I use Open Office, but have trouble getting enthused about it. For serious work I still revert to Microsoft Office, more out of habit than anything else.

Windows 7 should do well, and you shouldn't believe the people who say it will be the last client OS. They said that about Vista too. Client operating systems and client-side computing generally will be around for quite a while yet and Windows will be the dominant platform.

For business, Windows 7 will be far more compelling than Vista. You can only sit out an upgrade for so long and, lets face it, with Vista, Windows went through a step change in several areas, not the least being security. That said, backward compatibility will be a challenge.

Windows 7 will also allow more businesses to upgrade without having to completely refresh their PC fleets. In this economic environment, that will be welcome.

Windows Vista, according to one estimate, reached 18 percent adoption. That was an utter failure. To say Windows 7 will do better than that isn't really saying very much at all. But it will. Windows is still the standard.