I don’t have Microsoft Office installed on my computer. Almost every time I mention that to someone, I am greeted by a surprised look. “You don’t have Word? No Excel?” Yes, I have neither Word nor Excel installed on my computer. However, I do have OpenOffice.org.
For the past few years, I’ve been using the OpenOffice.org application suite on my PC. During my high school years, I recall using Microsoft Works, which was adequate for my school work. When I read about OpenOffice.org back around 2002, I went ahead and downloaded it and have been sticking to it ever since.
Why do I insist in using OpenOffice.org? First and foremost, Microsoft Office costs money. This was the primary factor that lead me to choose OpenOffice.org over Microsoft Office. Being a college freshman without a job, I couldn’t afford to go spend hundreds of dollars on an application suite. I’m more than aware that I don’t need to look far to find a pirated copy of Office, like many people I know, but I would rather not go that route. Fast forward a few years, now I could afford to buy Office, but I would rather not spend it when I have an acceptable alternative like OpenOffice.org.
The main gripe I’ve had lately with Microsoft Office is its pricing. I’m aware that the Home and Student edition of Office is available in the neighborhood of $150, but that is still a little bit steep for a piece of software that I don’t really actually want. However, if Word and Excel were available for $30 a piece, I would probably be willing to shell out the cash to avoid dealing with the annoyances of incompatibilities in importing and exporting Office documents. (Those incompatibilities of course stem from the fact that Microsoft keeps its file formats a close secret, preventing interoperability with other applications. Don’t get me started on this one!)
OpenOffice.org has been my office application suite for the past few years. I’ve written countless reports on it and haven’t had much problem except for some lack of features in the spreadsheet application. The cost of Microsoft Office isn’t as a big issue as the past, but I’m not very willing to spend a large amount of money on a piece of software that I don’t actually want to use in the first place. That’s what keeps me an OpenOffice.org user.