Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

Bachelor of Information Communications and Technology (Applied) T301

Network Design
Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

Vajira Lasantha Tennakoon Student ID : 1272025

T301 Network Design

Assignment 1

Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

The Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is an inter-related PC applications suit which is available for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. It was introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. The first version of Office included Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Between last 21 years, Microsoft has included lots of other useful applications to the Office suit. Furthermore it has lots of shared features like spell checker, scripting language support with MS Visual Basic and OLE data integration, etc Microsoft Office has much different kind of users. Such as students, home users, business people and office users. The current version of Microsoft Office is Office 2010 for Windows, released on June 15, 2010 and Office 2011 for Mac OS X, released October 26, 2010. Since MS Office is totally running and functioning on local computer, it can be considered as a fat client. (Wikipedia, n.d.)

Advantages of MS Office
User friendly MS Office is very popular as easy to use. Each application comes with lots of helpful features so you can accomplish nearly any task. You are able to do anything you wish to do with this software, both for personal and business use. They also have descriptive help files built into the programs. It becomes very helpful if you get stuck with something. All-in-one software suit Microsoft Office included many different kinds of software, all of which help with office activities. MS Word is the right software to use for word processing. You can use MS Excel for your different kind of calculations and databases. MS PowerPoint is very useful for making slideshow presentations. So this office suite has almost everything you need for your daily works. In the other hand, there are other all-in-one and user friendly office suits available around. But most of the users have more experiences with MS Office and they naturally like to work with the software they like most and have experience with. Users having less awareness of other office suits give MS Office a big advantage. Universal software By considering about other kinds of software, Microsoft Office has become the industry standard when it comes to office applications. Whenever someone requires a document, it is always required in the Microsoft Word format almost all the time. Because each and every user is well familiar with MS Office applications rather than getting used to work with another office suit. So in order to go with industry trends, you must be having MS Office with you. Good support from Microsoft To provide best support, Microsoft has included hundreds of pages in to their website to support their MS Office applications. This includes free templates for Microsoft software, troubleshooting guides if you ever run into a problem, online tutorials and even the automatic updates which help to keep your software up to date.

Disadvantages of Microsoft Office

Cost The main disadvantage of the MS Office is its not free. You must pay and buy a license in order to use office software. Generally Microsoft Office Professional 2010 costs around $500, its lighter versions like Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010 cost around $150. Compatibility With the office 2007, it provides support for XML Paper Specification (XPS) and Portable Document Format (PDF) file formats to make it easy to distribute office documents with others.

T301 Network Design

Assignment 1

Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

PDF and XPS file formats may share cross platform. But there are possible document-sharing issues with users of versions prior to Office 2003. Those users will need to install some converters to OpenOffice 2007 files with their old office versions. Resource hog Microsoft Office needs lots of resources to run smoothly. It occupies a huge space of hard drive and also uses a lot of CPU and memory power. It doesnt matter to a high-end machine, but for old PCs with limited hardware resources, it's a big issue. Considering about MS Office support for devices like smart phones, tablets, Microsoft has developed separate office suit for those devices. Its lite and can work by consuming very low amount of resources.

Microsoft Office Domination

It's now more than two decades Microsoft released their suite of office productivity software. Although there are numerous free or low-cost alternatives arrive in to the market since then (OpenOffice, Google Docs) Microsoft Office is still dominating the area. This can happen due to many reasons. Microsoft Windows is the operating system which is running on most of the PCs around the world. For a typical PC user, Microsoft name is very familiar than others. So most of the times they like to use Microsoft products all the time since they dont have much of the technical knowledge. So it can be a better reason for them to buy a software suit like MS Office. In the other hand, office suits like OpenOffice are not much popular among typical users. Only the users with IT knowledge can have an idea about non-MS software. It seems that only big disadvantage of MS Office is its high cost. But in these days there are enough pirated copies of MS Office are available on the internet and you can just download and install it without paying a single cent. That could be one major reason why people are still using MS Office everywhere. Talking about mobile devices, since Android and iOS are dominating the mobile device (smart-phones, tabs) market, Microsoft Office is having difficulty to dominate mobile device market. Because both Android and iOS provide out-of-the-box office suite with their devices for no cost, users will find it useless to buy MS Office mobile suite for additional cost. The latest MS WP7 mobile OS has very low market share. Mostly like 1 digit percentage and it has become big disadvantage to Microsoft in that area. According to the Forrester (A global research and advisory firm), Two years ago 80% of companies were running some version of Office, and this number hasn't budged much. With the recent report, Forrester noted that all respondents were running Office, with 74% of IT departments saying they supported Microsoft Office 2003 or earlier. Only 8% said they utilize Google Docs. (John Paul, 2011)

Challenges to Microsoft Office

It's a well-known fact that Microsoft dominates the productivity suite market, but that doesn't mean it's the only thing available in the market now to do the job. There are some challenges even for the MS Office including the office applications file format called ODF (Open Document Format). They are given in details below.

1. OpenOffice 2. Google Docs 3. Zoho

4. Lotus Symphony

ODF (Open Document Format)

ODF is an XML based file format which support for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and charts. This was developed by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) and standards specifications were developed by Sun Microsystem. For the XML format, it was created by OpenOffice.org. The idea behind ODF is creating universal file format to exchange document between various

T301 Network Design

Assignment 1

Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

office suites in use around the world. Some of them are well known OpenOffice.org, Google docs, IBM Lotus Symphony, Zoho, Corel WordPerfect Office, Sun StarOffice and many more. Microsoft has started to support ODF starting from MS Office 2007 SP 2. Although MS Office 2010 can open and save ODF files, all the features of it are not supported. This can create a slight problem while exchanging ODF file between MS Office and other office suites. Also it can challenge MS Office as MS is having their own file formats like .docx, .xlsx, .pptx. Next thing is MS Office cant support password-encryption in ODF files. Since ODF is becoming standard file format for most of the office suites and if MS cant support it fully, users will think about using alternatives that fully support ODF other than MS. The main advantage of ODF is wide amount of application support. To make it happen, there are lots of industrial giants are behind it. Such as Adobe, BBS, Corel, GNOME, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Red Hat. In the other hand, lack of macro/scripting language support can be considered as a disadvantage of ODF. Applications like OpenOffice supports macros and therefore this can create an incompatibility between ODF applications. Because of that, a macro language must be defined for ODF.

OpenOffice
OpenOffice is one of the most well-known, open-source office software suites for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. Its available in many. As it stores all your files in an international open standard format and can read and write files from other office software packages like MS Office, it has become common replacement for many Office users. You can download and use it free of charge. It supports many different operating systems like Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris. OpenOffice was originally developed by Sun Microsystem and released in 30 April 2002. Today it belongs to Apache Software Foundation and now its called Apache OpenOffice.
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Architecture of OpenOffice
OpenOffice is a complex and big software system. Its coding are implemented in various computer languages, including BASIC, C, C++, Java, perl, make, ANT. As OpenOffice is running all its software on a single PC without help of outside services, it can be considered as a fat client.

Figure 1. Architecture of OpenOffice

T301 Network Design

Assignment 1

Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

Advantages of OpenOffice
No cost OpenOffice is free for anyone to use and distribute. Many features are available as extra cost add-ins in other office suites (like PDF export) are coming free with OpenOffice. Open source You are able to distribute, copy, and modify the software as much as you wish, by using Open Source licenses. Language support OpenOffice supports over 40 languages, and provides spelling, hyphenation, and thesaurus dictionaries in over 70 languages. This also provides support for both Complex Text Layout (CTL) and Right to Left (RTL) layout languages (such as Hindi, Hebrew, and Arabic). Cross-platform OpenOffice runs on several hardware architectures and under multiple operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Sun Solaris. But unfortunately there is no official suit available for mobile platforms like Android, iOS.

File compatibility OpenOffice supports PDF and Flash export, as well as support for opening and saving files in many common formats including Microsoft Office, HTML, XML, WordPerfect, and Lotus 123 formats. New OpenOffice v3.0 is capable of opening files created with Microsoft Office 2007 (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.). Frequent updates OpenOffice updates as the developers fix bugs. At the same time they add new features instead of waiting for new release dates like other office programs do.

Disadvantages of OpenOffice
Speed
When editing and saving documents and other files, overall processing speed is slower than that of Microsoft Office and other similar office applications. Also, the startup process is slower than other suites. It uses more of system memory. If the computer is older or contains slower CPU, OpenOffice runs even slower due to the lack of overall system resources. Fonts This program contains a limited set of fonts and must depend on the fonts already loaded on the computer. As OpenOffice is available for numerous platforms, only the most common fonts are included with the package. (Amanda Rumble, n.d.) User interface OpenOffice's interface, menus, options and icons are different from Microsoft Office's and similar office suit interface. The main toolbar names are the same, but the functions within each toolbar uses different terminology and procedures to complete tasks.

T301 Network Design

Assignment 1

Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

OpenOffice vs. Microsoft Office

Cost One main advantage of OpenOffice when compared with Microsoft Office is its cost. OpenOffice is totally free to use. Microsoft Office's current offering, Office 2010, isn't free. There is a limited demo is available, but to get full functionality, you have to pay for it. Currently Microsoft Office Professional 2010 costs $500, while its lighter version, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010 costs around $150. Interface Microsoft Office comes with the new interface called ribbon UI which was introduced with Office 2007. Its very sleek and new UI. But compared to old UI of MS Office 2003, some users including Super Users of MS Office find it little hard to get used to new UI. In the other hand, OpenOffice comes with a UI which is similar to MS Office 2003. So for a typical MS Office user, its very easy to work with OpenOffice applications. System requirements On most of the computers both OpenOffice and MS Office will work fine. But OpenOffice is said to run a bit slower when opening up complex or big documents created with Microsoft's proprietary formats. Both platforms support for Macs. OpenOffice offers better support for older computers than the latest version of MS Office. As an example, Office 2010 minimum specs are Pentium 700MHz with 512 MB of RAM. But OpenOffice needs 256 MB of RAM. Also MS Office 2010 requires Windows 7, XP, or Vista to run fully, but OpenOffice will run on Windows 2000 also. OpenOffice runs under Linux and other OSs also. (Brett Bonfield and Laura S, 2010)

File sharing Generally, both MS Office 2010 and OpenOffice can create files that can be read by others. But because of Microsoft has introduced new file standards such as .doc (and .docx) for Word documents and .xls (and .xlsx) for Excel, Users who are running Office 2003 or older version need to convert the files MS Office 2010 creates from the new file formats .docx to the older ones .doc to be able to open them. OpenOffice, in the other hand, uses open standards for its native files, but can both read and write files in Microsoft's format. Also OpenOffice users can save files in MS Office 2003 formats by default. These two applications are also incompatible when it comes to macros or spreadsheet pivot tables. Furthermore, OpenOffice can open older versions of MS Office files than MS Office itself can. Even some corrupted files that MS Office cant open. Therefore for an IT department, OpenOffice is worth having around.

Google Docs
Google Docs is a web-based suite of products that lets you create different kinds of online documents, work on them in real time with other people, and store your documents and your other files -- all online, and for free. Main advantage is you can access your documents and files from any computer, anywhere in the world. Google docs originated from two separate products Writely and Google spreadsheets. Writely is a web based word processor established by Upstartle, a software company. Later Google launched spreadsheets using the 2Web Technologies. Google Docs is a software as a service office suite. Documents, spreadsheets, presentations can be created with Google Docs, imported through the web interface, sent via email or can be saved to local computer as well. It supports variety of file formats like ODF, HTML, PDF, RTF, Text and even MS Office formats. As Google Docs are based on internet and work by communicating with Google servers, it is a good example of thin client.

T301 Network Design

Assignment 1

Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

Business Model of Google Docs

Google Docs is targeted on Ads. From the user interface, the ADs are not very intruding if there is any at all. However, Google Docs provides very less free space. If you need more space, you need to upgrade with paid storage. Selling storage is part of the Google Docs business model. For the moment Google Docs offers 25c per GB per year. (Jerry Huang, n.d.)

Figure 2. Google docs additional storage pricing.

Advantages of Google Docs

Online availability Since Google services are online, Google docs also available online. You dont need special kind of hardware to run Google docs. All you need are internet connection and a web browser. Also you can access your document from anywhere in the world. Cost Google docs are totally free. You can create as much as documents online until you have enough Google web space available. Sharing Sharing is easier with Google docs. You can simply email the documents with few clicks or can share with others by simply inviting them. Data availability Google docs are running and saved on Google servers and they are 99.9% secured and available anytime. You are able to download them to your local PC if you wish.

Disadvantages of Google Docs

Storage
Google Docs provide only 1 GB space. We must purchase extra space when we need them. Also its no possible to upload heavy documents and files. Fonts Google docs provide only few amount of fonts compared to desktop office suits.

T301 Network Design

Assignment 1

Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

Speed Since Google docs are online, speed of all the activities (open, save, edit, etc) depend on the internet connection speed. For a user with slow internet connection, Google docs is not a good alternative.

Google docs vs. Microsoft Office

Cost Like always all the features of the Google docs are free of charge compared to costly MS Office. Features Here Microsoft Office provides lots of simple and advance features compared to Google docs. Simply, Google docs has no plain text file support which is a critical thing. If a user needs more featured office application, Google docs is not an answer. (Kevin Purdy, 2012) Interfaces MS Office is having sleek and very useful interface compared to Google docs. But for a simple user who wants to use office applications, Google docs is a good alternative. File sharing Since Google docs are an online service, it makes file sharing very easy than MS Office. You can email them to others easily or invite them to get involve with the documents you provide. This is one good point where Google docs are better than MS Office.

Zoho
Zoho can be considered as one of the best online office suites that have ability to provide functions as any desktop office suite can do. Unlike Google docs, Zoho provides wide range of applications. Such as word processing, spread sheet, presentations, databases, customer relation management (CRM), project management, planner, chat, mail, meeting, etc... Zoho is a good example of Software as a Service (SaaS) and it is thin client. At the entry level, Zoho is free. But for more professional and comprehensive use, you should pay some fee.

Business Model of Zoho

Most of the Zoho services are starting as a free of charge service. When customers are using it, there can be a situation that customer wants to expand the use of Zoho application he is using. In such a case, customer will have to purchase those services by paying for it that is beyond the free service. Lets take Zoho Projects as an example. At the beginning, Projects provides service to use it only for one project for free. If you want to create more than one project with Zoho Projects, then you will have to pay some fee. For Zoho Projects, price starts with from $20 per month to $80 per month. (Amit Agarwal, 2007)

Advantages of Zoho
Cost Zoho provides entry level services for free of charge. But users need to pay if they need more features from Zoho.

T301 Network Design

Assignment 1

Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

Feature set Zoho provides best set of feature as an online service. Compared to Google docs, its really high. Not only that but also it gives wide range of applications than Google docs provides. Speedy development and updates Zoho update their applications at least once a week. As an example, Zoho Notebook is getting multiple updates per week and typically Zoho writer gets updates for each 10 days. Online technologies Zoho is taking full advantage of available web technologies and internet. Such as tagging, searching, RSS, chat, document sharing and collaborations etc.

Disadvantages of Zoho
Data security Since Zoho is an online service, users will have to save sensitive data and files online. Specially with applications like Zoho CRM, Projects and Invoice. If a hacker will attack Zoho in some way, all your business and sensitive data can be in danger. Offline capability Zoho is trying to give their applications offline and desktop like abilities. They have released MS Office plugins and some desktop widgets for some of its applications. But still they are not enough to provide full offline capabilities to the Zoho.

Zoho vs. Microsoft Office

Cost Most of the Zoho applications and entry level features of some Zoho applications are free of charge. But with MS Office, you need to pay for each and every thing. Speedy development and updates Usually Zoho update their applications at least once a week. This gives a great support to fix bugs and improve its functionalities very fast. This is really faster compared to Microsoft releasing new Office suite after few years. Security As mentioned above, with Zoho there can be some possibility for some hackers to steal your sensitive data as it is online. But with MS Office this is totally reduced. Because you can keep all your files and data with you on your PC all the time. No interaction with online.

Lotus Symphony
Lotus Symphony is an office applications suite that comes with programs for making documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. It was built by IBM and users can use it free of charge. Mainly, Lotus Symphony built on OpenOffice technology. It supports Open Document Format standards. Since it supports mainly used MS Office file formats, you dont need to worry much about file compatibility. This can run on Oss like Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Just like Google docs, Lotus Symphony provides online document editing and collaboration also. This is known as LotusLive Symphony. It is one big advantage of this office suit. Lotus Symphony can be considered as a fat client, because it doesnt depend on online servers or services. But as name says, LotusLive is kind of a thin client.

T301 Network Design

Assignment 1

Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

Architecture of Lotus Symphony

Below, the image is showing the current architecture of the Lotus Symphony 3.X. Also known as Lotus Symphony Vienna. (John David, 2010)

Figure 3. Lotus Symphony architecture.

Advantages of Lotus Symphony

Cost Lotus Symphony is totally free. File format support This office suit support both Microsoft Office and Open Document Format (ODF). Therefore its compatible with almost all other office suit file formats out there. So you dont need to convert them specially to use with Lotus Symphony. Easy to use interface Symphony comes with simple neat interface which is kind of similar to MS Office 2003 and older. It provides tabbed layout and it is very easy for users to navigate between multiple documents. Document sections assign Unlike other office suits, Lotus Symphony allows different users to work on different parts of a single document. Document wide permission can be disabled.

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Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

Real time co-editing For a shared document, this feature allows one user to work privately within one part of the document, says nobody else can edit that part of the document at the same time.

Disadvantages of Lotus Symphony

Limited number of apps Lotus Symphony contains only three programs. Documents, presentations and spreadsheets. Compared to other office suits, it is very little amount. Lack of email client and a database program is a big disadvantage. Memory It says that Lotus Symphony uses lots of memory while it is running. So this can slow down the whole PC if you are working with multiple programs same time. Document quality Even though Symphony can open MS Office files like .doc, .docx, .xlsx and .pptx, sometime you may lose some quality of the documents. You will not get the exact document, spreadsheet or presentation you created with MS Office.

Lotus Symphony vs. Microsoft Office

Cost Lotus Symphony is free of charge compared to costly MS Office. Features Microsoft Office provides lots of simple and advance features compared to Lotus Symphony. But some features like document section assign comes handy with Lotus Symphony. But overall, Symphony is ideal solution for users with basic requirements.

Conclusion
Through this document we looked in to MS Office and four competitors of it. Known as OpenOffice, Google docs, Zoho, Lotus Symphony and both advantages and disadvantages of them. Even though some of them are having their own features, we can clearly see MS Office is the winner among them. As MS Office is having a history of two decades, users are well familiar with it. Most of them dont like to go for another suit other than MS. As we could see, OpenOffice is the only office suit which is giving a good fight to MS Office. By looking at the cost of MS Office, we can say that OpenOffice is suitable for almost all the office suit needs. But as mentioned above, thanks to software pirating, MS Office can still take the lead around the world. It is true that new MS Office is having totally a new UI which can confuse a typical user. But within some time, every user will be able to get used to it. However, OpenOffice is a must have software in some cases as we discussed. Next is Google docs. It has few advantages over MS Office. Mainly the file sharing over internet. But in the other areas, Google docs are really behind. It doesnt have complete set of office applications and advance features like MS Office. Next one is Zoho. Zoho provides good collection of office applications for free up to some features where MS will still charge for. But data security is a big disadvantage to Zoho here as I explained above. Also the full offline capability of MS Office can give it one advantage over Zoho. Between Zoho and Google docs, Zoho can be considered as the leader because it its wide range of applications and features other than Google docs.

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Microsoft Office Domination and Challenges

V.L Tennakoon (1272025)

Last one is Lotus Symphony. It is a nice office suit for small offices. Features like document section assign, real time co-editing are really valuable. It has minimum disadvantages compared to its own advantages. But with MS Office, Lotus Symphony is way behind. Main thing is it is having only three office applications. Document, spreadsheet and presentation. So it cant be considered as a complete office suit. I have personally used both OpenOffice and Google Docs so far. After working with MS Office 2007 and 2010, it feels like OpenOffice has an outdated UI. Feature wise there is no noticeable different. For a typical user, both suits provide almost all the functions. Taking about Google Docs, I use it as an online document organizer which is really helpful for the job. I would like to conclude this as MS Office has the advantages over all other office suits. But specially OpenOffice can be considered as the best alternative to MS Office. It is very suitable for everybody. Specially for non-profit organizations. If it is possible to introduce OpenOffice all around the world, mainly to the typical office application users, there is chance for it to get popular like MS Office.

Reference list
Wikipedia, (n.d). Microsoft Office. Retrieved March 30, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office John Paul, (2011). With So Many Alternatives, Why Does Microsoft Office Still Reign?. Retrieved March 30, 2012, from http://www.readwriteweb.com/biz/2011/05/despite-alternatives-microsoft-office-reigns.php Amanda Rumble, (n.d). The Disadvantages of Open Office. Retrieved March 30, 2012, from http://www.ehow.com/list_7437703_disadvantages-open-office.html Brett Bonfield and Laura S, (2010). Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice.org. Retrieved March 30, 2012 from http://www.idealware.org/articles/msoffice_vs_openoffice.php Jerry Huang, (n.d). SkyDrive or Google Docs? Retrieved March 30, 2012, from http://gladinet.blogspot.co.nz/2010/07/skydrive-or-google-docs.html Kevin Purdy, (2012). Five crucial features missing from Google Docs and counting. Retrieved March 30, 2012, from http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/google-in-the-enterprise/five-crucial-features-missing-from-googledocs-and-counting/881 Amit Agarwal, (2007). Zoho Office Business Model. Retrieved March 30, 2012, from http://www.labnol.org/internet/office/zoho-office-business-model/1705/ John David, (2010). Lotusphere 2010 : Lotus Symphony Architecture - Current and Future. Retrieved March 30, 2012, from http://www.johndavidhead.com/jhead/johnhead.nsf/dx/lotusphere-2010-

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