OpenOffice is a very impressive office suite, especially when you consider that it's free. It has had one or two rough edges compared to Microsoft Office, but there's rarely been anything I can't do with it*.

So I've been intrigued by the release of the beta of OpenOffice 3. Apart from anything else it can now open Office 2007 files. It also works natively in Mac OSX.

The icons have also been given a makeover. I hesitate to criticise a program on something like this but it can make a difference, and I've noticed that both Ubuntu and Suse have got their own icon sets that look better. Sad to say though it does make a difference for many people.

OpenOffice are still at pains to remind everyone that this is a beta and not suitable for day to day use or important documents. I've not had any problems so far thankfully.

OpenOffice 3 Beta can be downloaded from the OpenOffice website.

*Well there was once, I tried to get a simple Function I created in Excel to work and it refused all my efforts to do so. Having tried it again in OO3 it now works - much excitement.