Bill Snyder, in this article 'Kiss Microsoft Office Goodbye: Three Alternatives to Office 2010' looks at MS Office alternatives including 2 on-premise suites and one online suite - Zoho. The third alternative, Zoho, like the much better known Google Docs,
runs on the Internet. I've picked Zoho over Google because it does much
more, is amazingly light on its feet and the competition will make
everyone try harder. Zoho: Hit the Cloud Zoho's office suite includes the usual word processor, spreadsheet and presentation applications, plus an online organizer (a bit like Outlook, without the e-mail function) and "notebook," which allows you to collect bits and pieces of Web content in one place without leaving your browser. But Zoho's claim to fame is that all of these applications (plus another dozen business and collaboration programs the company offers) run on the Web, within your browser.
Bill explored OpenOffice & SoftMaker Office apps along with Zoho.
That means you sign in to Zoho, and then pick the application you
need to run. The look is noticeably different than the familiar File,
Edit, View etc. menus on the Office screen. Even more radical is the
fact that your documents are stored online on a Zoho server. You can
save versions to your hard drive and read or edit them when you are
offline, but many of the most resource-intensive functions (spell
check, for example) are only available online. That's a downside of
course.
Because much of the heavy lifting needed to run the applications is
performed by Zoho's server, not your PC, Zoho can run on low-power PCs
and Netbooks that could never handle a full-blown productivity suite.He concludes saying...Since any of these suites can be tried for free, pick one and play with
it. If it's just too strange for your Office-conditioned fingers, you
haven't lost much. But if it does fit the bill, you've just saved
hundreds of dollars.
Infact, if you are an individual, you could save few hundreds of dollars. But if you are large business, including these alternatives in your short list could cut you a big fat discount from Microsoft.
Complete article is available here.
I think ZOHO is the best online suite on the internet ! It has sooooo many options, and options are my favorite thing in life !
I think ZOHO is the best online suite on the internet ! It has sooooo many options, and options are my favorite thing in life !