said by Sandman37:said by SilentMan:Why would anyone pay a lot of money for Office when there is Open Office which is free?
Probably compatibility.
For the most part, I don't think Office is that great, but I really like Outlook and have never found a suitable replacement.
Talking about compatibility, if you put all your mails into a proprietary format files (Outlook), how you'll suppose to see them in case you need it, let say, in 10 years from now? You'll have to purchase Outlook over and over again then. And BTW, they may change the format itself too (e.g.
.pstx or something to push you to buy a new version). But what if they'll decide to change their business model and move into another market (Windows 8, OS for smart phones, is one example)? And you'll be left with what? I already have very similar experience with my "beloved" m$ Money program (as you may say about your Outlook). Couple of years ago they have suddenly dropped all development and support and simply moved on to other markets...
That's was my reasoning behind the decision to move from keeping my mails in proprietary format (Outlook) to an open and somehow standard "mbox" format, supported by many programs (like e.g. Thunderbird). Even if all mail programs, supporting that format, will suddenly disappear, I still can open and see all my old and important mails with a simple text editor... That's what I need from reliable data formats for my documents...
Bottom line, be careful and watch out for proprietary formats if you want to keep your important documents. They may change at any time or even completely disappear and you'll be left without your documents...
