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Head to Head: Office 2010 vs Open Office 3.1

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By Tony Crammond, 13 Mar 2010

UPDATED: It's a battle of the office productivity suites as we look at how Office 2010 shapes up against its main open source alternative. We find out which is best in this head to head review.

The one question begging to be answered though is do you desperately need the upgrade? Office 2007 users who aren’t going to be dependent on the new web-based features and tweaks may well be better off staying with what they’ve got. This will afford them the support associated with Microsoft but without the potentially weighty cost of the new software.

Both suites are currently freely available to download online, although Microsoft Office is only free while it is in its beta testing period. The full release is expected to go on sale at the end of June this year.

There hasn’t been any official comment on enterprise licensing prices but an interesting development is the suggestion of a monthly subscription fee to use the software. Again we’ve had no projections of the cost but the concept certainly has the potential to make upgrading a little less painful. There is something about Microsoft Office 2010 ‘pay as you go’ that leaves us a little unsettled though.

Open Office is and forever shall be free. Under the terms of its GNU licence you are free to use it on as many systems as you like, with the added bonus that if you are so inclined you’re able to access the code and tailor the program in any way you see fit. The only caveat is, naturally, that you aren’t permitted to profit from the software, which we see as fair enough.

Winner: Open Office 3.1 – its widespread availability and good, solid basic features give Open Office the edge in this round, not to mention its open source driven cost or lack thereof.

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11 comments

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This is not exactly a fair comparison!

Why have you reviewed a BETA of office 2010 while using the previous version of OpenOffice - version 3.2 of OpenOffice has been available since the 11 February?

This pretty much makes the whole review pointless!

By iotola on Friday Feb 26

Comparison

@iotola Thanks for your comment. The review and testing period was, in the main, carried out pre Feb 11th. Then, when 3.2 came along, our reviewer looked into the changes and deemed them fairly minimal in the scheme of the overall comparison (we were not going into enough detail to test out (password encrypted XML files and Chinese language additions) in this instance.
While Office 2010 is still in beta stage, it's advanced enough for us to get a feel for what will be included in the final release. And we make it clear we are comparing the beta with Open Office, rather than a final version.

Maggie Holland, Editor

By Ip_maggie_hollan on Friday Feb 26

Relevance of the comparison?

Comparison is easy and results are as expected. MS Office (any variant) is commercial, platform constrained, but polished, and feature rich with few bugs. Open office is free, is platform independent, is rough around the edges and yet still can fulfil 99% of user needs. This review could have been written yesterday, or be churned out again tomorrow... situation will not change. I have not used MS Office for 7 years, Open Office has improved every year, and I am sure likewise so has MS Office. BUT the reason MS Office is improving is Open Office.

By saiftynet on Sunday Feb 28

A very lightweight review

I struggle to see the point of this review. Am I really expected to make a business decision on the basis of this? Where are the comparisons of actual features, head-to-head tests on time taken to achieve the same task, etc, etc? Instead it seems very dismissive and goes with the easy option every time. Not exactly a good advertisement for IT Pro.

By Ip_john91da3b20a on Tuesday Mar 2

Updated comparison

This comparison has been updated since the first version.

For reference, the test machine used was running Windows 7 x64, with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 and 4GB of RAM so while speed comparisons have been included, these should only be used as a rough guide.

Maggie Holland, Editor

By Ip_maggie_hollan on Saturday Mar 13

Windows 7?

You tested it on Windows 7? It isn't compatible, according to Open Offices website:
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/sys_reqs_30.html
How dozy is that!?

By itproxy on Tuesday Mar 16

OO 3.2 on WIndows 7 - fine!

OO 3.2 on WIndows 7 - works fine for me! I like it and avoid using Office 2007 (also installed) if I possibly can.

By WestNab on Tuesday Mar 16

I never liked both anyway.

They are both a non starter for me. They both need an operating system to run on {Java / .NET} that eats up all your resources and slows down your system to a crawl. :x

Have you ever considered SSuite Office as a free alternative?

Their software doesn't need to run on Java or .NET, so it makes their software very small, efficient, and easy to use. I just love free software that works. :)

By BeBob_Esq on Thursday Mar 18

openoffice 3.2

I was disappointed with OpenOffice 3.2. Oracle ruined writer so that the table function works correctly.

By larrydes on Friday Jan 28

openoffice 3.2

I mis-typed. writer table does NOT work correctly.

By larrydes on Friday Jan 28

comparison

I used Office Beta until it expired, but cannot afford to upgrade at the present. I liked openoffice 3.1 butnot 3.2. I found an openoffice portable which works better than 3.2.

By larrydes on Friday Jan 28