Apache's Greg Stein says commercial software's days are numbered: "'As the [open-source] stack grows and grows and takes over more areas, there's less money available in packaged products,' Stein said. 'All of your software [will be] free. It means that over time, you aren't going to be paying for software anymore' but will instead pay for assistance with it. The shift could take an estimated five to 10 years, he said. 'The notion of [a] packaged product is really going to kind of go away,' Stein said."

Given that the cost of OpenOffice is zero, one would think that it's default installation everywhere was a no-brainer. If there are some things it cant do, that would be a case for the purchase of a limited number of specialist proprietary applications.

Apache's Greg Stein says commercial software's days are numbered: "'As the [open-source] stack grows and grows and takes over more areas, there's less money available in packaged products,' Stein said. 'All of your software [will be] free. It means that over time, you aren't going to be paying for software anymore' but will instead pay for assistance with it. The shift could take an estimated five to 10 years, he said. 'The notion of [a] packaged product is really going to kind of go away,' Stein said."

Given that the cost of OpenOffice is zero, one would think that it's default installation everywhere was a no-brainer. If there are some things it cant do, that would be a case for the purchase of a limited number of specialist proprietary applications.