With the OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta release last week, the reviews are starting to appear. Here I'm highlighting InformationWeek and ZDNet reviews, more to follow soon.

InformationWeek review

Serdar Yegulalp of InformationWeek is pleased with the OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta release, although he is careful to state this is a beta version and that his attention was focused on the more visible changes to the product. Serdar identifies that this release adds support for VBA macros and read/write support for Office 2007 / OOXML documents, and noted, "a couple of major additions seem designed to lure in existing Microsoft Office users."

Serdar also talks about the lack of major change in OO.o's interface -- a good thing considering the grief Microsoft has taken over Office 2007 ribbon interface. He states, "a new interface would have created the kind of divisiveness over the program that Office itself experienced, which is not what OO.o needs."


ZDNet review

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes decided to test the viability of abandoning Microsoft office in support of the OpenOffice.org suite. In this review, he shared positive findings on download size, installation time as well as a key area of concern: backward compatibility with Microsoft Office. From a replacement standpoint, the author believed that he could replace Microsoft Word with Write, but had some concerns regarding Calc and Impress.

Overall the author stated, "the installation of the suite was easy and fast and that the applications were as responsive as their Office 2007 counterparts." Further, Adrian says, "it's early days for OO.o 3.0 Beta and things could get a lot better between now and release."