PUBLIC relations executive Azwar Nazli employs OpenOffice.org suite for handling personal as well as work-related tasks.

The suite is a cross-platform office application suite available for a number of different computer operating systems.

It supports the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) for data interchange as its default file format, as well as Microsoft Office 1997 to 2003 formats, among many others.

"I use OpenOffice Writer because it is free and it works fine on my Asus Eee PC. I can do my work anywhere, anytime. It also has some features that Word doesn't have, like OpenOffice Impress," he added.

While the cost benefit is clear, Azwar said the OpenOffice is not without setbacks.

"Sometimes the formats aren't converted properly when I switch between Microsoft Office. I hope to see improvements in terms of format compatibility, as well as getting more features, such as a more updated set of fonts," said Azhar.

Despite these flaws, he is quite happy with OpenOffice and plans to stick with it.

For IT manager Yong Yoon-Kit, who has been using OpenOffice.org for over five years now, the 'free' factor is appealing enough.

"With office suites costing between RM400 and RM1,600 depending on feature sets, this becomes significant in terms of total ownership costs of PCs, where a new PC nowadays only cost RM2,500," he said, adding that usage of free and open source software (FOSS) can bring about an immediate 30 to 40 per cent savings.

Although there are some issues with document conversions, he said it is mainly the fault of the opaqueness of proprietary document formats.

"Now that Microsoft Office will be supporting OpenDocument Format natively, this will hopefully be an issue of the past," he added.

Yong said the good thing about FOSS products like OpenOffice.org is the reassurance that any upgrades, features and bug fixes will be available in the future.

The fact that ODF and FOSS are free and offerred by trusted names like IBM, Sun and Google, helps to boost their usage, especially among those who are cost-conscious and believe in the free software concept.