Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post writes about StarOffice 6.0 and OpenOffice 1.0 being serious challengers to Microsoft's Office software monopoly. He talks about the benefits of cost, features, cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Solaris, and currently experimental MacOS X), and excellent MS Office file format compatibility.
He also praises the responsiveness of the Open Source development model when he was annoyed by the hard-to-find "Word Count" feature in StarOffice. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4246-2002May11.html Then, two Wednesdays ago, OpenOffice.org 1.0 arrived, and Microsoft Office's long winning streak may finally screech to a halt. OpenOffice is what many computer users have been waiting and wishing for: It's free, open-source, Office-compatible and cross-platform (Windows, Linux and Solaris, with a Mac OS X version in early development). After using the Windows version of OpenOffice for the past week and a half, I can attest that it either matches or beats Microsoft Office in features and ease of use, at the cost of slower performance on older computers and the occasional slight garbling of complicated Microsoft Office documents. It's hardly perfect, but somebody in Redmond ought to be worried about this program. ... Free and adequate looks enticing compared with expensive and adequate. I also suspect OpenOffice's developers will find and fix problems quicker than Microsoft could. One example: I was annoyed enough by the limited, hidden word-count function to file a feature request at the OpenOffice.org Web site. Two days later, I saw that my report had been assigned a tracking number and a programmer, with his e-mail address listed. When's the last time Microsoft responded to its Office customers like that? (read more in his article) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4246-2002May11.html
