free and open source office suite OpenOffice.org might be a killer app for many, but its inability to properly display documents created in the proprietary Microsoft Office formats hinders its widespread acceptance in multi-OS business environments with many legacy .doc and .xls files.

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.

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.

earthweb.com: The concept of an office suite, with word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, is one that is well understood by users, which is also why it's often difficult to improve them. Users already expect their office suites to do certain things, making the job of office suite developers often one of fit and finish.
Advertisement:
read more

My take from the cheap seats: Keep an eye on the Windows fight if you like, but the Office game is where you'll be seeing the most action. Players are already trash-talking about office document formats. IBM is rolling out a free Office competitor called Symphony and it's lining up a formal match.

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.

NeoOffice 2.2.2 is a sharp office productivity suite similar to Microsoft Office for the Mac, and has many features which surpass it. Unlike MS Office, however, NeoOffice is open source and therefore free. Like Office, it includes a word processor called NeoOffice Writer, Calc, a spreadsheet builder, a polished presentation program, Impress, and a database program called Base.