Microsoft: Buy Office 365, Not Office 2013

Mr34727 said:
I can definitely understand this sentiment. However, for many people Open Office just doesn't cut it. You need the real deal for somethings, especially where compatibility is paramount.
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This. 100 bucks per year is nothing.
 
prndll said:
...as apposed to FREE open Office???
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There will always be a free version to anything in the computer world but it doesn't mean they're always better.

Open/LibreOffice may be sufficient for some, but they'll never be in the same class as Microsoft Office.

It's the same with Photoshop versus Gimp. Linux versus Windows. Exchange versus Squirrel.
 
Advil said:
Sales of Office to home users is about to halt completely.

I can guarantee my customer base has NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER in paying $100/yr for a 5 machine subscription that expires and it stops working. NONE. ZERO.

They WILL pay the $120-140 for the Office 2010 that they have been buying for the retail version. Installs on 3 computers. Customer has media and can install on any systems they choose.

People buy a license to office and expect to use it for 5-7 YEARS.

The subscription is going to be the end of Office. Maybe it is time. I like the Windows operating system fine, but MS has made a fatal mistake with its Office decisions. Time for other software to replace the Office suite.
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Sensationalist much? Microsoft is only recommending Office 365, not requiring it.

I notice some of you guys are hooked on Office - no thanks to the title of this thread. Office 365 offers much more than just Microsoft Office. There's 20GB Skydrive and Lync (for business 365 accounts) and Exchange Online and SharePoint Online (for business 365 accounts) and Skype minutes in addition to being able to license 5 machines to Office as opposed to one.

The future is here - the average household doesn't consist of one machine anymore. If you wish to continue to buy licenses to every machine in the house, by all means do so. Microsoft is merely giving you an alternative to doing that by purchasing their Office 365 plan.

You'd think that [H] would see this, of all people. When I joined 12 years ago we were all in awe of new things and we were smart enough to see where things were going. Now? Everyone knee-jerk nobody thinks anymore.

Do the goddamn math and stop posting because the last 5 guys knee-jerked. You're not going to be cool just because you agreed with them. Even if your home consist of one computer, it isn't about you - you're free to buy a single license of Office if it suits you. It's about the many homes that have multiple laptops, perhaps a Surface or two, and a main home computer.
 
I will NEVER subscribe to a yearly fee for an office software package. Can't see anyone I know doing that either. 365 will flop.
 
People pay for google docs? /boggle

I thought it was free, and I don't / won't use that either. I used amipro before word, and word perfect before that. I'll use, and pay for, the next best office program that I can, you know, OWN - as opposed to rent.
 
And that goes for all other software too. Sorry, most people have enough monthly bills already - I'm not going to rent software.
 
Kongar said:
People pay for google docs? /boggle

I thought it was free, and I don't / won't use that either. I used amipro before word, and word perfect before that. I'll use, and pay for, the next best office program that I can, you know, OWN - as opposed to rent.
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There are free versions of Office on the web just like Google Docs. At any who there are ways to get the Office 2013 client for such little money that this debate doesn't necessarily matter. For a while on this forum there was a way to get the Office 2013 client for $10 with a Hotmail/Outlook account and I still think that the $10 offer applies to folks that work at certain companies.
 
Mr34727 said:
Obviously you only use office software for very basic tasks. That is fine, but do not presume to know that everyone shares your same needs. MS Office provides many more features than OpenOffice can, or ever will. They have money to put in it, simple as that. Have you ever tried to do an online document share with an oo doc? Or perhaps manipulate pivot tables on multiple computers?

OO is a great tool for people just doing basic things. For some, MS is really the only viable option however. You may think $1.67 per month per computer is expensive, but for some people it is chump change.
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I'll admit that I've never had any reason do work pivot tables. But, I have dealt with companies of 200+ employees that operate in multiple US states. I know that there is not any software out there that can be seen as a one size fits all for everyone. But to claim that MS Office is the real deal and OO is somehow a lesser thing is just completely absurd. I do still feel that Excel is one of MS's greatest programs however.

As for online shared documents:
I just think this is better done through password protected DHTML webpages (perhaps on secure webservers).

As for compatibility:
The biggest problem here is from MS itself. This isn't just OO, different versions of MS Office have this issue between themselves too. This creates certain other problems when it comes to companies making the decision to make sweeping changes across hundreds to computers on their own network (even if you completely forget OO). That $1.67 can easily turn into tens of thousands of dollars very quickly. Big corporations might see this as a business expense and just write it all off but smaller family owned companies tend to have a hard time justifying it.

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As for Google Docs:
I've never seen this as secure enough to use at all.
 
prndll said:
I'll admit that I've never had any reason do work pivot tables. But, I have dealt with companies of 200+ employees that operate in multiple US states. I know that there is not any software out there that can be seen as a one size fits all for everyone. But to claim that MS Office is the real deal and OO is somehow a lesser thing is just completely absurd. I do still feel that Excel is one of MS's greatest programs however.

As for online shared documents:
I just think this is better done through password protected DHTML webpages (perhaps on secure webservers).

As for compatibility:
The biggest problem here is from MS itself. This isn't just OO, different versions of MS Office have this issue between themselves too. This creates certain other problems when it comes to companies making the decision to make sweeping changes across hundreds to computers on their own network (even if you completely forget OO). That $1.67 can easily turn into tens of thousands of dollars very quickly. Big corporations might see this as a business expense and just write it all off but smaller family owned companies tend to have a hard time justifying it.

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As for Google Docs:
I've never seen this as secure enough to use at all.
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200+ employees? LOL!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, the custom applications that I manage are primary LOB apps for 10 times that number and that's only about 1% of out employees. What the fuck do you guys think is enterprise?
 
You should know that small business's make up a very large portion of the market. Not everyone can be a multi-national multi-billion dollar corporation (not everyone wants or needs to be). That doesn't make these things any less valuable. any less "enterprise". Plenty of people are good with a few million in yearly income. Some people "like" to maintain ownership rather than hand it all over to a "board".
 
My question is how long will Office 365 stay at $100.00 per year? I'm sure it will not be the same in a couple of years.
 
In my position I recently departed, the company was busy struggling--and hemorrhaging--money in development costs trying to integrate OO into the flagship software product.

Granted I never had a very high opinion of the dev team there, but there was no way they would be able to shoe-horn OO in place of what they made work through Word and Excel to integrate with the in-house application.

This was for a software package that would involve over 10,000 users in our SaaS environment and probably the same number in locally or privately hosted sites.

While it might be costly, there just was no substitute for MS Office. But now that I'm away from that enterprise environment, I can only imagine future licensing costs the suits are going to have to deal with. They'll probably lay off IT staff.
 
Rizen said:
I really don't understand any of the business decisions Microsoft has made in the last year or two. What the fuck are they doing?
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Same. They're using everything they have against themselves and only themselves.

WTF indeed.
 
heatlesssun said:
200+ employees? LOL!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, the custom applications that I manage are primary LOB apps for 10 times that number and that's only about 1% of out employees. What the fuck do you guys think is enterprise?
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Small businesses and education make up the vast majority of that market, neither of which exactly need to be paying for MS Office in the first place.

Also LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
DiabloRojo said:
In my position I recently departed, the company was busy struggling--and hemorrhaging--money in development costs trying to integrate OO into the flagship software product.

Granted I never had a very high opinion of the dev team there, but there was no way they would be able to shoe-horn OO in place of what they made work through Word and Excel to integrate with the in-house application.

This was for a software package that would involve over 10,000 users in our SaaS environment and probably the same number in locally or privately hosted sites.

While it might be costly, there just was no substitute for MS Office. But now that I'm away from that enterprise environment, I can only imagine future licensing costs the suits are going to have to deal with. They'll probably lay off IT staff.
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This is exactly the sort of scenario that small business (from what I've seen anyway) tries to avoid. There are reasons why so many people didn't want to upgrade from IE6. The thing that isn't given much thought though is that once your in that corner, it's very hard to get out. If the system isn't designed to make use of all those nice little (so-called features) MS only functions like VBscript then integration would be alot easier. All these nice bells and whistles can make coding easier but also introduce a litany of vulnerabilities (that then require all kinds of updates and patches to fix). There is a good reason why Firefox doesn't allow VBscript and/or write to the drive. SaaS might be a good way for some people to make money and I'm all for that. It might be a vision of the future and I'm all for that too. But there are reasons why everything has become so expensive, hard to work with, and insecure. It's all a rat race that alot of people get so confused and bothered by that they see no choice but to hand it over to someone else.

For me, it all comes down to a very simple thing....
Don't start no shit, won't be no shit.
 
pelo said:
Small businesses and education make up the vast majority of that market, neither of which exactly need to be paying for MS Office in the first place.

Also LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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If you could replace just 1/10th of the ad-ins that we use in MS Office whereI work you wouldn't be LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ing me or anyone else because you'd be so rich you wouldn't have time for poor people on forums like this. Give people an absolutely free piece of software that does everything that the not free stuff does and of course people will adopt is droves.
 
fentzinator said:
My question is how long will Office 365 stay at $100.00 per year? I'm sure it will not be the same in a couple of years.
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I agree. Once they get people locked into the subscription model they'll be able to charge whatever they want for you to have continued access to your own data. Which by then I'm sure by the terms of the license agreement won't actually be your data anymore.

From a personal use standpoint, my problem with this is what happens if I have all of my documents and information in this online Office cloud and run into a cash flow problem and can't pay the subscription? I guess I just lost all of my stuff. And I'm sure that if I can't get it paid in a month or so they will delete it all. When things like Office go completely to a subscription model, I will be moving to open source alternatives, even if they are inferior quality in comparison. Nobody wants you to own anything in this world. They want to be able to threaten to take it away from you so they can keep you paying.
 
heatlesssun said:
...Give people an absolutely free piece of software that does everything that the not free stuff does and of course people will adopt is droves.
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I doubt it. There are too many people with the thinking that the only good software worth using must be "paid for". The prevailing thought is that if it's free, it's worthless or unsafe. This is what I find so perplexing. This kind of thinking creates more problems than it solves.
 
heatlesssun said:
If you could replace just 1/10th of the ad-ins that we use in MS Office whereI work you wouldn't be LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ing me or anyone else because you'd be so rich you wouldn't have time for poor people on forums like this. Give people an absolutely free piece of software that does everything that the not free stuff does and of course people will adopt is droves.
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I was making fun of your childish post... and apparently you've decided to top yourself yet again.

Where you work != Where most work. Like both I and another poster have said, small businesses (SMB, or small and medium businesses more accurately) are the biggest chunk of users. Although we love to hear about your wonderful workplace and the accompanying (pitiful) attempt at degrading people (making yourself look like an idiot) with your LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s, but neither is any pertinent to the discussion. Yes, enterprise users use Office. And, yes, most enterprise users need it for compatibility above all else.

Is there anything else you wish to enlighten us with? Perhaps you can throw in a few more LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s.
 
I am not a power MS Office user by any means, but I tried using OpenOffice a few years ago. I ran into formatting issues with the spreadsheet and the presentation program. For me, the $65 I spent on 3 office 07 licenses was a good investment. I don't see myself buying Office 13 unless I can get the education version (I work for a school district) at a good price. $100 for the full education version, or say a 5 year license would be fine. But more than that it too much for me.

I get why companies stay with MS Office though. Fewer what-ifs, probably acceptable volume licensing
for hundreds or thousands of installations, and maybe some tech support on the back end. They need
the software to just work. And the people signing the checks for this stuff recognize, and are comfortable with MS products.
 
prndll said:
I doubt it. There are too many people with the thinking that the only good software worth using must be "paid for". The prevailing thought is that if it's free, it's worthless or unsafe. This is what I find so perplexing. This kind of thinking creates more problems than it solves.
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Nonsense. Give people a free alternative to that which costs money that does all that they need and of course the free solution wins 10 times out of 10.

pelo said:
Is there anything else you wish to enlighten us with? Perhaps you can throw in a few more LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s.
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The point of my post was that given the alternative of between something that costs money and something that doesn't that people would adopt the free solution in droves and this is your response?

Free house versus the very same one that costs money? Everyone will go with the free house. The free car. The free OS. The free office automation software.

Some of you are so arrogant that you think people don't want free stuff. Amazing.
 
g-money said:
I like free software just as much as the next guy, but to have any reasonable expectation for it to have the same features and support as an business product (read: paid for) is nonsense and therefore do not expect nor desire it.

I personally don't need 5 licenses for $100. Maybe I need 2. Then again, I am fine running 2010 until its out of support at which point the payment for 2013 or whatever the product is at that time is a reasonable expenditure. I am single, so this scenario makes sense. If I had a family with multiple users of the product then the 5 licenses for $100 becomes a much better deal. I suspect quite a lot of people fall into that category which is why there is a product for it.
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/Argument..

Most things in life worth having cost money.. That is because they are made by professionals who get paid money to make them. It would be great if the nice things in life were free, but until we reach a point in society where money no longer exists then this is how things will be.
 
heatlesssun said:
200+ employees? LOL!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, the custom applications that I manage are primary LOB apps for 10 times that number and that's only about 1% of out employees. What the fuck do you guys think is enterprise?
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You forgot what you posted.

Here, let me remind you again. This time with a bit more emphasis:

heatlesssun said:
200+ employees? LOL!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, the custom applications that I manage are primary LOB apps for 10 times that number and that's only about 1% of out employees. What the fuck do you guys think is enterprise?
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One more time, because you've got a horrendous short term memory:

heatlesssun said:
200+ employees? LOL!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, the custom applications that I manage are primary LOB apps for 10 times that number and that's only about 1% of out employees. What the fuck do you guys think is enterprise?
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Small & medium businesses (the majority users) have it far easier when switching over to free alternatives. The reason for this is the same reason why it's difficult to switch over from Apple or Android: when you buy in, it's very difficult to buy out. Enterprises have thousands of employees that would need retraining when you roll out new software in place of old. That's why WinXP and IE6 are used in such high numbers even today. Small and medium businesses have the same compatibility and retraining problems, but because of the fewer number of employees, they're a bit more flexible when it comes to this sort of stuff. Rolling out Libre/Open Office is far easier when it's ending up in 50 employees hands rather than it is for 10,000 employees.

This buy in/buy out problem is exacerbated when you throw in cloud compatibility and rent-your-software. You can use Microsoft's software if you like it. I'm all for it. But if you think renting your software and uploading your stuff to their server for a fee is a bright idea... well... that's when you've crossed over from "just friends" to "long term relationship," and if you don't end up liking her in the future, just remember that she's got all of your stuff.
 
I didn't say people don't want free stuff. Bit torrent is a good example that they do. People will certainly take a car given to them by Opera or a $5 bill at the freeway intersection. I'm talking about things that get used when it really matters. I'm talking about perception. You are seen as better equipped, more intelligent, and more professional when your using an Ipad instead of a more powerful laptop. It is somehow more honorable to allow MS or Apple to take control of everything you do as apposed to actually understanding the machine and using it to it's potential. If it were all about "Everyone will go with the free..." then Linux would be dominate OS. MS is seen is better. They charge for it so they have what it takes to make it better.

Well....
1+1=2 regardless of who it is that says it. But when MS or Apple says it, people actually listen.
 
Office 2013 web apps are free if you use SkyDrive. They work in IE/Firefox/Chrome, creates/edits Word/Excel/Powerpoint docs. The toolbars are very close to the desktop versions too. The only thing that sucks is you have to be online to use it, but you can still download the files locally.
 
heatlesssun said:
Nonsense. Give people a free alternative to that which costs money that does all that they need and of course the free solution wins 10 times out of 10. .
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Here you go with your fucking bullshit again. Trying to pass your opinion as fact again. You ever heard of people choosing name brands over lesser known brands even if lesser known brand are sufficient and cheaper?
 
KENNYB said:
Here you go with your fucking bullshit again. Trying to pass your opinion as fact again. You ever heard of people choosing name brands over lesser known brands even if lesser known brand are sufficient and cheaper?
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No, he's never heard of Apple :D
 
KENNYB said:
Here you go with your fucking bullshit again. Trying to pass your opinion as fact again. You ever heard of people choosing name brands over lesser known brands even if lesser known brand are sufficient and cheaper?
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That depends on the brand. Branding is one of many things Microsoft has never been good at.
 
Microsoft needs to fix the daily task / calendar implementation on the sidebar in Outlook 2013. All previous Outlooks would show you today's calendar events and roll over to show more in the same area if you didn't have anything for today. Microsoft made it to where now it just shows today and you have to click through the days on the calendar to see the next events.

When my employer finally pushes everyone to 2013 we're probably going to hear about that.

YA BLEW IT.
 
I'm ok with the subscription model. My clients get to call and bitch to microsoft when shit breaks.

My problem is that unless Microsoft can guarantee that NO information ever leaves Canada or my my province. I can't legally sign up. Microsoft also has to put this in writing and a financially backed SLA.

Not every one is an American. Plus everything in the cloud belongs to your federal gov any way I will not risk mine or my clients data to the Patriot Act or DMCA.

I am also seeing an uptake in Wordperfect recently.
 
I've tried OO multiple times. I got tired of the formatting errors that always came with it when attempting to open documents created with MS Office and vice versa. I'm satisfied with my Office 2010 and will be until it's no longer supported.
 
Grahamkracka said:
I've tried OO multiple times. I got tired of the formatting errors that always came with it when attempting to open documents created with MS Office and vice versa. I'm satisfied with my Office 2010 and will be until it's no longer supported.
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A big part of this is MS. I do understand compatibility. But various versions of MS Office have this same issue between themselves too (alot of it is DRM). It's whatever works best for your needs. All I'm saying is that there are too many people that see this sorta thing and think OO (among other things) isn't any good when that isn't the case. But, one must also keep in mind the fact that your dealing with other people that could be using older versions of MS Office aswell.

What this whole thing comes down to for me is MS making sure they have a steady stream of cash from your wallet to theirs (wether your a business or an individual). Which is understandable to a certain degree...they are a business after all.

I just don't like to see people (especially in large numbers) operating on false assumptions. But, like I said...It's whatever works best for your needs.
 
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