I personally like to use Open Office, but now there's two more thrown into the mix. Bad news for Microsoft... http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070917/230811.shtml
there really isn't an alternative to office though. anyone who says open office is better, or an online suite is better, must not know much or use them much. at school we have openoffice(actually star office, same thing) and i actually had to use wordpad because openO kept trying to be smart and do things automatically that i didn't want. ms office all the way
Personally, microsoft office does wonders. I will pay for it. Microsoft makin analytics systems looks interesting.
MS Office is certainly more powerful, but for basic Word-like and Powerpoint-like usage, I'd go with Open Office any day. The Access version (Base) is pretty limited from what I've found. It's my favorite 4 letter 'F' word. FREE
The problem is, all the desktop applications are far more advanced than the web based ones. Some of the technology just doesn't exist to make good web based apps. For example, I was just using the Presentation app on G, and it worked great. But it didn't have half the features that MS does. When the internet gets faster, and the technology improves, web apps will make a killing, until then, MS needs to make an interface so you can save you work right to a server, and open it from another computer. It would be much faster and easier.
Yeah, MS needs to be more flexible. Their products have become just as big and bloated as they are as a company. I think you're right.