OK, so M$Office 2010 is pretty good. I like the built-in integration with SkyDrive and other M$ web thingies, and otherwise, it just works. I do NOT like the still proprietary formats, and some of the eye candy and hand-holding is over the top, but if I had to I could live with those things.
OpenOffice 3.2.1, OTOH, just works. Oh, cool stuff to match OneNote isn’t a part of the mix, and if one actually needed the page layout capabilities of Publisher it’d be a tad of a stretch for OO Writer, but overall I feel more comfy with OpenOffice’s approach.
Personal taste. Oh, a few other nice things were in M$Office, but most folks won’t install the Office Professional Plus 2010 version of M$Office I did–which included some TechNet-only additions to Office most readers here won’t be concerned with–some back end–such as Sharepoint (Designer and Workspace) so a straight-up quick look at just the primary components–word processing, database, spreadsheet and presentation software–is all I’ve done so far.
One thing OO really has in its favor: I can use it on all my computers without any compatibility layer intruding. Linux, BSD, Windows: OO just doesn’t care, since it works natively on ’em all.
Another nice thing about OO… it’s a lot smaller. Not to mention cheaper, even if I do get big discounts on MS stuff.
Indeed it is both, Perri. About the only things I really “like” about M$Office 2010 are its ability to seamlessly work with 2003-2007 files (M$ is still apparently working to make non-M$ app’s use of Office files difficult, hence the “like” *heh*), uploading directly to SkyDrive from whatever doc one is working on, OneNote and some of the tools, like SharePoint–even though I have little use for SharePoint in my lil one man office.
For everyday “office”-type tasks, OO is certainly more than just Good Enough, IMO.
BTW, an embarrassment of riches here at twc central. I don’t have enough computers–including VMs–that I want to put all the different M$ OSes and apps I have licenses for onto. (Weird construction. I can almost feel the slap of a ruler on my knuckles for that sentence. *heh*)