I agree with beatgammit about it being more morally just using OpenOffice.org (that's the name of the suite as "OpenOffice" was already copyrighted when the program was created) because by using Microsoft Office we're supporting the horrible standards Microsoft forces on us. Sure, their new document format is going to be open, but if so, why not use the one already available? OpenDocument was designed in a very fine manner, and could be easily interpreted, even by humans. Microsoft Office Open XML contains a lot of clutter to be backward-compatible, and is, like almost everything Microsoft does in terms of file formats, cluttered, very unintuitive and not very friendly. Comparing them shows strong points for both, but that doesn't even matter, as OpenDocument was there before and Microsoft had the opportunity to voice its opinion about it, but instead chose to rebel like an angst-full teenager afraid that his best friend will still his girl. Oh, and in the end the girl always dumps the jealous guy.

But don't take me wrong, I never said anything bad about the Microsoft Office suite. It works great and does everything I need! But so does OpenOffice.org, and I'm pretty sure that even in these technical forums, more than 95% of the population hardly use features so special that only MS has it. You're all just being lazy to re-learn how to process your documents. Or maybe you just like the Office UI better, which I must unfortunately agree with.

I personally use Microsoft Office Word but I use OpenOffice.org for other stuff like OOo Impress (equivalent of Microsoft PowerPoint).
The reason is that formatting issues and etc have came up when saving OpenOffice.org documents as ".doc" and then reopening them in Microsoft Office Word at school.

If I'm sure I don't need to use Microsoft Word to open the document, by all means I use OpenOffice.org Writer.

OpenOffice.org is better because it is free, open-source (more secure) and compatible with a lot more file formats than Microsoft Office software. Also, file sizes are a bit smaller when saving the same document in OpenDocument format (slightly, only sometimes?).

I'm ready to use both if necessary

the company that I am working right now is using both MS Word and OpenOffice because we cant really put down the use of MS Word. the reason is that some of our application does not or is not compatible with open office. for example our Oracle E-Business Suite 11i does not work well with open office some of its function will not work. That is why we still use MS Word but not totally maybe just 20% of the work force.

as for the review well I do like MS Word for its easy to use type kinda thing but if personally you are going to let me choose between them provided that I will adhere to the legality of piracy and stuffs like that I would choose open office personally since all my needs can be catered by this software all I need ( I think) is to practice using it so I wont have a hard time using it.