Ability Office Business version 5.0 falls between unpolished free gems such as OpenOffice and Google Docs, and the ultra-expensive, feature intensive Microsoft Office 2007. But unlike free rivals, Ability is feature-rich and familiar to MS Office users. It will make a welcome, inexpensive and useful addition to almost every office workstation.

KOffice looks like it has a great future on all three popular desktop operating systems. The developers need to focus on optimisation and stability for it to be a real hit.

For anyone who wants to revise documents, spreadsheets or presentations on the go, without needing to carry a laptop, Quickoffice Premier 5.0 could be just the ticket, while anyone frustrated with the (very!) basic Nokia S60 diary should take a look at the same publisher's Quickcalendar.

For light users with even a passing knowledge of Microsoft Office, Ashampoo Office 2008 will be a decent buy that's familiar and easy to use (just as well, given the lack of documentation). In our tests we encountered no compatibility issues. But although $103 is a lot less than MS Office 2007's retail price of $690, similar products such as Star Office 8.0 ($69.95) are much less still. And if you're in the market for an inexpensive, stripped down productivity suite, OpenOffice.org and Google Docs, Spreadsheets and Presentations are so cheap they're, well, free.

Who should use OpenOffice? Anyone who needs an office suite but doesn't require the more sophisticated features of Microsoft Office. It's ideally suited for home users, students, and small businesses who don't want to pay the hefty fee for Microsoft Office. If you plan on purchasing an ultra low-cost portable such as the Asus Eee PC, the suite is ideal - it's free, doesn't require an excess amount of RAM, runs on a variety of operating systems (including Windows, Mac OS, and Linux), and won't take all of your precious hard disk space. Even on a normal PC, it's a great alternative to Microsoft Office. Enterprises, though, may have already standardised on Office. And even if they haven't, there simply aren't the support tools and support ecosystem for OpenOffice as there is for Microsoft Office. All in all, OpenOffice 3.0 shows that you don't have to pay a bundle for a great office suite - in fact, you don't even have to pay a penny.

Price-conscious buyers are more likely to look at completely free competitors such as OpenOffice.org and IBM Symphony. Nevertheless, WordPerfect keeps its best features and adds enough new ones to keep current users satisfied - and its increased compatibility with Microsoft Office is worth the upgrade fee.

It's not a perfect suite. Some advanced features, such as using wild cards in a find-and-replace operation, aren't supported. Neither is conditional formatting in Sheet. Even so, if your editing needs end with the 5 per cent of Office features most of us use most often, Zoho may be all you need.

ThinkFree works without a hitch. It's responsive, works perfectly saving new documents and importing those created in Office 2003. Its surprisingly well-rounded feature compatibility makes it the suite of choice for online work

Perhaps we've been spoiled. There are so many great Web services solutions out there -- most of them free like Microsoft Office Live Workspaces -- that our expectations keep getting nudged higher and higher. And with Live Documents just around the corner, it's hard to get excited about a technically inferior solution that's late to the party.

Minor irritations aside, we think people who use their PC for business -- and who are looking for a real productivity-suite upgrade -- might very well find what they need in Corel WordPerfect Office X3.

Users comfortable with Microsoft Office may find it takes time to get used to Apple iWork '08. Advanced Word and Excel users, especially those who rely on specialised features and functions, will probably find Apple Pages '08 and Apple Numbers '08 to be limited. If you do rely on specific functions in Microsoft Excel or features in any of the Microsoft Office applications that are even slightly outside the more general types of usage, you will probably want to download the Apple iWork '08 30-day trial to ensure that the tools you need are there before buying. And, to be sure, the process of having to export files when interacting with Microsoft Office users could get old quickly if you have to do that regularly. But overall, Apple iWork '08 is beautifully designed -- a compelling product and great value for consumers and small business alike. It brings tons of innovation over previous versions of Apple iWork as well as many office suites on the market. And it turns typical office tasks and documents into creative outlets. That it offers all that it does for $99 is, frankly, hard to believe.