Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2007 sells for $399.95 per computer.  If you have 10 computers in your small office and each one is supposed to have it’s own license, you would would end up shelling out over $4000 in software, shipping and sales tax.

Ouch.

The good news is there is an almost-identical alternative, which costs absolutely nothing.  OpenOffice provides the same functionality as Microsoft Office but does not require you to purchase licenses for every computer.

What’s the catch?

Seriously, there is no catch: no signing up for anything, no “buy this software and get this productivity software free”, no “give us your email address so we can spam you.”  The only requirement in using the software is to do a little heavy-lifting and decide on if OpenOffice is right for you and your business.

OpenOffice provides the following comparable software solutions:

• Writer (Microsoft Word equivalent)
• Calc (Microsoft Excel equivalent)
• Impress (Microsoft Power Point equivalent)
• Base (Microsoft Access equivalent)

These programs have the same features as Microsoft Office, plus additional features such as..

• OpenOffice can create PDFs of your documents WITHOUT requiring the purchase of Adobe Acrobat or a third-party product
• OpenOffice “looks and feels” like the old version of Microsoft Office (pre-2007).
• OpenOffice can read the new file formats from Microsoft Office (.docx, .xlsx, etc).  Even Office 2003 can’t do that.

Even though the OpenOffice bundle includes Draw, which is a basic design and image layout program that has no Microsoft equivalent, there is one glaring ommission from OpenOffice’s impressive list: a Microsoft Outlook-type program.

Arguably, for some small businesses, this can be a deal-breaker since a lot of users depend on Outlook to not only keep their emails, calendars and contacts in order, but to also interface with their smartphones. The good news here is that Microsoft Outlook can always be purchased on an “as needed” basis, for a fraction of the cost of investing in the full MS Office package.

So what’s stopping you from jumping in to OpenOffice?  Well, I’ve talked up the “pros” and provided one “con” so far, but there are a couple more items to consider:

• If your office uses Microsoft PowerPoint and you interact with other companies and individuals that use it as their standard presentation software, then I would recommend sticking with PowerPoint.  Presentation software is usually unique to the company that makes it, so switching between PowerPoint and Impress presentations could cause numerous formatting and animation headaches.
• If your Office uses Microsoft Publisher, I would probably suggest that you stick with Publisher for the very same reason mentioned above: formatting.

So why try OpenOffice?  Do I really need to say it again?  It’s FREE and there is no commitment!  You can download and install OpenOffice and run it in tandem with your current Microsoft Office program and try it for yourself.  If you get stuck or have any questions about OpenOffice or this article, please register and login to post them in the comments area below.  Your friendly PCS geek (that’s me) is ready to help.

Aaron