Free software competes with Microsoft products

Will Cottingham
Business Reporter

Downloadable programs are proving a reasonable alternative to Microsoft Office for cost-conscious students.

Google docs and spreadsheets and OpenOffice.org are free software suites for students, said Mark Naylor, chief information officer of information and technology services at Humber.

“If you have a new (computer) and you want an office program, and you don’t want to buy Microsoft or take it illegally, then OpenOffice is a good product,” Naylor said.

But there are some potential problems in the long run.

“There will be some compatibility issues,” Naylor said. “When we considered these products for the school, we found compatibility issues with moving formulas back and forth in spreadsheet.

“But, what I’m really concerned with is the employability factor,” Naylor said. “Students pay for being equipped for work and for a lot of students that means they need to be trained on Microsoft products.”

Naylor said he has no problem with having OpenOffice.org software in school computer labs, but maintains that, for now, it would be a mistake to exclude Microsoft Office.

“If the world switched to OpenOffice, there would be no reluctance on our part to change with it,” Naylor said. “In fact, some large organizations in the U.S. and Europe have required that the office software products they use have an open format, so documents can be used freely with other tools.”

In September 2005, the state of Massachusetts began phasing out documents with closed formats, which are documents that can only be read by certain programs, and effectively banned the use of Microsoft products in state offices.

Albert McWilliams, a first year business administration student, said he is aware of the free alternatives that exist, but also said Microsoft is worth the $179.99 retail price.

“I think I’d make the purchase to avoid compatibility issues,” McWilliams said. “Even though there are many free programs to suit different kinds of writers, I think Microsoft will change with people’s needs.”