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by Andy Harris

Created on: June 07, 2010   Last Updated: June 08, 2010

Is 'better' the right question?

The term 'better' is subjective, so any debate about whether one thing is 'better' than another is often really about how the term 'better' is defined.  In this particular case, there's a number of ways to posit whether one piece of software is better than another:  There are some objective measures (counting the number of users or features) but these don't always equate to quality.  Sometimes the quality of something is different than its popularity or the number of rarely-used features it has. 

At face value, it would seem that Microsoft Office Professional is the clearly better package.  It completely dominates the professional world, was created by one of the largest companies in the world with a substantial research and development budget, and it has more features and capabilities than anyone could possibly use. 

But maybe outright capabilities aren't the best measurement.  Maybe value is just as important. Perhaps value is more important.  After all, I think a Mercedes is a fine car, but I'm happy with my 93 Beretta, because it's a terrific value, and it gets me where I want to go. The Mercedes might be a better car, but I can afford the Beretta, and I really don't need the Mercedes. I need a car that gets me to work reliably.

Microsoft Office is not quite as invulnerable as it looks.  There are some indications that Open Office or something like it might very well be bothering the folks in Redmond.  After all, Office is perhaps a more important revenue stream for Microsoft even than Windows (Operating systems are not upgraded as often as office suites) and any vulnerability in MS Office will be a severe problem for Microsoft.  Ironically, it is MS Office's dominant position that may be its biggest weakness.

Microsoft can put anybody out of business

When MS Word first came out, it was far behind WordPerfect as a word processing program. Likewise, MS Excel was not nearly as strong as Lotus 1-2-3, and Powerpoint competed with Harvard Graphics for presentation software. Access was completely outclassed by DB3.  If these programs are unfamiliar to you, it's because they no longer exist.  Microsoft is very good at competing, and it produced exceptional software that competed extremely well with its competition.  The MS offerings did everything their competition did and more, at a reasonable price.  When Microsoft wants to build a piece of software that dominates the opposition, they often (but not always - consider web servers) succeed.

The problem comes when there is no more competition.  The fate of Internet Explorer is a case in point. IE6 was by far the best browser available when it was released.  Netscape 3 was getting very old, and Netscape 6 was a technical disappointment.  IE6 was faster and better behaved than anything known to most users. Not surprisingly, it was able to take a major chunk of market share, quickly re-defining the web space. 

No competition means no innovation

However, market pressures which caused MS to put all their energy into developing a brilliant browser also caused attention to move elsewhere as soon as the battle was won.  Why put your best engineers on a project which utterly dominates its market?  It makes more sense to concentrate on places you haven't won yet. (For Microsoft at this time, this was the web development world. This is when Microsoft was working hard on C# and .NET. The significant energy and talent was poured into this team, because that's where the battle was raging.)

IE languished for years, and the web development world suffered as well.  Although new standards were developed, they really didn't matter, because Microsoft essentially established their own standards.  A programmer's joke from the time asked how many Microsoft engineers it took to change a light bulb.  The answer: None. Just redefine darkness as the new standard.

Firefox invigorated the web

Firefox came into the world and utterly reinvigorated the web development community.  While Firefox in its own right was impressive (introducing features that are now standard in all browsers: complete CSS and XHTML support, tabbed browsing, and a decent JavaScript engine) the real advantage of Firefox is how it lit a fire under Microsoft (and other browser developers.) Suddenly the web development team at Microsoft was given the resources and encouragement to fight back.  IE7 was a dramatic improvement and IE8 finally became a browser that could compete decently with Firefox, opera, and the webkit-based browsers (Safari and Chrome)

Before Firefox, people became complacent, because an alternative to IE was unthinkable. After Firefox, it became apparent that IE6 was no longer acceptable. 

The office suite community has fallen into the same 'pre-Firefox' mindset.  "MS Office must be the best solution, because an alternative is unthinkable."  Companies gladly pay to 'upgrade' office every few years, though the response to many innovations such as the tool ribbon have been indifferent or hostile as often as favorable.  Frankly, very little real innovation has happened in the office suite realm for many years. This might be because office suites simply can't get any better.  More likely, it's because there is no real competition, no need for meaningful innovation on Microsoft's choices and very few real options to the primary game in town. 

Open Office may not be 'better,' but it's definitely a better value

Open office provides the first meaningful choice that's been available since MS Office achieved dominance.  While its user base and feature comparison do not match MS Office in any meaningful way, the open source alternative is incredibly important in the same way that Firefox redefined the web browser.

Sadly, it seems impossible for a software company to compete with Microsoft.  Ask Lotus, Novell, Harvard Graphics, or WordPerfect what happens when you try to compete with Microsoft.  MS can put other companies out of business.  - but only if they're in business.  The only way to compete with Microsoft is to use an entirely different model that they cannot undercut. 

If you cannot pour millions into a research and advertising budget, you cannot win on perception.  You might win on quality (though it's a long shot.)  The way to beat Microsoft (or at least to stay alive) is to compete on value.  This is where an open-source tool like Open Office shines. 

Open Office does about 90 - 95% of what Microsoft Office does.  That's not all that great, until you consider the price.  Open Office costs 0% of what MS Office does.  Considering that many users don't use an office suite to its highest potential, it's worth wondering whether MS Office is worth the cost for the additional 10% of functionality. 

Open Office does some things better than MS Office

Open Office also has some significant advantages of its own:

* Open document formats - True support for an open-document format as required by ISO standards

* True cross-platform support - Open office is identical on Mac, Windows, and Linux machines. MS Office is notoriously Windows-centric, with less complete support on Mac, and no Linux version available at all

* Complete support for MS formats - Ironically, Open Office supports the Microsoft docx format better than older versions of Word.

* Customization - Open Office includes a VB-Like macro language (like the one in MS Office) but it also includes support for other languages like Python.  Unlike MS Office, developers can dig into the code of open office and create new enhancements and custom versions to suit their needs.

* Multiple database support - Database support is only available in the premium version of MS Office, and the database is Access. Open Office includes data support for multiple databases, including postgre SQL, MySQL, SQLite, and Access.

* Compatibility with older hardware - MS Office always seems to have larger and larger hardware needs.  If you want to run the latest version of MS Office, you'll need a recent version of Windows, which likely needs you'll need hardware from the last few years.  Open Office works fine on older hardware, often performing better than its expensive competition.

Open Office will keep MS honest

While MS office has more features and is clearly more popular, it seems clear that Open Office is a better value.  Even if this is not the case, Open Office is extremely important because it proves that there is room for some kind of competition and innovation in the office suite marketplace. 

While I personally prefer Open Office (I have written many books using MS Word, but my current project is a 1200 page book on web development entirely in Open Office Writer.  I have a legitimate license to MS Office, but I have not even installed in on my current machine.), I think this is about more than personal preferences.  Even those who prefer MS Office should be cheering Open Office on if they believe in competition and innovation.  If a tool set is as central to everyday life as an office suite, there should be choices, and there should be room for innovation.  The introduction of OpenOffice into the environment has provided some incentive for innovation and very welcome choices to a landscape that has been dormant for far too long.  The existence of Open Office will ultimately improve Microsoft Office.  which is good for everyone.

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