Over the years, Microsoft Office has become the most preferred and advanced office suite. However the high price tags attached to legal and licensed copies of Microsoft Office can become a burden in the long run.

Fear no more recently lots of alternative office suites have sprouted up. They not maybe as comprehensive as Microsoft Office, but they still manage to get the work done. Here are my 6 alternative office suite picks.

1. Google Docs - Google Docs is probably your best bet against the monopoly of Microsoft office. Assuming you a decent internet connection, Google Docs includes a web-based Word Processor, Spreadsheet application, and a Presentation app. Best of all its free.

2. Zoho- Zoho is another great online office productivity suite. It features a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps, but also includes online project management, CRM solutions, web conferencing, online database with reports, online planner, group chat, wiki, and lots more. Every things online!Only thing you need is a decent connection.

4. OpenOffice - OpenOffice.org is a free and open source office suite, including word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, vector drawing and database management. It is available for many different platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Unix-like systems with the X Window System including GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X.

2. Thinkfree - ThinkFree Office is another application suite comprised of word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics software-all usable online and off. Thinkfree also has advanced collaboration features such that users can share, edit, and contribute their ideas remotely.

5. StarOffice - StarOffice 8 is a full-featured office suite that contains a word processor, a spreadsheet tool, applications for presentations, databases, math formulas and drawing. It has support for most Microsoft Office formats (except for the formats introduced in Office 2007), but it can also export documents as PDF out of the box. The software normally costs $70, but it’s available for free in Google Pack.

6 Ajax Write : ajaxWrite is a web-based word processor that can read and write Microsoft Word and other standard document formats. Simply point your fav browser to ajaxwrite.com and in seconds a full-featured program will be available for you to open, edit, print and save. Best part its free.