Do You Really Need Office?

A lot of our customers who purchase a new PC want to get Microsoft Office at the same time and normally pay in the region of €90 for MS Office 2007 Home and Student Edition. In many case MS Works 9.0 is already bundled with the PC but customers feel that they must have Word for their word processing and Excel for their spreadsheets (most home users don't use Powerpoint).

What you should be aware of is that MS Works 9.0 now allows you to open Word and Excel .doc and .xls files and also allows you to save documents and spreadsheets in those formats. So why do you need to spend an extra €90 when you have all the software you need bundled with your PC? The answer, in most cases, is you don't unless you need advanced features like macros and pivot tables.

So before you rush out to buy Office give Works a run around the block. It may be all that you need. And if you do need more horsepower in your office productivity software, there is always OpenOffice.