August 31st, 2006
Hands On Review: OpenOffice Premium is OpenOffice on Steroids…for Free
By David Johnston
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
OpenOffice Premium is a modified version of the popular, open-source OpenOffice.org software suite. The original OpenOffice suite aims to compete with Microsoft Office, and I believe it does a pretty good job for most home users and students.
What is Premium?
Premium aims to give OpenOffice a further edge in its competition with MS Office by adding additional fonts, clip art, and document templates to the standard program. The changes are by no means revolutionary, but they do help the OpenOffice suite to appear more polished.
I found the most useful addition to be the extra fonts which add some spice to the font selection. The additional document templates are a nice idea, but I found them not to be very useful and still not as numerous as those available in Office 2003 (or easily available on Microsoft’s website via links from within the Office 2003 software). They also didn’t strike me as being as professional-looking as Microsoft’s template offerings.
I was pleasantly surprised by the good selection of clip art, which I felt was much better than Microsoft’s. OpenOffice Premium includes many more modern clip art pictures and images that could actually be useful to someone, such as a collection of country flags. This may be more important to other people, but I don’t think I’ve actually used clip art in a document since Office 97 was the latest and greatest.
Bottom Line: Overall, I was slightly underwhelmed by the added features in OpenOffice Premium. That doesn’t mean it’s not good software. I was just not impressed by the additions, though they did nothing to detract from the great program which was already there.
If you like to play with different fonts or are a clip art junkie, OpenOffice Premium might be right for you. You also can’t go wrong for the price: OpenOffice Premium is still free just like regular OpenOffice. Also, if you’re a student or home user who’d rather not pay a couple hundred dollars just to write letters or papers it would be well worth your time to download OpenOffice (Premium) before putting down the money for one of it’s more expensive competitors. Thanks to ArsTechnica for the heads-up on OpenOffice Premium.
Download OpenOffice Premium Here
Read OpenOffice Kicks MS Office Around the Block
Leslie Satenstein says:
From what I read about your review, you were underwhelmed. In a review, I would have left out your personal feelings as you reveiled yourself as a diehard microsoft word user. I would have concentrated on what was offered, it’s functionality, and where the product would best be used. (Most schools have or are in the process of switching to OO).
I work in a company which has in excess of 1000 PC’s, and at $499 a crack for the Office license, that amounts to 499,999 purchase plus taxes. Yes, we have a volume license, but then 1000 copies of Open Office cost us only an amount we chose to donate. It was not $500,000.
When the only tool you have become accustomed to is a hammer, every nail uses it as a solution.
September 1st, 2006 at 10:06 am
John says:
What about MultiMedia OpenOffice
http://sourceforge.net/projects/platasoft
https://platasoft.com/
September 1st, 2006 at 10:59 am
Leonard says:
Leslie:
Did you read the article? Let me help you out a little:
“Bottom Line: Overall, I was slightly underwhelmed by the added features in OpenOffice Premium. That doesn’t mean it’s not good software. I was just not impressed by the additions, though they did nothing to detract from the great program which was already there.”
We’ll go through that a sentence at a time in case that’s too much info for you to handle at once.
“Overall, I was slightly underwhelmed by the added features in OpenOffice Premium.”
Clearly an indication that the reviewer wasn’t impressed with the added features. This sentence does not imply any judgement on the core product.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not good software.”
The reviewer is explaining that the previous sentence doesn’t imply a negative judgement of the core product. Also provides a nice transition to the next sentence.
“I was just not impressed by the additions, though they did nothing to detract from the great program which was already there.”
The first part reiterates the first sentence of the paragraph. The second part gives a positive judgement for the core product.
You claim that personal feelings should be left out of a review. Look up the meaning of the word “review” and it’s synonym “judgement”.
Then you attempt an insult by saying the reviewers words make him a “diehard microsoft word user”. Obviously you read a different article than I.
September 1st, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Shaun S says:
What an insightful post Leslie.
You lied:
“Most schools have or are in the process of switching to OO).”
You skewed facts:
“I work in a company which has in excess of 1000 PC’s, and at $499 a crack for the Office license, that amounts to 499,999 purchase plus taxes.”
(Someone at your company should tell you about volume licensing discounts too!)
You made things up:
“I would have left out your personal feelings as you reveiled yourself as a diehard microsoft word user.”
Three for three. Then you top it off with something that’s supposed to be an insult, but doesn’t actually make sense (probably just the terrible grammar)
“When the only tool you have become accustomed to is a hammer, every nail uses it as a solution.”
September 1st, 2006 at 2:35 pm
loser says:
Thanks for the review, Dave.
Leslie apparently lacks a dictionary or thesaurus, or a clue. One thousand PC’s does not a significant indicator make. I would consider that a small company, so Leslie’s “insights” are marginal at best.
Someday, Leslie, when you grow up, try to manage 50,000 or 90,000 pc’s, THEN you’ll have an insight into why MS Office is the de facto standard. Not that Open Office isn’t great-it’s VERY impressive. So impressive that a die-hard MS Office supporter (me) recommends it to home users and small companies (such as yours). You just can’t beat that price.
MS Office offers enough features that it can address nearly every user’s needs in a true enterprise. With some effort, I could probably make OO perform similarly, but still the third-party apps almost always support MS products first, others second.
All that being said, I have no doubt OO will start gaining ground on MS, for non-enterprise environments (and some enterprises too). Why do I say this? Because in enterprise environments, there are usually (as the Brits like to say) bespoke applications which are dependent on MS Office architectures. These applications typically integrate with the Office API’s. Sometimes this integration keeps an environment in an older version of Office (such as 2000) because the API’s have changed since then.
Again-great review. Neatly summarized the key differences Premium provides.
September 1st, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Rory says:
O_o Rocks
End of story.
Nothing comes close to it, besides maybe notepad.
September 2nd, 2006 at 3:46 am