[antiRepublicrat]

4,000 seats less of MS Office -- I wonder what the taxpayer savings can be? Apparently the only reason this isn't a total switch is because of one legacy application, which will probably be ported.

This happened because the local Linux user's group has been pressuring the city to switch, but that's not much different from Microsoft's high-pressure salesmen coming around. Then again, any taxpayer should be calling for a switch if one is viable for that particular situation.

[4CJ]

I use OpenOffice with Linux and Windows.

[Hurricane Andrew]

I've been using OpenOffice for nearly 3 months now at both work and home. I've been quite pleased with it as a replacement for Office. My new work PC I didn't even load Office, and at home I removed Office from my second WinXP install, soon to be gone from the first.

The compatibility is amazing. The only thing missing is an "Outlook replacement", but I've never liked Outlook anyway. The only issues are some minor formatting issues in a handful of existing docs and templates with lines/boxes/tables. Nothing major.

One of the nicest features is the export to PDF feature, without an Adobe add in. One click and you can export any document/spreadsheet/etc to a PDF file. Sweet. I may migrate my entire company in the not too distant future. You sure can't beat the price.

[lelio]

Already posted

[dano1]

I'd like to try Open Office. Word drives me crazy with the constant changes with every new version and the annoying useless features they add, such as autoformat.

[Guvmint_Cheese]

I use OpenOffice as well, but besides an Outlook replacement, it doesn't come with a database program like Access. They'd have to find something compatible.

[Turbo Pig]

My company has been using OpenOffice as our primary Desktop Suite for over 6 months. as stated, legacy needs and the fact we have paid for so many MS Office licenses is the only reason MS Office is still around.

So far this year it has saved us about $120K. We do a lot of document generation, so combine that with the open source PDF distiller we implemented and out savings are closer to $140K

[Clara Lou]

I also use Open Office in Linux and Windows. Works great for me. Opens anything that's MS Office.

[The_Reader_David]

I've got OpenOffice running in Linux on my desktop at work, and in X11 on my (OS X) Mac at home. Works great both places.

What's more, our department's computer expert has gotten most of our secretarial staff to switch from MSWord in Windows to OpenOffice in the KDE GUI for Linux!