Microsoft Office 2010 takes on all comers

Microsoft Office 2010 takes on all comers: OpenOffice.org 3.3.0
OpenOffice.org has long been a commonly suggested replacement for Microsoft Office. It offers several common office-suite features at a much lower price -- free -- than Microsoft Office itself, although many of those individual features don't have the level of polish or advancement found in commercial office-suite products. That said, for people who don't need the absolute latest and greatest functionality in every category, OpenOffice.org is a solid piece of software. (In the interest of full disclosure, again, I admit I have been frustrated by its limitations, but I can recognize that for many other people it will more than do the job.)

Don't be thrown off if you come to OpenOffice.org from the Microsoft Office side. The program's UI is very vintage 2003 -- dockable toolbars instead of the newer ribbon/tab metaphors that are now all the rage. That said, future versions of OpenOffice.org may sport a more modern look, although this is still very much under wraps -- nothing more than mock-up designs of such a UI have surfaced yet.