Microsoft Office - pros and cons (was: Re: [Ti] OpenOffice on Mac)

[Ardeshir Mehta]

On 21-Nov-05, at 7:26 PM, Mikael Byström wrote:

> Chris Olson said:
>
>> There's nothing wrong with Microsoft Office.
>
> Proprietary formats are always wrong, if you ask me.

Isn't OS X proprietary?

>> It's an excellent and well-supported office suite.
>
> I think it's too cumbersome to be called "excellent". My main  
> problem is that it tries to be a DTP program and many people use it  
> as such, and it fails miserably. It should focus on *words* and  
> writing IMHO. And powerful as Word may be, it seem not be suited to  
> *people* as well as I'd expect from such a big corporation. But  
> it's improving all the time of course. What's worse is that many  
> tend to get Word not because they find it can achieve their goals  
> best, but because that's all they know. I feel it's important to  
> educate in choosing the proper software for the right reasons and  
> also to present the alternatives.

Speaking for myself, MS Office does everything I expect it to do, and  
nothing else out there does it as well, let alone better: at least,  
not for that kind of money. (I never could afford Adobe's Frame  
Maker, even when it was available for the Mac, despite what  
"MacKiDo's" David K. Every used to say about it.) And as far as I am  
concerned, MS Office has caused neither me nor my Mac any problems.  
(I don't use Outlook or Outlook Express or Internet Explorer, of  
course).

Don't get me wrong: I am not in favour of Microsoft *qua* Microsoft.  
Windows, in particular, sucks, and so do Internet Explorer and  
Outlook. But in Office, and especially in Word, Microsoft has  
provided users with something no one else has, unfortunately ... and  
credit ought to be given, I think, where credit is due.

>> However (currently) OpenOffice is the only application on Mac OS X  
>> able to read/write ODF (Open Document Format). This may become  
>> important in the future as governments such as the State of  
>> Massachusetts have announced intentions of adopting ODF as their  
>> standard document format. That initiative may succeed if open  
>> standards win.  It may not if Microsoft and some politicians win.
>
> Well, I'm with open standards.

What about incentive? Open standards means, does it not, that  
developers don't have a financial incentive to come up with something  
better and better as time goes by ... yes?

>> Then today I notice Microsoft has said that next Tuesday they'll  
>> announce the opening of Office formats to competitors such as  
>> Apple (Pages) and OpenOffice (Sun/FOSS). I suspect this move is  
>> due to pressure from the open source community, the EU, and  
>> initiatives such as that in Massachusetts. If you can't beat 'em,  
>> join 'em. Otherwise Microsoft I'm sure would retain a stranglehold  
>> on Office file format specifications.
>
> I will follow this with some interest. Thanks for the heads-up.

Yes, this certainly sounds interesting!


Cheers.