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ThinkFree Office 2.0 for MacOS X $49.99

Initially, I was afraid this inexpensive office suite was a bust. It is advertised as capable of opening and saving Microsoft Office file formats, so my simple test was to see how it handled the standard Templates that ship with Office.mac X.

At first, none of the templates would open, but after adding a standard file extension to the templates (.doc, .xls, .ppt) they all opened beautifully.

For spreadsheets and text documents, I could not see a difference between the layout of the file in Microsoft Office versus ThinkFree. In PowerPoint presentations, there were some slight problems with text placement (a matter of pixels) and not all slide transition effects translated. (ThinkFree warns you of this possibility when opening a file.)

These errors were so minor that if you had never seen the presentation in Microsoft Office, you would not have know the ThinkFree version was lacking. Unlike Apple's half-hearted attempt with AppleWorks, ThinkFree does a much better job displaying MS Office documents.

Pros: For less than fifty bucks get a native MacOS X application that does a great job of reading, editing, and writing Microsoft Office documents. There are also versions for Windows and x86/Linux.

Even without Microsoft compatibility, this is a darn nice office suite.

A 30 day software trial is available for download from the ThinkFree site.

Cons: Because of its Java underpinnings, it's a little slow to launch.

It doesn't use the MacOS X file browser for Open/Save dialogs, so navigation is cumbersome.

There is not a version for PPC/Linux.

Recommendation: Go for it! This is a great office suite for college students, SOHO , and companies who would rather loosen the grip that Microsoft has on their company. For $50 you can buy the Windows version at CompUSA and send in a coupon for a free MacOS X CD, allowing you to switch two computers in the house or at work.