In this digital age, our business relies heavily on computers and technology to make our work faster and easier. Still, as much as we need technology, we have to admit that a substantial amount of our spending goes toward these technology investments, particularly computer software, when in reality we would have wanted to spend on more lucrative activities.

So why not get this software for free? You can start by getting free desktop apps. Computers are virtually useless without office suite applications. An office suite is a package that contains more than one common, ready-to-use desktop application, such as a word processor, spreadsheet program, presentation manager, and others that help you with your work in the office or on the go. House. Here are just a few of the office suites you can get without spending a single penny:

1) Star Office
Developed by Microsoft adversary Sun Microsystems, StarOffice generated a lot of excitement upon its release as the first freely available office suite, and can even run on all three major operating systems (Windows, Linux, and UNIX). As the suite evolves and improves, many users find it very powerful and easy to use compared to Microsoft Office. Anything Microsoft Office does, StarOffice can do better. Unfortunately, for more than five years, Sun Microsystems has stopped offering this package for free, although the previous version of StarOffice 5.2 is still available for free download outside of the Sun Microsystems website. The good news for users comes in the form of another free suite which is…

2) OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice, an open source initiative started by a group of people in Germany, garnered attention and later financial support from Sun Microsystems. Slightly buggy than the stable and powerful StarOffice, this suite, however, is just as competitive as StarOffice and Microsoft Office. OpenOffice developments provide benchmarks and a foundation for later versions of StarOffice, as both suites are continually improved. Important capabilities, such as PDF file conversions and file type compatibilities, are conveniently built into OpenOffice at no additional cost compared to what you have to spend when using Microsoft Office. OpenOffice runs on most major operating platforms, including StarOffice, and is ideal for just about anyone who needs quality desktop applications at zero cost.

3) KO office
KOffice is developed for use on KDE (K Desktop Environment), a Linux-based operating system, although this office suite can run on any other Linux distribution. Therefore, Linux users can consider themselves lucky, as KOffice has the widest set of tools (11 applications) compared to any free or paid office suite. All components of the KOffice application work seamlessly with each other, allowing any KOffice document to be embedded with other KOffice files. To open other types of documents, such as Word, PDF and WordPerfect documents, KOffice provides file filters to convert to and from different files. Obviously, Linux users will find this suite to be the most suitable for them, if their Linux distributions don’t already come with one.

4) New Office
NeoOffice is a version of OpenOffice.org specially modified to run on Apple’s Mac OS X computers. You can expect basically the same functionalities and a bit more compared to OpenOffice, and with the FOC (free) tag, of course. Although OpenOffice itself has a Mac OS version, NeoOffice provides more specialized Mac OS features such as font support, better PDF generation, accessibility options such as speech recognition, and featured document indexing. NeoOffice is suitable for SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) that primarily use Mac OS as their operating system, while larger organizations are better off using the Mac OS version of OpenOffice, which can handle millions of processes for a larger number of users.

5) Online office packages
The most exciting advance in office suite development has to be the emergence of web-based office applications that can emulate exactly what their client-side counterparts could, thanks to the existence of AJAX, the most talked about programming language. . Two of the most popular online suites include Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Zoho, both of which are 100% free and ready to use. There are only two requirements to use these suites, that you must have an internet connection and that you have a web browser. The best feature of an online office suite is its ability to share your documents with anyone on the Internet for collaborative use. Plus, imagine not having to worry about:

– whether the office suite is compatible with your Windows, Linux or Mac operating systems — web applications are cross-platform compatible

– whether or not you have the latest patches or security updates for your office applications

– whether or not you have the latest version of your software

In future developments, you will also have the option to install it on your company’s intranet servers, in case you need to deploy it without the need for 24-hour Internet access. Online office suites are well suited for “road warriors”, ie IT-savvy users who are constantly on the go and require online access wherever they are.

Now that you know your option, why not start using one right away? No more charging to spend on those expensive additional software licenses. Start experiencing the savings you can get from using these wonderful free office suites, and soon you might even start wondering, “Microsoft Office? What is that?”