A lot of people are getting tired of shelling out hundreds of dollars to Microsoft so that they can use Word, Excel and (sometimes) PowerPoint. But, most of them are loathe to do otherwise, since it seems that these programs are essential if you want to interact with others in the business world. Well, the times they are a changing. What if you could read and write all of the MS Office docs but pay… nothing.

Enter the world of open source projects OpenOffice and NeoOffice. Both of these projects (Mac and PC for the former, Mac only for the latter) offer complete compatibility, open source codes that are constantly improved, and a whole lot more… for free.

Sometimes you get what you pay for, but in this case, I’ve found these open source options to be a nice alternative. If your budget for a new computer is off by a few hundred dollars because you are factoring in the purchase of the latest MS Office suite, consider going open source and replacing MS Office.