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The Ultimate Steal vs. its Free Alternatives
by: Sam Henry
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College students across the country are saving money on the software they've relied on for years to type essays, make presentations, and do just about everything else school-related. Microsoft has extended its Ultimate Steal offer which allows students to purchase the Office 2007 suite for 91% off its normal retail price. As long as you're currently enrolled in school and have a valid, school-issued email address, the cost to you is only $59.95. Compare that with the $519.99 price tag for the same item on Amazon!
The Office Ultimate package is compatible with XP and Vista and includes: Word 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Outlook 2007, Publisher 2007, Accounting Express 2008, Access 2007, Groove 2007, OneNote 2007, and InfoPath 2007.
For each of the major components of the Microsoft Office Ultimate Suite there are comparable free alternatives:
Word 2007 vs. OpenOffice Writer
Typing is typing. Honestly, you can type essays in Wordpad if you had to. The difference lies in the features. For example Office offers a great citation management feature. It'll auto-format everything for whichever guidelines you're required to use. This tool can be a tremendous help when citing lots of different sources. There's also an equation editor for papers requiring formulas and expressions that have always been difficult to line up just right.
Excel 2007 vs. OpenOffice Calc
These two are nearly equivalent for normal everyday use. Rumor has it that Excel is better for larger, more advanced calculations.
PowerPoint 2007 vs. OpenOffice Impress
A landslide victory for Microsoft Office here. PowerPoint is far ahead of its OpenOffice competitor in it's ability to produce a professional-looking show. It has better charting/diagram tools, more advanced animation features, it handles embedded audio and video media better and has a greater selection of templates.
Outlook 2007 vs. Mozilla Thunderbird
OpenOffice offers no email client so we'll compare Outlook to its closest, free alternative. The makers of the popular internet browser, Firefox, created their Thunderbird email client to square-off with Outlook. Like Open Office, it gets the job done which in this case is organizing, filtering, and managing your email inbox. However, Outlook goes much further however providing calendar functions to help you keep tabs on day-to-day activities and events. Outlook is also a bit better with managing contacts and distribution lists.
Publisher 2007 vs. Open Office Draw
Although this isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison since these titles function in different ways, Publisher wins. You can make decent fliers or flowcharts with either but Draw has less options.
Access 2007 vs. Open Office Base
These two function alike although most students will rarely find the need for them.
Granted, none of these alternatives come close to the Microsoft Office Suite in terms of pure aesthetics, the basic functionality of each is largely comparable. If you're a visual person and the graphical interface of a software program is important to you, stop reading, find $60, and get Office Ultimate.
However, do you really need pretty ribbon menus and fancy looking windows to get your essay in on time? Can you get by with an uglier program that does the same thing?
In addition to Access, Office Ultimate includes a few new software titles that many students may have no real need for. Granted there are campus entrepreneurs out there who may find the Business Contact Manager Outlook addition and Accounting Express 2008 useful, does the average student really need these two?
It's a growing trend but do you really use your laptop to take notes? Sure, it's cool to have them in a manageable, shareable, and searchable electronic form but is Microsoft OneNote really more convenient or just an extra step?
Online collaboration is another growing trend making teamwork more convenient for busy people but do you need the included Microsoft Groove for it? What happens if someone on the team doesn't have Groove? Are they just left out? What if you're the only one with it? What's the use then? Online tools like Google Docs provide similar capabilities.
These are all questions you can answer for yourself but it all boils down to a question of necessity. There are enough quality alternatives for each component of Microsoft Office for a college student to get by without paying a dime but hands down, Office is top-of-the-line and if you're one who likes to have the best of everything, this Ultimate Steal deal is a great opportunity to get the best of the best for dirt cheap. |
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