I tried NeoOffice briefly the best part of a year ago and at the time I was disappointed: it couldn't handle a particular chart structure I wanted and it seemed oh so slo-o-ow. I'd been using Mariner Write and Calc as an escape from Uncle Bill's evil empire and I stayed with them, though I was beginning to get disillusioned by Mariner's always-just-round-the-corner but never delivered improvements.

Then I needed to resurrect some ancient MacWrite files: the only convenient way is via WordPerfect on Classic and thence into NeoOffice. This process has converted me from a NeoOffice sceptic to a NeoOffice fan. The slowness I'd experienced was because at the time I was running with very little RAM: with 2G on either an MBP or a G4 iMac it's plenty fast enough - and a good deal faster than Word or Excel. I'd still like more chart types in the spreadsheet but otherwise it has coped with everything I've thrown at. I haven't experienced any instability or crashes.

Two things in particular have really impressed me.

First, the service that Patrick Luby provides through the NeoOffice forums is unbelievable: sometimes you feel that the name must be a pseudonym for a team of a dozen developers, so rapidly does he provide a response to problems. The contrast with Mariner and Apple could not be greater: Mariner tells you that they're working on it or they'll pass the problem on to their team - but nothing happens. Apple, of course, does not involve itself in its discussion groups at all.

Second, NeoOffice seems to provide the only alternative to Microsoft for future-proofing. Apple, sadly, seems unconcerned with the problem. MacWrite documents? AppleWorks documents? Who could possibly have an interest in them? Today's iWork programs can't read old Mac stuff, and it's a good bet that a spreadsheet produced today using Numbers won't be readable by any Apple program in ten years' time. And Mariner (along with many other small developers) uses idiosyncratic formats and offers few translation facilities. NeoOffice can read and write an extraordinary range of formats.

NeoOffice as it stands meets virtually all my needs: it still has a few un-Mac-like elements, but the improvements just keep on coming.