Several months ago, during a period of unemployment, my old laptop died necessitating that I buy a new computer. The computer I selected came with a 60 day trial version of Microsoft Office. Since I have used Office for over 20 years and needed a word processor and spreadsheet package, I almost bought the real version. Because I am an IT professional who likes to develop applications in Access, I wanted the professional version of Office and that cost around $400.
Remember, I was unemployed. That $400 was almost my entire gross take home from my unemployment payments! I simply could not afford Office at that price and the Student Home Edition didn't give me what I wanted. My son is a college student in another state and he loves Open Office so much that even when offered an inexpensive version of Office through his college bookstore, he shunned it in favor of Open Office. Taking a cue my my son, I downloaded Open Office and got hooked! No more was I chained to Microsoft!
But I didn't have a good tool to manage my email. That's when discovered Mozilla Thunderbird and its many extensions. Why would I need Outlook?
The greatest weakness in OO is Base. Base isn't Access; it's not even close. I have an extensive programming background and can get by some of the Base weaknesses by writing code but not everyone can do that. I figure that if I should ever truly need Access, I can buy that product alone.
Ironically, I'm now working but I don't intend to return to Microsoft Office at its very expensive price. I'm hooked on Open Office!
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