About a year ago I gave my ten year old niece an old PC. She said that she needed Word and Excel and my reply was do you have $500 to buy it. She looked at me funny and said you have to buy it? Instead I downloaded the OpenOffice product and now she has an equivalent version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint. The thing works like a charm - no problems at all.

I just came across this article: http://www.compliancepipeline.com/163103761 and am curious if the OpenOffice products and be opened via COM controls? If so, I too may be a convert to OpenOffice. If you think about it, what compelling reason is there for the average user to buy a new version of MS Word? What is new and a have to have enhancement since say Word 97? I am primarily interested in controlling the Excel equivalent product in OpenOffice. Anyone tried doing this?