Have you ever made a presentation for your school assignment or for your boss? Have you ever written anything in Word? Or made a sheet with your data? Yes? Well, congratulations, you used productivity software. In most cases, if your boss asks you if you can use computer he will want to know if you know how to work with Office software package. It doesn’t have to be Microsoft’s Office, any other software that helps you to produce information is a productivity software. So what else is there you ask? Well, here’s the short list of potential candidates.
Google Docs – Google’s own productivity software comes free but if you wish to include it into Google Apps you can pay $50/year for full business capability and support. Like most other Google’s services it is used online, so it doesn’t matter what your OS is as long as you are online. This cloud platform will enable you wide range of online share options as it is widely used and recognized. It supports most better known format. Google Docs is integrated with everything Google made so it’s highly compatible with Google-based tools which can be a life saver. It also has a mobile version and cloud function that works great to make it stand out of the crowd. It’s flaw might be the offline mode, but Google announced it to be fixed in 2015.

IBM Lotus Symphony – Symphony is free of charge and it runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems. It’s first 2007. version included Lotus Symphony Documents, Presentation and Spreadsheets. Through time the released new version in 2010. and made new plugins as well as support for cloud-based solutions, mobile and more. It’s major distinction from Office is multiple tabs that can hold different types of documents and it’s own Web browser that opens when you click links.

LibreOffice – Libre is another freebee that works on Windows, Mac and Linux OS’s. It was made when Oracle and OpenOffice.orf split and it includes word processor, spreadsheet and presentation maker, database front end and simple equation editor and last but not least: Draw for sketching. It supports most of the better known formats and boasts 30 languages support. Libre also has a portable version so if you are on the move this could be a software for you. This is also an open source software so if you are into that – this could be your choice. It should be noted that it covers more options then Lotus.

Zoho – Another cloud-based productivity software, it is free for common use. If you wish to use it with a business licence that will cost you $5/month for 20 workspaces. It supports most common file types and has the most widely used processors. It can work offline, but only for your last 25 documents. it is integrated with both Windows and Google; this option makes Zoho a very usable office suite. This comes to light especially if you are business type and have a need to share.