Microsoft beware! The new beta of OpenOffice has features to be a Microsoft Office killer. It opens and saves Microsoft Office documents flawlessly. It has the option to export to PDF, without a need to buy extra software. It includes an Access-like database product BASE (Access is only available in bigger Office versions, or as a standalone product). Most of all: OpenOffice is free.
True, it lacks a good email program like Outlook, but if you can’t live without it, buy it seperately for about $110. Free OpenOffice + $110 <<< MS Office Standard!
Click on the title for a review of the new beta.
As a sidenote, OASIS (an organisation defining/approving e-business standards) has approved the OpenDocument format, a minor extension of the format OpenOffice 2.0 beta uses. The OpenDocument format will save you from the vendor lock-in, since you can switch Office applications without losing your documents.