Are you Open?

If you haven’t tried OpenOffice 3.0 yet, I really encourage you to join the millions using it:

Confirming recent comments by Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer, an independent study released Friday found OpenOffice.org’s free office suite to be five times more popular among adult U.S. internet users than Google Docs.

Microsoft Office remains dominant, with 51% of American internet users over age 18 using it, according to a 6-month study conducted by market researcher ClickStream Technologies. OpenOffice.org was used by 5% of people, versus Google Docs’ 1%, according to the survey of 2,400 users on their home PCs conducted between May and November of this year.

I’ve written my last three books on OpenOffice. It’s gotten so good and so reliable that I haven’t even bothered to install a backup copy of Word on my last two computers. I have but one regret: no one has written a macro for Impress that allows random slide shows as did the one I used in Powerpoint.