2 Million downloads for the Office 2010 beta? This sounds like Windows 7 all over again! Like the article says, Microsoft Office is an industry standard. Sure, there are alternatives, but there are also a lot of downsides. The alternatives are good for a beginning user, a high school student doing basic word processing or spreadsheet work. But, if you do much more, you're almost out of luck with VBA and other Microsoft Office features. Time will tell if the alternatives will catch up. I've checked out some of the others, and they have some VBA compatibility, but not 100%. Not to mention the other 1000 features that MS Office has that the others don't (I just threw that number out there. It may be closer to 6).

As one person replied to the question on Aardvark: "A lot of the free options simply aren't suitable for corporate use. You are basically out of luck if your free-no-guarantees Google Docs spreadsheet disappears. The free products do not have the complex formulas, interconnecting tables and client data that comes with Microsoft Office."

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites