Comments on: Finally an OpenOffice that I can recommend

OpenOffice for the Mac just got a lot better.

[blabtech.blogspot.com]

I agree that OpenOffice is a good tool, only for limited work, I would still go with Microsoft Office, for use on a regular basis.

[Simplicius]

@blabtech
Can you tell us what you mean by 'limited work'?
I work at a university. For what *I* use an office suite, OpenOffice has been for several years more than adequate. In fact, for long documents (e.g. if you are writing a 400-page book) I've found OpenOffice Writer better than several incarnations of Word. so in my experience, I'd say, for limited work use Word, but for serious writing, use OO.

[viper1432]

@blabtech is just being a fud-bucket. Limited work. lmao. He must think that open office is some open source version of notepad or some such. Of course it could Balmer using an alias. shrugs. :-D

[mwreed3]

Waiiitttt a minute, either OO.o is something that is a product qualifying as a competitor to MSFT or it's "...still a beta, so crashes are to be expected."

I expect crashes in Microsoft Office, but I don't think you can sell the crashes as "to be expected". I raise the BS flag on that. Either OO.o is ready for prime time and crashes are unacceptable, or it's "a beta so crashes are to be expected".

You don't get to stand in front of a CEO or a State CIO and claim "hey, it's a beta, so get used to crashes".

We all complain about Office stability issues (my mac office gives spinning wheel of doom for a good minute before it's actually usable) but I sure has heck don't think Microsoft will tell me, "hey relaaax it's only a beta".

So which is it Matt?

[Matt Asay]

It's a beta. The 2.x version of OpenOffice doesn't crash. I'm happy to accept crashes during the beta of a product.

[kurthaug]

So how does the new OO beta compare to the existing NeoOffice? Will you keep using Neo? Advantages, disadvantages for those of us who don't want to have TWO open source suites?