It lacks some of Excel's more high-end functionality and features, but EditGrid is a useful online spreadsheet application. And it's free. What have you got to lose?

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.

Most project-management programs are designed with the ideal situation in mind, but in reality, projects usually don't go as originally scheduled. LiquidPlanner allows more flexibility in organising and reorganising tasks in response to real-world delays and circumstances. With its easy-to-use interface, LiquidPlanner is a good team player, no matter what type of team you're on.

If your meeting invitees are all internal to your organisation and on the same Microsoft-based mail and calendar systems, Outlook 2007 may provide all the scheduling tools you need. But TimeBridge offers much more flexibility and time savings for people who collaborate in many environments and in various browser platforms.

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.

The small fee that appears to make StarOffice less desirable brings with it Web-based and helpdesk support, and this is one thing that could appeal to OpenOffice users. Both versions provide superb, very stable office suites that offer a challenge to Microsoft Office. In this case low-cost definitely doesn't mean sub-standard.

The simplicity, interactivity, and unlimited free storage of Google Docs' presentation component will appeal to many people, but for power users it falls short. By comparison, Glide Present 2.0 has covered all the bases with a compelling Web-based offering that could emerge as a true replacement for Microsoft PowerPoint.

IBM says that the full version 1.0 of IBM Lotus Symphony will be available in the first quarter of 2008, and it will still be free of charge. That's a good thing, as the zero price point is Lotus Symphony's best calling card. It's an efficient program with a handsome interface but with feature enhancements still to be made. While powerful, it certainly does not rival Office's robust capabilities -- yet.

Intuit QuickBooks Pro & Payroll 2008's documentation is concise and very clear, and this really is one program that even the occasional user will be able to get to grips with when running their business. Expert users may prefer to stick with Sage, but for anyone else QuickBooks really is the most intuitive application in this field. The only negative is that, compared to MYOB, this is a touch pricey.

Accuracy and speed are most important, and in these areas OmniPage Professional 16.0 performs very well. However, it is the inclusion of so many features - covering every aspect that advanced users may wish to consider - that makes OmniPage Professional 16.0 so appealing.

If you need to digitise and archive documents using a scanner, create secure, extensible electronic documents, produce professional marketing documents and other publications and automate form and questionnaire creation, Acrobat 8.0 Pro will definitely suit you.