

Ask HN:Why MS Office over OpenOffice/LibreOffice? - esponapule

In your company, organization, or personal business, what are the contributing factors as to why  Microsoft Office is used instead of OpenOffice or Libre Office.<p>Or, if you did choose OpenOffice/LibreOffice, what was it that made it so?<p>Or did you skip both and choose Google Docs?
What would OpenOffice/LibreOffice have to have in order for you to use it instead of MS Office?
======
hasenj
The interface is horribly ugly. That's the only reason to not use
OpenOffice/LibreOffice

It's also quite heavy.

In short, the user experience sucks.

And honestly, before LibreOffice, OpenOffice was more of a corporate product
than a community project. It was by a company for company, and with an
OpenSource model used to gain some popularity.

It pretty much suffered all the problems of products that are developed by big
companies, and enjoyed almost none of the benefits of open source.

Now with LibreOffice I might be more motivated it to give it a chance or
support the efforts, and I have more hope that it might turn out to be
something good.

------
kingsidharth
I gave OpenOffice like 10 chances and all time it was a fail. It wasn't
stable. Idk why but it kept hanging, not that Microsoft's products don't do
that. but MSOffice 2007 was a huge improvement.

Next, non-geeks (which make up more than half of the world and all of my
clients) don't use "Open Office" and opening my files is a pain for them.

Third, even if I get them to work cross software, not all features are
available so can't open client's files.

Fourth, it doesn't have as many features as Office 2010.

I love this quote on Open v/s Closed Source debate "People don't care if it's
open or not, people care if it solves the problem or not."

I mean honestly, why would my mom care if it's open source? ha!

Yea Google Docs is the next stop. Just that can't use it offline.

------
drivingmenuts
Inertia? Everyone else is using it.

It's exactly like using Adobe Photoshop. Sure, there's other tools that do
some or most of what we need to get done at any given time but Photoshop has
all the stuff all the time.

Pretty much the same with MS-Office. It does what we need it to do.

On a slightly different note, I've used Open Office in the past. It feels
"clunky" and unfinished on a Mac. The development process is slow.

Ultimately (and yes, I realize this is selfish), I just want it to work so I
can get on with my own work. If it doesn't work, there's always other options.

~~~
jamesteow
I tried using Open Office on the Mac and it just seemed in a weird place. Not
as simple as Textfile for quick edits, but not nearly as refined as Office
2008.

