I tested both the Technical Preview and the Beta version released months ago, and happily I've found a bunch of new features and improvements in the final version. For starters, the Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business pack includes five apps, namely Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote. If you need to test more Office apps, you can try Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus instead.

As regards appearance, all the Microsoft Office 2010 apps have been slightly modified. They still keep the "ribbon" interface – in a much clearer, almost minimalist style – but the Office button has been renamed to "File" and now shows a different pane. Not only does it include direct access to all document-related tasks, but also shows detailed information about the document you're currently working on.

Leaving changes aside, the truth is that Microsoft Office 2010 has pretty much the same features we already saw in the Technical Preview. The context menu in Word, for example, has been greatly improved and lets you see changes in real time as you browse through the different options. You can now add videos to your PowerPoint presentations, remove redundant messages from conversations in Outlook and insert small color charts inside cells in Excel spreadsheets. There are also tools to translate text, take and use screenshots, and apply special effects to the images you use in your documents. What's more, Microsoft Office 2010 now lets you save your documents on SkyDrive and share them online in just two clicks.

Regarding performance, Microsoft Office 2010 seems to be as fast and light on system resources as the Technical Preview. There's a significant improvement in the time the suite apps take to launch, and how they behave when working on your documents.

In all, Microsoft Office 2010 is an excellent productivity suite with great new features that make it easier and more comfortable to use, and also turn it into an even more professional solution for daily work tasks.

Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business lets you fully test the new, long-awaited version of the world's most popular productivity suite.

Download Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business in Softonic

Well, the answer is yes. OpenOffice.org 3.0 reveals itself as a very decent competitor: it's light on resources, easy to use and offers full compatibility with standard document formats – including the latest .docx, .xlsx, .pptx and so on from the Microsoft Office suite.

OpenOffice.org includes six different apps that enable you to work with text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, vector-based graphics and mathematical formulas, respectively. All six apps are easily accessible from a launcher (the Start Centre) with freshly designed icons, as well as from the Quickstarter icon in the System Tray.

OpenOffice.org's applications met our expectations in every regard: they're easy to use (especially if you're used to working with Microsoft Office) and feature all the necessary tools to create complete documents, spreadsheets, presentations, databases and more. What’s more, there is a great selection of OpenOffice templates, which means that getting started will never be a problem. The program is also thoroughly documented.

We particularly liked the wizard-style interface in OpenOffice Impress (similar to PowerPoint), which enables you to create presentations in no time. But the best thing about OpenOffice.org is probably the possibility to improve and customize your suite with new templates and extensions, downloadable directly from the developer's site.

OpenOffice.org made a great impression. It's a very decent alternative to other suites and can be easily customized with new extensions. Definitely worth a try!

Download Apache OpenOffice (OpenOffice.org) 3.4 in Softonic

Well, the answer is yes. OpenOffice.org reveals itself as a very decent competitor, and this no-install, portable version is no exception: it's light on resources, easy to use and offers full compatibility with standard document formats – including the latest .docx, .xlsx, .pptx and so on from the Microsoft Office suite.

Portable OpenOffice.org includes six different apps that enable you to work with text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, vector-based graphics and mathematical formulas, respectively. All Portable OpenOffice.org apps are easily accessible from a launcher (the Start Centre) with freshly designed icons, as well as from the Quickstarter icon in the System Tray.

Portable OpenOffice.org's applications met our expectations in every regard: they're easy to use (especially if you're used to working with Microsoft Office) and feature all the necessary tools to create complete documents, spreadsheets, presentations, databases and more. What’s more, there is a great selection of OpenOffice templates, which means that getting started will never be a problem. The program is also thoroughly documented.

We particularly liked the wizard-style interface in OpenOffice Impress (similar to PowerPoint), which enables you to create presentations in no time. But the best thing about Portable OpenOffice.org is probably the possibility to improve and customize your suite with new templates and extensions, downloadable directly from the developer's site.

Portable OpenOffice.org made a great impression. It's a very decent alternative to other suites and can be easily customized with new extensions. Definitely worth a try!

Download Portable OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 in Softonic

IBM Lotus Symphony offers three tools: word processor, spreadsheet and presentations. It's true that other productivity suites are usually more complete. However, IBM Lotus Symphony stands out for a convenient, single-windowed interface from which you can launch the three apps. Simply click on the "Open" button and select the kind of document you want to open: the program's toolbar will change accordingly. What's more, you can have as many opened documents as you want at the same time, no matter which type, and switch between them in the top tab bar.

The IBM Lotus Symphony suite includes all the basic tools that you could expect in such an application: spell checker and tables for documents, pre-designed templates for presentations and charts for spreadsheets - to name a few - besides the usual configuration options as regards fonts, colors and the like.

In my personal opinion, I'm glad to have another possibility like IBM Lotus Symphony to choose from when deciding which suite I'm going to use. A little rivalry is always good and usually produces better and wider options for computer users. And it seems IBM is beginning to take the suite competition quite seriously, as can be seen with IBM Lotus Symphony.

IBM Lotus Symphony has left the beta stage behind and now offers a stable, highly functional productivity suite that, despite not being as complete as other suites, may perfectly fit your needs.

Download IBM Lotus Symphony 3.0 in Softonic

Kingsoft Office Suite offers a number of features for creating, viewing and editing personal and business documents. Kingsoft Office Free 2012 includes Kingsoft Writer, Kingsoft Presentation and Kingsoft Spreadsheets which correspond to all the major elements found in Microsoft Office i.e. Excel, Word and Powerpoint. Kingsoft Office Suite is suitable for both personal and professional use although the professional version offers further features that will satisfy the demands of business users.

Most importantly Kingsoft Office Suite is compatible with the latest Microsoft Office file formats and can easily open, read and write documents created with Microsoft Office as well as a wide variety of other formats. In addition, Microsoft Office can also open Kingsoft Office files so you can send and receive files between the two suites easily.

Built -in PDF Converter

Kingsoft Office Suite also includes a PDF converter that can save files including Writer, Spreadsheets and Presentations in PDF format. Alternatively, you can convert Kingsoft Writer, Spreadsheets and Presentations to PDF files.

Automatic spell check

Kingsoft Office Suite includes a built-in spell checker that works in real-time by marking the incorrect words in red when typing. It also includes a limited thesaurus which recommends words to help in improving your document.

Multiple document tabs

Kingsoft Office Suite also features tools for switching between multiple document windows using tabs. The tab bar that appears above the editing area allows you to switch between documents quickly and conveniently.

Lightweight

Kingsoft Office Suite is in a remarkably small package at just 70MB which is a fraction of the size of other office software. This means that it also installs remarkably quickly.

Document encryption

You can protect documents that you create in Kingsoft Office Suite with an encrypted password. Or you can set a document to be opened with a password in read-only format.

Overall Kingsoft Office Suite is a powerful office suite for anyone that wants a cheaper alternative to Microsoft Office.

Download Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012 in Softonic

In the same vein as other open source productivity suites like OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice boasts a comprehensive set of office management tools arguably on par with Microsoft Office itself. LibreOffice offers six different office management tools to meet your project management needs: Text Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Drawing, Database, and Formula.

Text Document is relatively synonymous with Microsoft Word, where Spreadsheet is like Excel. Presentation mirrors Microsoft's PowerPoint, and Database is similar to Access. Then you also have two additional programs in Drawing and Formula, which are an added bonus to the entire package. LibreOffice is compatible with Microsoft Office's document formats and also supports PDFs natively. It also has its own document format called Open Document.

Unfortunately, if you're unfamiliar with Microsoft Office products, this program might take a little additional time to get used to, particularly if you want to master some of its more advanced features. Regular Microsoft Office users will find LibreOffice's interface quite similar, however, and should pick up on how to use its various programs without too much difficulty.

A great alternative to Microsoft Office, LibreOffice is a must-try for managing your various office projects.

Download LibreOffice 3.3.4 Final in Softonic

Among these improvements you can find support for OpenXML and Microsoft Works files, an optimized Microsoft binary file support, and perfect import of Wordperfect graphics, among others.

You can also work with Excel VBA macros and Visio diagrams.