With IBM's release of Symphony as a free software package for documents, spreadsheets and presentations, I began to wonder why more people don't choose one of the free options.
There are several free and low cost options available, so why do people pay big bucks for Microsoft Office? Simply, it's simple. There are so many other things to worry about in the workplace, why create potential training issues by implementing something new?
The other reason is the concern that customers won't be able to read documents created in these free software programs. If your business can't communicate with your customers and vendors, getting the software for free isn't going to make you feel better.
And besides, nobody every got fired for buying IBM (or Microsoft). :-)
