I haven’t been enthusiastic about any office application for some time. They aren’t flashy. They shouldn’t be, really, as it gets in the way of their primary task. That’s why it seems that OpenOffice.org’s 3.0 release candidate is a winner. It doesn’t look radically different. Its new features are its strength, and its extensibility is its future.

Bordeaux is a commercial User Interface to the Wine software that allows Linux systems to run Windows software. The Bordeaux Technology Group distributes this software and provides professional support to companies and individuals. I interviewed Tom Wickline to get some details and find out what they’re up to now.

If your excuse for not giving Linux a try was that you needed to be able to work with your Office documents… well, you just ran out of excuses. Think of what you will gain, too! No more suffering through all the gratuitous menu/toolbar/button changes, and no more suffering through incompatible file formats between releases.

The 2008 annual report filed yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission containsMicrosoft’s view of the competitive landscape as described for each of its five business divisions: Client, Server and Tools, Business, Online Services and Entertainment and Devices.

While OpenOffice.org has been consistently compared to Microsoft’s Office, for a free software suite, it offers remarkable functionality. Considering Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate retails at around AU$800, OpenOffice.org has the potential to save you a lot of money.