MS Office 2010 Starter vs OpenOffice

[Buffalo]

I have Home Premium 64bit and I am using my PC for just home use, not
business. Does the MS Office 2010 Starter offer any advantage over the free
OpenOffice ?
Thanks,
Buffalo

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I have Home Premium 64bit and I am using my PC for just home use, not
business. Does the MS Office 2010 Starter offer any advantage over the free
OpenOffice ?
Thanks,
Buffalo

I understand MS Office Starter has, inter alia, ads.

 

[Auric__]

I have Home Premium 64bit and I am using my PC for just home use, not
business. Does the MS Office 2010 Starter offer any advantage over the
free OpenOffice ?

Not really. Somewhat better support for MS formats, but IMO that's about it.

 

[Auric__]

I understand MS Office Starter has, inter alia, ads.

Yep. Quote annoying. "Buffalo" should see also the thread "MS Office in Win
7", complete with bitching by me about same.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Yep. Quote annoying. "Buffalo" should see also the thread "MS Office in Win
7", complete with bitching by me about same.

Aha! It was *you*!

Yes - I looked back at the thread, and indeed, your posts are exactly
where I got the idea about the ads.

I think others have said it too, but your post

Message-ID: <[email protected]>

and another more detailed one from you were the ones that I couldn't
recall enough to cite.

 

[Auric__]

Aha! It was *you*!

Guilty as charged.

Yes - I looked back at the thread, and indeed, your posts are exactly
where I got the idea about the ads.

I think others have said it too, but your post

Message-ID: <[email protected]>

and another more detailed one from you were the ones that I couldn't
recall enough to cite.

Hmm... reviewing the thread, I can't figure out what the "more detailed
one" would be. Shrug.

Here's some images showing the "sidebar", which contains (among other
things) the ads, and can't be hidden (watch the wordwrap on some of them):

http://myhken.info/div/office2010_starter_ad.jpg

http://owebu.bloger.cz/obrazky/owebu.bloger.cz/excel2010starter_2.png

http://static.binarynow.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/4133-1.png

http://teenstalktech.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/office-2010-starter.png

http://www.softwarecrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Excel.png

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/
_gsOoH9Cd_Q0/SwrK_FhZTJI/AAAAAAAAAbs/RYixwDSlelc/s1600/Of10Srt-Word-
Starter.png

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-
8viXQVh3EXA/TgzEl_G8NXI/AAAAAAAAAAA/VZDDId4UGWU/s1600/msosb.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/
_gsOoH9Cd_Q0/SxL6fBRsc0I/AAAAAAAAAdo/soe1c7ym8Qg/s1600/Win7-RTM-2009-11-29-
17-48-58.jpg

http://blog.laptopmag.com/wpress/wp-
content/uploads/2010/06/MSOfficeStarter-Netbook.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/
_f4jz4rHCKAs/S8OlahtEr2I/AAAAAAAAACg/AjqEW6v63Yk/s1600/office+startter.png

http://cdn-static.zdnet.com/i/story/60/23/004632/office-starter-2010-with-
sidebar.jpg


To some, the size of the sidebar isn't so bad, but... well, see my comments
in the other thread. I guess it's really a case of "you get what you DON'T
pay for".

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Hmm... reviewing the thread, I can't figure out what the "more detailed
one" would be. Shrug.

Message-ID: <[email protected]>

BTW, either Dialog doesn't have a built-in way to link to a wrapped URL,
or I can't figure it out

I did the obvious: I copied one of the broken links into a text editor,
put it back together, then copied the result into my browser. I was lazy
and only did it for one such link.

On the pictures: I'd say Microsoft, intending to sell a product, has
instead done a good job of unselling it...

 

[VanguardLH]

I have Home Premium 64bit and I am using my PC for just home use, not
business. Does the MS Office 2010 Starter offer any advantage over
the free OpenOffice ?

Other way around: OpenOffice isn't crippled as is Office Starter. Also,
the components within Starter have large panes within them for
constantly display of advertising. It is very much in-your-face adware.

Look at the thread titled "MS Office in Win 7" dated 6 days ago that is
already in this group and discusses the Starter edition.

 

[Stefan Patric]

I have Home Premium 64bit and I am using my PC for just home use, not
business. Does the MS Office 2010 Starter offer any advantage over the
free OpenOffice ?

No.

You might also take a look at LibreOffice, a independent branch based off
OpenOffice code, that is more actively developed than OO.

If all you need is a word processor without all the other "business" apps
look at Abiword. For letter writing and such, it works just fine. It's
free like OO and LO.

Stef

 

[ray carter]

I have Home Premium 64bit and I am using my PC for just home use, not
business. Does the MS Office 2010 Starter offer any advantage over the
free OpenOffice ?
Thanks,
Buffalo

I'd suggest you look at LibreOffice. It's a fork of OpenOffice and seems
to be going places more quickly.

 

[Auric__]

No.

You might also take a look at LibreOffice, a independent branch based off
OpenOffice code, that is more actively developed than OO.

If all you need is a word processor without all the other "business" apps
look at Abiword. For letter writing and such, it works just fine. It's
free like OO and LO.

Agreed on all counts -- although as with anything else, there are many *many*
alternatives.

 

[John Williamson]

I have Home Premium 64bit and I am using my PC for just home use, not
business. Does the MS Office 2010 Starter offer any advantage over the
free OpenOffice ?

No. OO is better. Libre Office is better still, as all the most
productive code writers moved from OO to LO last year after some
internal problems with the OO project. LO can even open MS Works files.

MS Office starter has, as has been said by others, extremely annoying
ads, which take up large amounts of the screen.

 

[VanguardLH]

No. OO is better. Libre Office is better still, as all the most
productive code writers moved from OO to LO last year after some
internal problems with the OO project. LO can even open MS Works files.

I thought the new project was established due to fears about what Oracle
would do with Sun's OpenOffice product, especially after they dumped it
to the Apache Software Foundation in 2011 -- although ASF was acquired
by Oracle back in 2010.

https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the_apache_software_foundation_receives

The fears were founded considering the lethargic development and release
of the next version of OpenOffice. Part of the stagnancy was due to ASF
putting OpenOffice in "Incubation" status to determine the viability of
the product's future and whether or not to allocate resources to its
futher development.

http://incubator.apache.org/

OpenOffice came out of incubation status only 3 months ago (Oct 2012)
after it got dumped 16 months earlier before that (Jun 2011) into ASF.

https://blogs.apache.org/OOo/entry/openoffice_graduates_from_the_apache
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/oracle-gives-openoffice-to-apache/9035

OpenOffice looks to be oriented to becoming an IBM governed product (to
replace Lotus Symphony). Sun OpenOffice became Oracle OpenOffice became
Apache OpenOffice and will probably effectively become IBM OpenOffice.

http://www.internetnews.com/blog/skerner/apache-openoffice-the-ibm-edition.html
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/informat...with-apache-openoffice-ibm-edition-014263.php

Long ago, I worked for a enterprise software developer and we had a
party when Oracle acquired our main competitor. We knew customers knew
Oracle was not who they wanted to own that product due to poor support
quality, increased support costs, and reduced product longevity. Sales
started to climb and about 3 years later Oracle dropped the competing
product and we were top dog. An Israeli company, also a competitor,
decided to buy our software division to acquire the product to
supposedly incorporate into their own. It would be their product with
ours integrated with it. After 6 months, they stopped the integration
effort, dropped their product, and went forward with ours (under a new
product name, of course).

 

[John Williamson]

I thought the new project was established due to fears about what Oracle
would do with Sun's OpenOffice product, especially after they dumped it
to the Apache Software Foundation in 2011 -- although ASF was acquired
by Oracle back in 2010.

<Snip>

I could have written the whole story, but it was easier to sum it up
that OO had problems, so most of the programmers moved to LO. To the end
user, that's all that really matters, isn't it?

I've actually been using various versions since the days when Star
Office wasn't Open Source, and you had to register to use it.

 

[Iceman]

Agreed on all counts -- although as with anything else, there are many *many*
alternatives.

So who really needs Micro$oft's stuff?

]>

 

[Auric__]

So who really needs Micro$oft's stuff?

"Needs"? Shrug. Nobody.

"Wants, to avoid having to start over from scratch"? Yeah, that's me.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Gene.

I did the obvious: I copied one of the broken links into a text editor,
...

A little quicker and easier: Just click Reply to Group. The OP's message
will appear, ready for editing. Fix the broken link, then Copy'n'Paste it
into the browser. Then "X" the Reply window.

Dunno about Dialog or other clients. But that trick works here in the
oft-maligned WLM. ;<) In fact, it often isn't necessary because WLM
usually handles long URLs without any tricks.

RC
-- --
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2012 (Build 16.4.3505.0912) in Win8 Pro


"Gene E. Bloch" wrote in message

Hmm... reviewing the thread, I can't figure out what the "more detailed
one" would be. Shrug.

Message-ID: <[email protected]>

BTW, either Dialog doesn't have a built-in way to link to a wrapped URL,
or I can't figure it out

I did the obvious: I copied one of the broken links into a text editor,
put it back together, then copied the result into my browser. I was lazy
and only did it for one such link.

On the pictures: I'd say Microsoft, intending to sell a product, has
instead done a good job of unselling it...

 

[Wolf K]

Yep. Quote annoying. "Buffalo" should see also the thread "MS Office in Win
7", complete with bitching by me about same.

Well, "free" just means someone eels pays for it. In this case, the
advertiser(s)...

"If you didn't want to go to Chicago, why did you get on this train?"
(G. Keillor)

 

[Dave]

Agreed on all counts -- although as with anything else, there are many
*many*
alternatives.

So who really needs Micro$oft's stuff?

]>

Business users I would think. Personally I think MS Works would suffice
for most home users. I use that and Libre Office for when people send me
Word Docs etc. and other stuff. Libre Office seem to recognize almost
anything out there. I wish they had included a publisher equivalent.

 

[s|b]

You might also take a look at LibreOffice, a independent branch based off
OpenOffice code, that is more actively developed than OO.

+1