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Comment by r00fus | Hacker News Reader

Excel (at least the 07 version I'm using now) has useful features that are not existant in opensource equivalents (pivot charts, etc), and some of the usability is much improved in Excel as opposed to say, OO.org Calc.

MS Access has no open source equivalent. Some small businesses would flounder without it.

If you don't need to share xls/doc files, then yes, more power to you, but if you do, you will run into problems using opensource alternatives.

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There's both libreoffice base and a number of web based apps that provide an alternative to access. Some of them aren't bad at all.

which raises the question - I could not find MS Access in this release. Is it there?

visual studio lightswitch is a modern replacement for access.

There is an equivalent to M$ Access in LibreOffice.

Open source alternatives use standard formats, so it's really better than xls/doc files, for short and, above all, long term.

all office apps since Office 2010 can save to those same standard formats.

More than anything else there needs to be an open source alternative to OneNote. Ironically, it's always been the least popular Office app and the most likely to be supplanted by an open source file format. Once tablets finally become mainstream I believe OneNote will be the most important in the Office suite. OneNote has the potential to replace paper; it'll be the default note taking app for students! It frustrates me no end that we don't yet have a digital replacement for a moleskin notebook. http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2006/05/desperately-se...

(Google should have staked out a spot in this inchoate note scene when they introduced pen support in ICS, and Samsung launched the Galaxy Note, but stock Android doesn't even have a bundled Notes app much less something to compete with OneNote)

Are we still doing the "M$" thing? Honestly.

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