Alternatives to MS Office monster!

Last few months I started using Google Docs on some-what regular basis. This week, I was happy to see Google docs getting updated with some new enhancements and UI, which most of them were cosmetic changes, but certainly changed the way I thought about Documents in a huge way!

Google is smart enough to see how 98% of Word user uses the documents and with this version, I would say that they are pretty close to getting it right. There are certain features that are still buggy or not working with the new versions, but I am sure they will sort it out.
I am sometime amazed on how technology is changing the way we do business. Today the emphasis is more on productivity and efficient ways of doing business. Google Docs is a step towards that. Take for example few days back Gmail added a feature to directly copy/paste files from your computers to gmail's email. The experience was so pleasant without any hiccups that I felt like I was copying a file on a desktop version of Outlook email. No longer the need to upload files. Just copy/paste it or drag it to the email from your folders! Can you imagine how MS must have felt on seeing that? A browser doing certain things which an application was doing for ages.Creating Word documents and spreadsheet which has Pivot table capabilities built in to it's editor and storing the files on cloud is the key going forward.
Coming back to Google Docs and Spreadsheet and presenter - I would like to add that it's features still pale in comparison to Zoho.com
Zoho has the best features for it's documents. At some point, I think Google might buy Zoho. I am guessing they are waiting for Microsoft to get in to Cloud space with it's Office Suite 2010.
On a different note, I am loving this Open standard movement. Come to think of it, I am using an Ubuntu OS on my laptop with Open Office as my desktop app with Google Docs and Gmail apps with Evolution, Sun Virtual Box as my Virtual machine which has Win XP as my guest OS for programs that I cannot get to work with Ubuntu. I get 2 GB of Ubuntu One along with Tomboy which right now, I cannot function properly without :-)
I plug in my iPhone and I can move my files from my desktop to iPhone without iTunes!!!

Guess how much this all cost me. 0$!
So essentially, You can save yourself close to 500$ on software right there. But that's your choice. I leave that to you.