Alternatives to Microsoft Office

It's no secret that Microsoft dominates the productivity suite market, but that doesn't mean it's the only way to go. Corel, Sun Microsystems, Apple, IBM and others offer alternatives at a fraction of the price of Microsoft Office 2007. Corel WordPerfect Office X3 offers interface improvements and one-click PDF, HTML and XML publishing. The lesser-known StarOffice 8 provides basic productivity tools and throws in a couple of extras, such as a drawing program. OpenOffice 2 is the free version of StarOffice. And IBM just rolled out a free test version of its Windows- and Linux-compatible Lotus Symphony suite.

If you want access to productivity tools from anywhere with an internet connection, you can pick from online services including Google Docs & Spreadsheets — now with Presentations too — and its business-focused sibling, Google Apps Premier Edition; other products in this area include Zoho Office and the ThinkFree blend of desktop and web-based tools.

Although most of these tools let you save work in Microsoft's file formats, the introduction of new file types in Office 2007 complicated matters. Microsoft does not support the Open Document Format that the open-source community favours. However, Sun offers a free plug-in for Microsoft Office that enables you to save ODF files.

The indie suites also provide unique benefits. For example, Corel WordPerfect is the tool of choice for writers and lawyers who need more control over long documents. ThinkFree 3 may be handy for business travellers who want to tweak a document using only a Java-enabled web browser. Zoho is the only browser-based service that directly plugs into Microsoft Office applications to store work both on the user's hard drive and on Zoho's servers. Among the desktop programs, however, only iWork, Microsoft Office, ThinkFree and OpenOffice work with Macs. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is expected to be released next year.

Online suites