Why use MS Office anymore on student lab machines??

With the host of simple, free and powerful client apps (eg OpenOffice) and web based apps (google suite), what are the advantages of continuing to pay annual seating fees for MS Office on our student/lab images?? Up until a few years ago, MS Office was really the only option. But now there are many...any thoughts??

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Larre on September 12, 2010 at 5:28pm

There is one major advantage of Microsoft Office over OpenOffice - the availability of text-to-speech addons for Word. WordTalk is a free add-on for Word that converts written text to speech, so that students who have difficulty comprehending written text can access the curriculum. I have yet to find an equivalent for OpenOffice.

Permalink Reply by Matt Montagne on September 13, 2010 at 7:21am

yet another reason to use OpenOffice, Symphony and other powerful office platforms that are freely available: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/world/europe/12raids.html?_r=1

Shame on you, Microsoft.

Permalink Reply by John Iglar on November 29, 2010 at 2:15am

Here's my favorite reason for using OpenOffice (or any other alternative) ...as well as Linux/MacOS/etc.:

UK's OFSTED did a comprehensive look at ICT in UK schools. In their first key finding they made the following statement:

"Over-reliance on a standard ‘office’ application and operating system restricted their opportunities to develop generic and transferable skills."

link to report