Update: More on using free softwares in business at Free Biz Ware.
The final stronghold had finally been breached! Open Office finally got installed on my desktop. And boy they are impressive. Take a look at the Word, Excel and Powerpoint replacement respectively.
Word replacement | Excel replacement | Powerpoint replacement
All thanks to Microsoft licensing and activation policy for stiffening my resolve to turn to Open Office. It’s a long painful story, bare with me as I recount …
<rant begins>
This week, to preempt problem with the now clicking harddisk, I upgraded my notebook hardisk with a new 40Gb.
Everything went smoothly until MS Office was installed. Despite the easy availability of pirated Office at 5RMB (60 US cents) a piece, I actually have a copy of legitimate Office that came with my notebook. And so I gladly installed it.
After install and upon running Word, the product activation screen pops up. The notice declares that the product had to be ativated within 50 usage or Office will stop functioning. No problem I thought, I have the product key and proceeded to enter them.
“This product had already been activated on another computer.”
What?!
It appears that the harddisk change constitute a change of installation location and activation was not allowed. What injustice! I almost execrated.
The option of phone activation was offered and I called the toll-free China service number. Followed a recorded instructions, punched in a long series of numbers and was again told the product had been activated.
Another option of transferring to an operator was offered. All the messages was in English until the operator answered in Chinese. I wasn’t in the mood to test her English standard so I replied in Chinese instead.
So I was required to prove ownership of my notebook and the purchase of the new harddisk by faxing the invoice/receipt to a given number. I pleaded that the notebook was purchased in Singapore and in the end I still have to faxed the harddisk purchase receipt.
I managed to surprise even myself that I actually continued to comply with these series of ridiculous requests. Digging up the receipt, I began dialling the number. It did not connect. It was a ShenZhen number. I have no long distance calling card. I gave up.
</rant ends>
When push comes to shove, resistance to change becomes strength for change. I headed right over to openoffice.org and download the 70+mb of Open Office 1.9.113 beta. There never was reason enough to switch from MS Office until now. After a brief survey of the applications, I say I’m glad I did.
Expect more review of Open Office applications to follow as I ease into it.
Where to get it?
Current version: 1.1.4 (stable), 1.9.113 (beta)
Function: Office Productivity Suite
0 Responses to “No more Office, Open Office”