Information Management Series: Productivity

This image isn't the same at all as the one on my father's Information Continuum 3 ring binders back in the 80s, but it'll do for now until a more proper updated symbol becomes available. Maybe I'll have a scan of some of those binders so you can bask in how much more intelligent the information there is.

I decided to take note of a single piece of information from InfoWeek, and since it is from October 1st it is most likely horribly outdated, however I feel that it may just be helpful to CS readers, so I'm posting it anyway. Recently the family Dell Inspiron 9300 took a dump and decided to respond randomly to Jeanette's mouse clicks. Often it would need a reboot to function, so I ran spyware programs such as AdAware Spyware Doctor as well as a virus scanner to no avail. I also went through and did some house cleaning, deleting unecessary programs. Jeanette runs a pretty clean PC so that didn't take long. Problem was not solved.

We've all been here. No new information really, and enough of the sob story, although I don't need to tell you how much precious time this kind of crap sucks out of your life.

I bit the bullet and looked at laptop pricing, which is pretty good really, about the same as when we bought our current one about a year and a half ago. But the kicker is the companies you trust give you Outlook Express and Word .5 when you're not looking. Add Office Basic and the cost jumps up several hundred bucks, easily 20-30% of the cost of your PC. Finally the lightbulb went off. "Why in the name of hell are we doing this?"

Admittedly, it is a small form of highway robbery. Microsoft monopolized the market and took God knows how many versions of its Office suite to actually reach something decent with 2003, now the Vista versions go and screw up the learning curve we were all used to and we have to pay for this newfound functionality, which to be honest really isn't all that special.

So I picked up InfoWeek and lo and behold there was another option: Lotus Symphony. Granted, it isn't fully rolled out but it is free. The Open Office standard has been around for some time for a grass roots movement to usurp the throne. The question I'd love to know is: does this stuff actually replace Office? Can it export Office files? Anyone else here use it and had success?

In true form I will report back with my findings.

Comments

[suneel]

>does this stuff actually replace Office?
YES

>Can it export Office files?
depends, doc/exel formats yes. dont know about ppt. you can also export to pdf/html.

>Anyone else here use it and had success?
used the openoffice org before and lotus is based on that. 4 years back, company i worked for used openoffice due to limited ms office licenses. When using word sometimes the bullets, formatting may appear different. other than that the interface was not polished like ms-office, but gets the job done. but that was the older version and i am sure the newer ones complete with mso.

i think more and more people will switch to lotus, its has a lot of great features and easily replace ms office. but cunning microsoft will do one of the following

1. embedd some vista speific api purposely and make it had to port. eg possible advert by ms "using this new version, you can remotely edit your excel files via a DCOM object embedded in the exel cell from the remotest computer and instantly see the result in directX10 3dbar graph renderend and sent to in no time by the vista n/w api. all this and much much more ONLY in Vista-ffice"

2. OR they may feel generous & decide that its time to make ms office free. ha ha i think you know which one.

[mark]

For home use, OpenOffice.org can easily replace MS Office. Works both with techy types like my friends and I and for techno-illiterate folks like my parents. Where it struggles in my experience is at work, where the fact it doesn't render .docs like MS Word does would upset our brand team (even though we send 99% of external docs out as .pdf). However, if I find myself stuck at home and needing to work it can happily load and save office files, they just can look a touch odd with the templates provided by the brand guys. (Note, this is not an attack on brand guys!)

PS - happy Christmas!

[Rhynri]

OpenOffice is what happened when Sun opensourced their StarOffice (which I used to use) Since OO.org kinda slacked off, I switched to NeoOffice on my MacBook, and then a little while later to Scrivener, which is where I do all my creative composition. But OOo really was my standard for a good 3 or 4 years. You sure your Inspiron didn't just have mobo or mouse problems?