Open source software is coming to a personal computer near you. The success of Firefox, the open source web browser, has shown that "free" software is no longer the preserve of bearded geeks and hackers. Now comes a credible alternative to Microsoft's ubiquitous Office suite that costs not a penny, euro or yen.

The latest incarnation of OpenOffice was last month released for testing by users. Early reviews say it marks a big advance over earlier versions of the free word processing, spreadsheet and presentation package.