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3 Reasons NOT to upgrade or buy to Microsoft Office & 5 Alternatives

Microsoft has primarily moved to a subscription model for its Office suite…costing you recurring fees. After 25+ years of using Microsoft Office and watching others use Microsoft Office, I can say without hesitation that it is a waste of hard earned money for most people. Don’t be pressured or swayed into purchasing it.  Here’s why:

3 Reasons NOT to upgrade to Microsoft Office

  1. You own an earlier version and barely scratch the surface of its capabilities and probably only use Word anyway. To view files created by newer versions, just download the Microsoft Viewers. The new version will gain you nothing more than a lighter wallet.
  2. The new versions require a steep learning curve…even for techies!
  3. Evaluate your needs; if you use only the word processor, and you only write basic letters, meeting minutes, lists, etc, the extensive features in Microsoft Word are overkill as are the extra programs.

5 Alternatives to Microsoft Office

  1. Same as the first one above…you already own a copy of a previous version. Newer isn’t always better.
  2. Libre Office productivity suite offers an extremely capable (and in some cases more capable) group of products for free.
  3. Google Docs online document management and creation….also free (if you already use Gmail, you can access these tools from your “bento box” menu in the upper right corner of Gmail.
  4. Zoho online document management and creation. Again free and very powerful!
  5. Microsoft offers FREE versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint via their outlook.com email service (formally MSN or HotMail). And like Google Docs and Zoho, are available from ANY device!
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4 thoughts on “3 Reasons NOT to upgrade or buy to Microsoft Office & 5 Alternatives”

  1. George Peterson

    You should also have a look at SSuite Office for a free office suite. They have a whole range of office suites that are free for download. 🙂

    Their software also doesn’t need to run on Java or .NET, like MS Office and so many open source office suites, so it makes their software very small, efficient, and easy to use. 😀

    You may try these links for more info:

    http://www.ssuitesoft.com/index.htm
    or
    http://www.ssuitesoft.com/ssuiteexcalibur.htm
    or
    http://ssuite5element.webs.com/thefifthelement.htm

  3. Sue

    Has there been any improvement in MS Office 2010 Professional? I need to update from my “97” version soon. I do prefer having the program on my computers, not in a “cloud”. (Customer privacy and copyright issues.)

    I have tried Open Office and find it fairly unfriendly in that it is not as complete as MS Word Pro and it does not translate into MS Office applications (either Word or Excel) without lots of re-doing–I do not have time for re-doing.

    Sue

    1. Rick

      Hello Sue. Thanks for writing. Office 2010 works just fine, but you will find it much different than your current version. You might be more comfortable with LibreOffice.org or OpenOffice.org as they are more like what you are used to, free, and completely compatible with your existing Microsoft documents and any documents you might receive from other users.

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