Office Alternatives update
Posted by ucdlibrary on October 8, 2007
Things go much faster on the web and this can be clearly seen in some recent developments regarding alternatives to Microsoft Office.
Google has added to its Google Documents portfolio, by adding Google Presentations to the mix. It now offers free alternatives to word, Excel and Powerpoint. All it needs is a gmail account.
IBM Have entered the field and are offering a free office suite, called Lotus Symphony. The package includes a word processor, a spreadsheet program and a presentation builder.
Adobe have entered into the fray and have purchased the very impressive looking Buzzword. Once again it’s free to use.
What’s Microsoft doing in the face of all this activity? Its answer is to make Microsoft Works free to download. This hasn’t happened yet, but is this enough of a response from the current leaders in this area?
Diarmuid
