Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Office XP is worth the upgrade, for some people.
I have been using the new Office XP corporate preview beta for about 3 weeks now, and I love it. The funcionality of the programs is greatly improved. Many of the quirks that 2000 had have been removed. That annoying little paperclip doesn't appear unless you want him to. The Outlook 2002 is great. It now allows you to check and manage your Hotmail accounts in Outlook. The best feature about the new Office version is it's web publishing strength. If you use Office for web based business this is the way to go. If it is just for home use, stick with '97, 2000, or even Works. The only complaints that I have had is Microsoft's support of the preview version. Although you were supposed to be able to use it until 8/31/01 they have removed all of their support websites, and you can't activate any new installations any longer.
Rating:  - How I Learned to Stop Spending, and Switch to StarOffice
I think using MS Office is like smoking; OK, not deadly, but you don't realize how much money you're spending every day or year on stuff you don't need. Put together all the money you've spent on MS Office products in your lifetime, and it might be more than is in your 401k depending on how you did in the last couple years of the stock market.MS Office does work. Yes. Sometimes when I used it I would get the blue screen of death, sometimes not. It had its problems but we used it because we had to use it. Because everyone else used it and we had to, too. StarOffice does the same stuff, handles the same file formats, costs soooo much less money. OpenOffice.org, ditto, and free. The decision isn't really a hard one about whether MS Office is worth buying. You don't need MS Office to make MS Office files (StarOffice opens and creates Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files). Get StarOffice or OpenOffice.org and keep your money; Microsoft has enough.
Rating: - The rumors are unfounded
Microsoft did not create Clippy, the irritating Word(tm) cyber-noodge, out of a digital imprint of Bill Gates' own personality. At least, we are fairly certain Microsoft doesn't have that technology...yet. Still, despite lawsuits and promises that he would go away, Clippy is alive and winking in Office XP. Despite that irritating Clippy-thing, Office XP is a good and powerful set of software, a "must-have" for anyone with a PC. If you bring work home, PowerPoint is useful. And if you don't work in an office, you still can use PowerPoint for all kinds of things, including presentations to your Amway downline, condo committee meetings, proposals for boondoggles at town meetings, and more. Excel is a worthy spreadsheet for doing financial calculations, building project estimates, and even for charting hobby needlework designs, using the cells as graph paper. While I am not generally an admirer of Microsoft software, this suite is rock-solid and extremely useful. And you can banish Clippy yourself, if you can't stand the sight of him.
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