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 Software : Microsoft Office XP Professional [OLD VERSION] |
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Rating:  - Don't pay too much for office productivity
MS Office is great, but it's way too much money.
I'm currently migrating to OpenOffice.org 1.0. I've been using the Writer word processing program for several weeks now, and it works fine. I use it to write papers and other documents. I even used OpenOffice.org Writer to write up a summary of our reading for a class study group, converted it to Word, and sent it to about 20 people. No one wrote back to complain. When it comes to office productivity, the best, most affordable choice is OpenOffice.org 1.0. It has the same functionality as StarOffice and has all the core features of Microsoft Office, plus you can covert documents back and forth from Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. It's a fraction of the cost to boot! You can even buy it on CD from Amazon.com through zShops or get this: download it from the Internet if you have the time and understand how to work with zip files. Search for OpenOffice.org on the main Amazon.com site.
Rating:  - You get what you pay for.
This is by far the best office suite ever developed, and has been for years. Relative cost is largely irrelevant if what you do all day is work on documents, spreadsheets, simple databases, e-mail, etc. and you want the best environment available. There is no comparable alternative.
Star Office is adequate if you are a programmer with minimal needs who has to work on a Unix platform.
Rating:  - It just gets worse and worse
I've been using Office since the DOS versions, and I have to say, I have never liked it. Using it professionally in a publishing environment, I have to say that this is probably its worst incarnation yet. The office assistant is gone, but in his place are a variety of pop-ups and warnings which cannot be turned off. Outlook has not become any more secure, it is simply more paranoid, forcing you to save any attachment to disc, regardless. Word remains unstable, ugly, and functionally gruesome. It is one of the few software applications which can routinely crash my Windows XP system.
If we hadn't standardised upon a number of VBA macros we had devloped in house, some years ago, we would almost certainly ditch this product and use something else. We should never have standardised upon this software: it was one of the worst business decisions we, as a company, ever made.
Rating:  - Not a good deal
If everyone were still churning out stock options in their sleep and making money every time they went to the coffee machine, it wouldn't be so much of an issue. And if the licensing were less draconian, it wouldn't be so much of an issue.
But since we actually need to work to make a profit these days, it's not really smart to spew all this money at software that you're not even using, most of the time, to create your product.
Have your office sysadmin or techwriter or something try out StarOffice or OpenOffice.org for a couple weeks, then train the rest of the company on how to switch. Using the same software all your professional life isn't in the bill of rights and the smart decision is to switch to something that works, that you can actually afford.
If your employees or co-workers are smart enough to make whatever they're making, they're smart enough to switch to a different spreadsheet.
Rating: - No reason not to
I've been a fan of the "Office Philosophy" as long as I've known of it. It's almost like software communism. One set of application to satisfy any and all of your needs, for both personal and professional environments. Everybody's got it, which, instead of meaning that it's "trendy," it means that it's nothing less than practical.
It bridges the idea of operating system platforms. You know what I mean: sending files to a friend or co-worker, only to get a response of "I can't open that. Send it in ---- format." First, chances are, the recipient will have Office. Second, if you receive a non-Office file, your Office software will be able to read it, provided it wasn't created on some software from Mars.
OK, enough argumentum ad populum. Besides being a great idea on a global scheme, it's also a great idea for a stand-alone system and/or stand-alone user. Office integrates your system. For example, consider running WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, dBase, and Netscape for your word-processing, spreadsheet, database, and communication needs, respectively. While individually, each application is perfectly adequate for its own job, a vast majority of the time one might want to integrate some amount of work done in one program into work done in another program. Good luck, buddy. These programs hate each other; each one believes that it can do the job of all these by itself, and rationality be darned.
Office lets you do it all. Integration runs smoothly and you truly don't have to worry about losing functionality if you decide to switch over from your old program. In addition, the suite is extremely stable, and intelligent: it'll figure out how you - as an individual - like to manage your system, as well as fix any problems that won't come along. For example: try deleting msword.exe. Then go and double-click the Word icon on your desktop. Office will figure out the problem and reinstall the missing file. REMEMBER: you'll need your Office installation disks for any of the auto-fix features in Office.
(My advice: when installing, provided that you have sufficient system resources, select "Run all from my computer" to avoid missing any features you might want to use further down the road.)
As far as ease of use, YOU CAN'T beat Office. The applications not only work well, they also look good. The Help files actually do provide logical, coherent, and practical help for common questions or tie-ups. Office runs smoothly and doesn't use up an extraordinary amount of system resources (although Microsoft's "Minimum Requirements" tend to be a bit under-estimated, or is it over estimated...? Anyway, you need more than they say).
I'm running 256mb RAM with a 1.4 Ghz Pentium 4, and I have no problems. Also, I am running Office XP Professional and Windows XP Home Edition. As far as I know, Windows XP is not a necessary upgrade from 2000 when moving from Office 2000 to XP. There are some licensing restrictions with XP that I'm sure most are aware. So here's my solution: DON'T BREAK THE LAW. You won't have problems then.
Pricing is a bit steep, so save your pennies.
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