If you haven't checked out the new Microsoft Subnet and Cisco Subnet focus areas on the Network World Web site yet, you should. Both offer interesting commentaries on their particular subjects. But I don’t agree with this blog post in the Microsoft Subnet about the dangers of using open source tools because I think it will do real financial harm to small businesses.

Here's the summary I get from the blog: businesses that use anything except Microsoft Office are, evidently, stupid. Here's my counter argument: any company that automatically puts Microsoft Office on every computer wastes bags and bags of money.

Eighty percent of computer users never exploit 20% of their office productivity suite features. Since I believe the 80/20 rule applies just about everywhere, that means that 80% of users don't need to pay hundreds of dollars for software features they'll never use.

Let's get out a calculator and figure the office productivity suite costs for a company with 50 users. If we're talking Microsoft Office on every computer, that means 50 times the price of the software. Since Microsoft makes it hard to find the price of Office, depending on which volume licensing arrangement is used, let's set the price at $300 a computer for Microsoft Office 2003 and $350 for Office 2007 (standard editions).

Total for 50 users with Microsoft Office 2007: $17,500.

Total for 50 users with Microsoft Office 2003: $15,000.

Now let's invoke the 80/20 rule and buy Microsoft Office for 20% of the users who may need advanced features now and then, and get OpenOffice (now up to Version 2.2) for the rest. In other words, 10 people using Microsoft, 40 using OpenOffice.

Total for 50 users following 80/20 rule with OpenOffice and Office 2007: $3,500.

Total for 50 users following 80/20 rule with OpenOffice and Office 2003: $3,000.

Remember that each of the 50 users involved here has a full office productivity suite on their computer. Word processing, presentations, drawing program, and even a database comes with OpenOffice.

One worry for companies is that a file will come in from a Microsoft user and OpenOffice won't handle it. The only files that create such a problem come from Microsoft Office 2007's new file formats. Every other Microsoft Office file I've received in the past year while I've used OpenOffice exclusively worked fine.

James Gaskin writes books (16 so far), articles and jokes about technology and real life from his home office in the Dallas area.