Open Office - What's the Downside?

cclangi asks: "I'm a current Microsoft Office user, and I run a small business as a consultant (mining). I've read about Open Office and all the good things about it, but what about the downside? As a small business owner and semi-literate in things computer-ese (as a user, not as a developer or administrator), what support limitations are there for Open Office. I'm particularly interested in/concerned with compatibility of software for reports, spreadsheets and database apps that I might need to send to/receive from clients. As I've said, I've read the good stuff, and 'how easy it is', but what are things I need to be aware of before considering switching completely to Open Office? Comments and experiences would be welcomed." A couple of months ago, OpenOffice advocates had space to sound of on the reasons to switch to OpenOffice. Now, it only seems fair to give the dissenters a place to voice their own reasons. What are the reasons keeping you away from OpenOffice and on your current office suite?

Comments

Re:Simple

[thc69]

Isn't that what the OpenOffice quickstarter is for?

Why not download it & just try it yourself?

[DJ_Maiko]

I mean, really, it's not a huge download & what's so hard about trying it out yourself? Personally, I've had zero problems with it. The load times when opening an MS document are minimal to me compared to the alternative. It's free, it's open source, it's feature-rich & more are constantly getting added, there's a template repository freely available & (most importantly) it's not an MS solution which means your virus threat level isn't sky high!

I swear, the internet's a wonderful thing but questions like this just go to show how lazy people have become. It's YOUR business, try it yourself? Sure, lots of folks here can give you their points-of-views but how do you know how it will directly affect YOUR business unless you try it yourself? Give it a test run & kick the tires for pete's sake (wouldn't you do that if you were buying a new car or would you just go online & read the reviews & solely base your purchase on that?)!!!