Is it time to replace MS Office with an open-source suite?

For a long time, MS Office has been the computing world's predominant productivity suite. Brought out for the first time in 1990, it continues to generate new and more useful iterations almost each year.

However, Microsoft's stranglehold over its products turned many software developers off. They wanted to create an equally useful suite, that could be developed and distributed for free, thus circumventing the corporate quagmire of licenses. Thus, OpenOffice.org, an open-source productivity suite, was born in 1999, as a development of the StarOffice system.

The OpenOffice project was lead by independent developers, who worked under Sun Microsystem's aegis. In 2011, Sun's owner Oracle handed over the project to the Apache Foundation, whose product is named Apache OpenOffice. Many of the volunteers who had worked on OpenOffice.org, however, refused to join Apache and instead created their own open-source suite, LibreOffice. Currently, these two suites are MS Office's biggest rivals. Are they worthy substitutes, or should you continue to use the tried-and-tested Microsoft product? Lets find out.

   

 

• Price  : The open-source applications are completely free. They receive periodic free updates as well. On the other hand, MS Office costs range from $150-400. A few nonprofits are     eligible for discounts, however. Major MS Word updates can also be quite expensive. However,smaller updates are usually free.

    

• Range of functions : The open-source suites offer a wide range     of applications. These include the word processor,Writer, the spreadsheet Calc and Impress (a slide presentation creator). These are meant to be the direct competitors of Word, Excel     and PowerPoint     respectively. Also included in the open-source suites are the     database "Base", a graphical representation tool "Charts" and "Draw", which is similar to Microsoft Visio.The open-office suites thus have an excellent range of applications. However, MS     Office's latest iteration, the Office 2016, boasts of an even wider range. The email application Outlook and the user collaboration tool OneNote are now integral parts of MS Office. Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice, however, lack any such tools.    

   

• Technical Support : In this respect, MS Office is easily the better suite. Their dedicated team of full-time professionals is far more consistently available.     Open-source developers also tend to have a hazy mandate, and responses to complaints are often carried out in a poorly coordinated manner.    

   

• User Interface : In spite of having a smaller team, the     open-source suites have an excellent and minimalistic UI which never burdens users with unnecessary details. Some of MS     Word's UI changes, on the other hand, came under heavy     criticism in the past. The 2007 version's ribbon toolbar, for instance, was poorly received.

• System Requirements : MSOffice, as well as its open-source competitors, will     run properly on almost every machine. However, older and slower     machines will find it easier to run Apache OpenOffice or LibreOffice.    

• Remote Access : Office     2016's complete integration with OneDrive allows     documents to be easily edited on a variety of devices. LibreOffice     and Apache     OpenOffice's remote access features are still in the nascent phase, though they are likely to become fully operational in the coming years.

• What should you choose?    

Overall, Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice are as capable of MS Office of allowing users to create and edit a variety of documents depending on his need. The minute differences functionality notwithstanding, there is a huge gulf in programming philosophy between the two kinds of services.

Open-source developers are suspicious of the intentions of powerful corporates, and instead prefer collaborative action in an environment which is relatively lacking in restraint.

Utimately, the choice of productivity suite depends on the user's unique preferences. Those who require better email integration and technical support, and don't mind shelling out a lot of money for the same, would probably be better off sticking to MS Office.

On the other hand, those requiring basic functionality in a resource-strung environment may go in for one of the open-office suits.

With Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice trying hard to inject even more functionality into their products, Microsoft's dominance in the productivity suite segment is likely to be seriously challenged in the near future.

Eclipse Technoconsulting Global (P) Ltd., a leading software development company in Kolkata, India looks forward eagerly to the competition between the different kinds of utility software. Let us know of your opinion on this matter at #etsindia or Eclipsetech12.