How does it compare to the alternatives, for MS excel and OpenOffice?

Compared to Excel 2003, the application is current and offers the prospect of ongoing support. It loses a few features. In the case of this element, I am sure that the absence of three dimensional charting will be the most obvious omission, but I regard this as a victory for substance over style. Once again, it offers the ability to write directly to pdf formats, which Excel 2003 does not.

Compared to Open Office v3, it looks more like Excel 2003, loads more quickly and opens .xls files more quickly. It is not free for commercial use, but offers support in compensation.

Finally compared to Excel 2007, it offers speed and simplicity of use. Its functionality, although less than Excel 2007, is more than adequate for most users. It offers an alternative upgrade path from Excel 2003 which is much less expensive and disruptive than Excel 2007.