However, only a few testers-again, mostly advanced users of Excel-said an upgrade to Office 2003 would provide them significantly more useful functionality.īenincasa said that he has rolled out on shop-floor computers for basic document viewing and that the application works well there. Users who tested Office 2003 found the suite more polished and easy to use than Office. “For other users, however, we can easily customize to make it look pretty close to what they already have.” org may not be able to provide,” said Tina Sanzone, application analyst at Browning. “The advanced users already push Microsoft Office to the limits and are constantly looking for more functionality, which OpenOffice. However, for more advanced users-especially advanced users of did not fare as well. We concentrated our tests on the applications’ capability and compatibility, as well as on user training requirements.ĭuring tests, most users had little or no trouble moving from their current suite to. We tested and Office 2003 with sample documents provided by eWEEK Labs and with the testers’ own files. We worked with three groups of users, all of whom currently use Office 97 or 2000 for productivity tasks. zimages/5/28571.gif For a complete list of eVal participants, click here. We worked with Benincasa and members of his IT staff, as well as several representatives of the user population at FN Manufacturing and its related companies-Browning Arms Co., in Ogden, Utah, and parent company Fabrique Nationale (National Weapons Factory), in Herstal, Belgium.Īlso participating in the testing were Corporate Partner Kevin Wilson, product line manager of desktop hardware at Duke Energy Corp., in Charlotte, N.C., and Jeff Worboys, Duke’s product line manager of desktop productivity applications. It pains me to have to spend money for features and functions most of my end users won’t even begin to need.”ĮWEEK Labs traveled to FN Manufacturing to put the two office suites to the test. Office 97 does everything we want it to do, and we would stay on that suite if we could. “However, we are cautious with our IT budget, and I’d prefer to spend money that directly relates to our business, like investing in things like hardware.
“I’m not an anti-Microsoft person, and I think Office is a good product,” said Benincasa. He also wants to prevent Microsoft’s product release and support road map from dictating FN Manufacturing’s upgrade timetable. Benincasa is exploring his office application suite options because he is concerned about the high cost of an upgrade to Office 2003. Microsoft Office 97 and Office 2000 are deployed to the 300-plus users at the site, and Benincasa is evaluating whether to move to Microsoft’s latest suite, Office 2003, or the open-source 1.1.1.īenincasa is looking to upgrade because Microsoft has discontinued distribution of new licenses for Office 2000 and Office 97. zimages/5/28571.gif Click here to learn why we think open-source office suites are a better fit in small shops.īenincasa is vice president of MIS at precision machining manufacturer FN Manufacturing Inc., in Columbia, S.C. zimages/5/28571.gif Click here to see how we tested. So when eWEEK Corporate Partner Ed Benincasa shared his desire to perform a user-based comparison between the project’s suite and Microsoft’s Office 2003, we saw a perfect opportunity to compare the suites under real-world conditions. In recent years, open-source alternatives to Office have matured to the point where IT managers are beginning to investigate the viability of moving from the Microsoft Corp.
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