Could you manage with OpenOffice?

It’s not that I ask myself this question all the time, but when I’m setting up computers for folks.  I mean often many people really need full-blown MS Office?  Yeah, a lot of machines come with MS Works, but its spreadsheet is pretty bad.

Well my bud Chris Pirillo wondered the same thing because Ponzi needed some Office apps.  So he installed OpenOffice for her.  He poses this question at the end:

Writer, for the most part, is like Word – and Calc, for the most part, is like Excel. That’s all I really need on this laptop. Guess I can kiss Microsoft Office on ancillary machines good-bye? Forget about limited editions and 60-day timeouts, man. I don’t know if I could live my life on the desktop without Microsoft Office at this point (especially with Outlook playing such a pivotal role)… what about you?
Source: Is OpenOffice Open Enough For You? ~ Windows Fanatics

I’m with Chris, I can’t live without Outlook and really I like Office 2007.  The question for me always has been compatibility.  I haven’t done comparisons with the latest and greatest versions, but it doesn’t change the fact that if you send stuff back and forth to people that is a really important factor.

Now, if you just print out a letter now and then.  Crunch some numbers, etc.  I think OpenOffice is going to be the right choice.  Heck, it’s free so if you don’t like it and want to ditch it you haven’t spent any money on it.