wheel - 1:54 pm on Jan 30, 2013 (gmt 0)

>>Sure OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Google Docs and the like are fine if you're only using it yourself or collaborating with others using the same software.

False. That's an excuse.

I've been using OO for years, maybe even a decade, with thousands of clients and other businesses and don't have a problem...and have never had a problem either reading someone else's word doc, or them reading mine.

If you don't want to use it because one time 5 years ago OO worked slightly differently than word, that's fine. But that's hardly an insurmountable problem, nor is it a common one.

General office document and spreadsheet function is transparent between the two systems. If you have specialized (and only then) needs, then maybe you need everyone to have the same system, but that's not the case with most businesses. And if that's the case, then you're arguing that you need to go a paid platform rather than a free, open platform. Let's not suggest that that's a better idea. The only reason people stick to it is because of lethargy - which is also fine but then the argument is 'it's not worth the time to change' and not 'Office is better than OO'. Because it's not.

I ran into this exact situation recently. My linux distro moved to LibreOffice so when I installed a new computer, OO was gone replaced with this other thing. I immediately installed OO, because it's what I was familiar with. Not becuase it was better or worse, I don't know. I just know it was what I was used to. That's what Office advocates are doing, under the pretense that OO doesn't work.

OO works fine, and it works fine in business, and it works fine when interacting with other businesses.