Why "Upgrade" To Office 2007

walterbyrd writes "IMO: Office-2007 is a contender for the least useful upgrade in the history of computing. It's expensive, has a steep learning curve, and it's default format is even less compatible with anything else. Stan Beer discusses the "upgrade" in his article: Question: why do I need to upgrade to Office 2007?."

Why?

[by Anonymous Coward]

a) Because Bill says so
b) Because muppets keep sending you files in a new, super incompatible format that you can't open otherwise

Re:Why?

[oggiejnr (999258)]

It's not entirely true that the new formats will force you to upgrade. There is the Office Compatibility Pack which allows Office 2003 + XP to open and save OpenXML formats as well as convert between them.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA10168 6761033.aspx [microsoft.com]

Re:Why?

[rucs_hack (784150)]

Yes, but lets be honest here, just how many office users are going to look for things to make their documents easily compatible, or even realise that such a need exists? Not a big number I would think.

Most people I know who use microsoft office and other microsoft products use them exclusively. I've made some inroads into converting people towards open source, but it's often too much work.

I had to change away from using openoffice and Latex for my documents during my phd because my supervisor insisted everything must be in microsoft formats, as did the department I was in. That was everything from papers to lecture materials. As this was a computer science dept I was somewhat amazed. I was at one point the *only* person there actively encouraging use of open source tools.

This wasn't a place I was happy be to be at, hence why I am no longer there.

well... if you're gonna switch, why not

[advocate_one (662832)]

switch to OOo and for that matter, why not OOo on Linux... the training costs for the upgrade to Vista and/or office 2007 might as well be considered as similar to those for switching away from the proprietary lockin and moving to truly open formats for your data. Then you will have jumped off the upgrade treadmill and will be free to upgrade at your own pace instead, when you want to rather than when outside pressures force you to...

Re:

[CastrTroy (595695)]

Except that there's also training costs for your IT department to learn to deal with Linux and OO.o. A lot of Windows admins that I've seen would never be able to deal with a Linux system. The users might not have much trouble switching to Linux with OO.o, because of the simplicity of the tasks, but the IT department that's used to dealing with Windows and MS Office would have a very hard time dealing with the switch.

Re:well... if you're gonna switch, why not

[Toby_Tyke (797359)]

Well done for ignoring what the parent was saying, and replying to what you wished he had said instead. What he was saying was that switching is not a small decision, because there would be a large costs involved in retraining the IT staff who had to support the new Linux systems. I can tell you for a fact that out of the half dozen support staff I work with, at least four of them have never seen a PC running Linux, nevermind supported one.

In terms of applications needed by the business, we could pretty much switch 90 per cent of our staff tommorrow. The reason I would never suggest this is that it would not be cost effective. The whole IT infrastructure of the company is set up around supporting Windows. Switching over is not just case of burnig a few Ubuntu ISOs and showing some managers how to use Evolution. We would have to extensivly retrain our IT staff, find a hardware vendor who supported Linux (which might well be somewhat more expensive), and that's before we even begin to get into the day to day hassle of dealing with all the little problems it would throw up.

Case in point, I was setting up a laptop with a GPRS card on one of our salesmens laptop last week, and it wasn't working. After coming to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong at this end, I called the service providers support line. The friendly phone drone on the other end ran through a series of troubleshooting steps over the phone before coming to the same conclusion I had, and then discovering that the reason it wasn't working was because they had not turned the account on.

Now, suppose that was a linux laptop. For arguments sake, lets assume the card actually runs under Linux. Here is how the conversation might well have panned out:

Phone Drone: Click on the start menu...
Me: This machine is running Linux.
PD: Ah, right, I just need to put you hold for a second.
(Hold music)
PD: Sorry, we don't support Linux, you'll need to install this on a windows PC.

Yes, I expect that with much wrangling and arguing I could still make him go and check things their end, but we make calls like this every day. We would have to go through that every time. And no, we would not just be able to choose service providers who support Linux. In the example cited above, we have a choice of four networks for GPRs cards. To my knowledge, none of them support Linux.

There is no doubt that moving to OO.o would remove "an important part of the need to keep the Windows platform ". Unfortunatly, there are dozens more very good reasons why companies keep the Windows platform.

Re:well... if you're gonna switch, why not

[maxume (22995)]

If you are paying people $40,000 a year, $500 a year in software licensing is a consideration, but it doesn't take much of a productivity gain to justify it. It also doesn't take a very large risk of lost productivity to justify not switching to something very new.

If switching does save $500, that money can obviously be used elsewhere, but OOo is going to have to be very good to convince people that are satisfied with MS Office to switch. I am not going to speculate about how many people are actually satisfied with office.

as in ?

[udderly (890305)]

FTA: While I have the utmost respect for Mr Mossberg, I can't help but feel that the words in the second paragraph contradict and negate the words of the first. To my mind, a logical layout of commands and functions would obviate the need to learn how to find those commands and functions.

While I have the utmost respect for Mr. Beer, I can't help but feel that he has laid out an impossibly high standard for software menus. Is it even possible to, as he puts it, "obviate the need to learn how to find those commands and functions?"

Take what I said with a grain of salt, I'm bitter 'cause wish I had a kewl last name like his. Cue the "free-as-in-beer jokes." In 3, 2, 1...

Re:as in ?

[DingerX (847589)]

Yeah, I've been using Office (predominantly Word) for 15 years too (migrating from Amiga WP), and I have to say that the "ribbon interface has a steep learning curve" is a week argument:

First, because he means the curve is shallow, not steep. A steep learning curve means something is easy to learn. If you doubt me, feel free to plot a "material learned/time" graph on the back of an envelope.

More seriously, what he means is that the interface is difficult to use. I've been using Office 2003 for 3 years, and every permutation before that, and I am still cursing the interface as buggy and counterintuitive. I hate contextual menus -- they mean I always have to check to see if the option I want is there, and it usually isn't. Microsoft ripped off that ill-advised Macintosh idea of making the computer "Smarter than the User", and the result is offensive.
Take one example: Every time I encounter an installation of Word that I have to use, the first thing I do is disable everything automatic that I can. But, of course, since I collaborate with folks in several languages, including ones that Word doesn't recognize, inevitably Word will still decide I'm writing in a language I have no intention to write in (e.g., Document was originally created in Austrian German, so every time I insert a footnote, it's in Austrian German). Now it runs automatic language support for that, including all that autoformatting crap that sucks even if I were writing in that language. Better yet, they enable the autoformatting, but require a consultation of a regional install disk to actually control it. So there's no bloody way to turn it off.

Will Office 2007 be better? I don't know, but complaining about the interface being hard to learn doesn't make any sense? Office's interface has never been intuitive or useful -- well, at least since Word 5.1 for the Macintosh (and for the record, I've never liked Apple either).

Re:as in ?

[Dirtside (91468)]

Because you wrote it badly, I can't tell if you're joking about the learning curve or not, but just in case: The point of a steep learning curve is not to plot amount learned versus time, it's to plot amount you need to learn versus the ability to get things done. A steep learning curve is like a steep cliff: hard to climb. Long, gentle slopes are a lot easier.

This story is dumb!

[N8F8 (4562)]

we adults (or at least many of us) would prefer to keep using what we're familiar with until something better comes along

These arguments are EXACTLY the arguments used with every major innovation in the past.

DOS vs Windows anyone?

Re:

[2ms (232331)]

Dude, it's a word processor. Can you honestly tell me that even all of the upgrades to Word put together since like Word 95 could really be called revolutionary? You are correct that Command line versus Windowing/GUI was revolutionary. You are not correct that anything in word processing in the last ten years at least has been revolutionary. And how many thousands of dollars in Word upgrades have there been in 10 years? Gimme a break

Re:This story is dumb!

[timftbf (48204)]

Most of the evolution/revolution has come in the form of layout. Yes, many authors want the ability to create very advanced documents that feature images, figures, tables, columns, rotated text, etc. You can't compare this to Word Perfect for DOS.

You're absolutely right. WP for DOS let you do all of those things, but let you keep control of them, and made it easy to produce coherent documents, with logical mark-up, in a user interface that didn't fight you every step of the way. (I was actually do most of my word-processing work in WP for VMS at the time, which was equally versatile.)

Word encourages you to apply effects willy-nilly, while at the same time making it really hard to apply styles properly, or see exactly what tags are applied to what elements, and in which order. (Does changing *this* change the definition of a style? Create a new style? Reformat this particular element in the style with custom local changes? Most of the time, it's anyone's guess.)

What you end up with is a document that can possibly be tweaked to look flashy, but probably unprofessional, by one person, on one PC / printer combination, for a given revision. Make changes, make changes on another machine, or (heaven forbid) let someone else make changes, and what you'll end up with is a document that quickly descends into a mess of semi-random style, formatting, language, spell-checking and other tags, with little to no hope of regaining any logical structure.

I Maintain That I Don't NEED It

[eldavojohn (898314)]

Question: why do I need to upgrade to Office 2007?

Answer: Nobody needs to upgrade to Office 2007.

Microsoft isn't holding a gun to your head. You don't have a need for a ribbon. You may find out later that it increases your productivity and then you may learn that it provides a better solution for your problems. But if you're accomplishing your job and tasks with older copies of Office, why do you need 2007? The fact is you probably don't. I myself am quite successful with OpenOffice.org but I don't use the spreadsheet much if at all.

Hell, as long as Microsoft keeps supporting the copy of Office you use, who cares about 2007? Let the early adopters play around with it and work the bugs out. I'll use the ribbon when everyone else is--no reason for me to learn another "J++" Microsoft product only to have that skill be completely useless. Office 2007 will probably be the de facto standard but why pay the price and risk of an early adopter?

We're all intelligent people here (I think), and we're all capable of weighing the pros and cons of software. Office 2007 should be no different. If you want to present a good article to me on 2007, I'd like to see all sides of the issue, not just telling me why I need to use it.

Re:I Maintain That I Don't NEED It

[kestasjk (933987)]

Office 2007 will probably be the de facto standard but why pay the price and risk of an early adopter?

Don't underestimate the advantage of being ahead of the game in the fast moving world of IT. I know someone who probably owes all his success, and his big house, to fanatically learning MS Access and SQL Server before most people knew they existed.
If you can see some extension that people will want you can capitalize on it, if people will need to be trained you can train them, if it really is a useful innovation you can take advantage of it immediately.

However as you said it is a risk, as is any potentially worthwhile investment, and you have to decide for yourself whether it's worth it.

Problems exist mostly for existing 'power' users

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

The problems mentioned mostly exist for existing 'power' users who already know Office 2K3 and are unfamiliar with the new 'ribbon' interface of Office 2007. I think that the vast majority of users out there in the real world, however, use Microsoft Office as a fancy word processor and don't really know the true functionality of Word or Excel or PowerPoint.

For those users, the ribbon may be a great help in unlocking the use of the tool.

Of course, the real question is will the PHBs in major corporations see it that way? If they don't adopt Office 2007 in droves, it will die. If they do, then due to file format differences, everyone will be forced to upgrade and this becomes an entirely moot point. *sigh* Which is too bad for those of are using OpenOffice.org and other competing open source products.

As an employer?

[Short Circuit (52384)]

As an employer, you'll want to upgrade because that's what all the college students will be trained in.

I'm still irritated that the college I work at jumps on every little thing from Microsoft, but still doesn't cover anything recent from the UNIX or Mac worlds.

More rows in excel

[dhwebb (526291)]

The only feature I have heard of that makes me want to upgrade is the ability to have more than 65,536 rows in excel. Of course, if you have that many rows of data, maybe you should be converting the data into a real database format and working with the data that way.

Re:More rows in excel

[illegalcortex (1007791)]

Actually, there are quite a few very good improvements to Excel. They finally blew the doors off of a bunch of stupid limits:

The total number of available columns in Excel
Old Limit: 256 (28)
New Limit: 16k (214)

The total number of available rows in Excel
Old Limit: 64k (216)
New Limit: 1M (220)

Total amount of PC memory that Excel can use
Old Limit: 1GB
New Limit: Maximum allowed by Windows

Number of unique colours allowed a single workbook
Old Limit: 56 (indexed colour)
New Limit: 4.3 billion (32-bit colour)

Number of conditional format conditions on a cell
Old Limit: 3 conditions
New Limit: Limited by available memory

Number of levels of sorting on a range or table
Old Limit: 3
New Limit: 64

Number of rows allowed in a Pivot Table
Old Limit: 64k
New Limit: 1M

Number of columns allowed in a Pivot Table
Old Limit: 255
New Limit: 16k

Maximum number of unique items within a single Pivot Field
Old Limit: 32k
New Limit: 1M

I will probably install Excel 2007 but nothing else. The conditional formatting alone should be worth it. Once you really understand it, you can quickly do some very useful things.

Well..

[Jugalator (259273)]

It's expensive, has a steep learning curve, and it's default format is even less compatible with anything else.

It supports saving/loading backwards compatible formats too...

It also had a surprisingly low learning curve for me, despite the vastly more accessible UI it seems to have than 2003 with its menu jungles.

I'd argue the opposite

[Xest (935314)]

This seems the least thought through attempt at jumping on the anti-Microsoft bandwagon - Office 2007 is the first version in 12 years that really changes the way you use office to truly make you more productive. There are tools in Office 2007 to let you do some of the things that used to take you upwards of half an hour in under a minute.

It's sad that MS is slagged of for not changing Office much over the years, then why they finally do innovate, and change it to improve productivity and usefulness people slag it off with "Booohooo it has a steep learning curve". Honestly, Microsoft may do a lot of things wrong, but they do also do something right (i.e. the XBox 360, Visual Studio etc.), I honestly think Office 2007 is one of those things they've done right.

Re:I'd argue the opposite

[giorgiofr (887762)]

There are tools in Office 2007 to let you do some of the things that used to take you upwards of half an hour in under a minute.

That's quite a claim! Could you elaborate a bit, please? If it's true, maybe it's really worth using 2007.

Re:I'd argue the opposite

[CDarklock (869868)]

I love Office 2007, and think it's one of the greatest interfaces I've seen in the last decade.

But since I work at Microsoft, I *would* think that, wouldn't I? So here's a concrete example. I think this rocks. You can make up your own mind.

I often build PowerPoint slide decks (I will refrain from making excuses for this; I have my reasons). I rough out a group of slides, then tweak them until they look good. In PowerPoint 2003, the way that worked was I would save the slides, then apply different styles until I found one I liked. On a large slide deck, each of these changes might take a minute or more.

In PowerPoint 2007, styles are visually applied when you hover. This is great, because it only applies to the slides you can see, which is a lot faster. So instead of applying two dozen different styles at a minute or more each, I hover over the style I'm considering and see whether it looks good. Once I see one I like, I click and apply it. The time drops massively from a 45 minute exercise to a 90 second experiment.

It doesn't take a lot of little things like this to start adding up. Office 2007 is full of them. Everything I do in Office is easier and faster and more intuitive. If you work with Office frequently, it's fantastic. If you use Office for an hour a month, and you don't really do much with it... well, you're probably not going to get anything really noticeable out of the upgrade.

Short canned answer

[UnknowingFool (672806)]

There are some useful features in Office 2007. However, you have to evaluate whether those features are necessary enough to overcome the upgrade costs as well as the re-training that will be involved with the new interface. Some people really want/need the new features. The problem for MS is that most users are just fine with the features from Office 97.

Here's a reason why you don't... Cleartype!

[urbanriot (924981)]

I've been a diehard Microsoft Office user for years and have recently installed Outlook 2007 (upgrading from 2003) and discovered that they've replaced everything with a new font system which, on my dual high resolution LCD's, looks awful and blurred. To most people it's an improvement, however one of the original co-creators of Cleartype has gone on record to say that many humans have the ability to perceive more colors and these humans may find Cleartype to seem blurred or less clear. Going back to a non-Cleartype setup is extremely difficult, involving changes made in four separate areas of Outlook's unintuitive option screens.

Kick me, I'm stupid.....

[LibertineR (591918)]

Isnt this what the dude is saying?

What about a serious investigation of whether or not the new features will help his organization?

How about a review of their current users, features used/wanted, to find out whether an upgrade would be cost effective and return something for the investment?

Why does every new MS Office release inspire a new round of articles from dopes wanting someone else to tell them what would be good for their business, without much effort on their own behalf?

Anytime I hear or read someone asking whether they should upgrade to the latest version of ANYTHING, I just want to choke them.

By the time a new product comes out, there has been MORE than enough time for due dillegance, and the answer should be apparent before release candidates are distributed, unless of course, you are an idiot, and your company sucks.

When a owner of smooth running Windows shop with dozens of .NET applications and centralized SharePoint askes me about switching to Linux to 'save a few bucks', I immediately do a quick cost/benefit analysis on whether or not I should just beat his ass and change professions.

Because it is much better for technical documents?

[zlogic (892404)]

Word 2007 is much better for technical documents. The features that were hidden in 2003 (like styles) are now very easily accessed. Another example is tables: in 2003, you either had to browse through menus to open the Tables and Borders toolbar and then close it to save screen space, now you simply switch to the Tables tab. Also, a lot of buttons have labels beside them, meaning you don't need to hold the cursor near every button for 1 second in order to see the tooltip. Oh, and did I mention instant previews when choosing styles?
And the new equation editor simply rocks. It combines the best of TeX, Classic Equation Editor and OpenOffice Writer's equivalent. You can write some TeX code, press the Space key and Word automatically converts it to a WYSIWYG formula, which behaves pretty much like the equations in the Classic version.

Not My Experience

[ThinkFr33ly (902481)]

I've been using Office 2007 since it was released to MSDN Subscribers back in November.

I went into the upgrade with high expectations for the ribbon. I had read a lot about it, and honestly it just makes a lot of sense. Commands that are grouped logically and presented contextually, while at the same time not being buried in a menu that few will ever see, simply seems like the right way to do things.

At the same time I realized that I have been using Office for many, many years, and the fairly dramatic UI shift would probably result in some learning curve.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised. For the most part, commands are where they should be. If I want to change the alignment of some text I go to the layout tab. (Or just highlight the text and move my mouse toward the fading in popup thingy.) If I want to insert a picture, surprise surprise, I got to the insert tab. It all makes a lot of sense.

Furthermore, in just the couple of months that I've been using Office 2007, I've discovered a lot of functionality I never new existed. (And, as many of you know, most Office users only use a very small fraction of Office's features.)

Each Office upgrade before 2007 has, for the most part, been an exercise in adding features that few will ever use because they don't know they're there. Office 2007's new UI changes that. For many users, it will be like Microsoft added thousands of new features when, in fact, they've been there all along but were never seen.

Well

[El Lobo (994537)]

For the same reason you need to install Firefox 2. Or the last Open Office, or the last 1) Ribbon, ribbon, ribbon, ribbon, ribbon RIBBON!!!!!! There is no single UI control more revolutionary than this. I mean, it's a really great control to improve your performance and believe me, you won't miss menus or toolbars. The development of this interface was a product of YEARS of planning and user testing, and it shines.

2) Want to see how a change will affect your document without changing it? Just put your mouse over a document skin or formatting and the document will temporarly "apply" the changes for you. The formatting will reverse to normal when your mouse is out of the area.

3)The new contextual spelling checker.

4)Building Blocks. Great time saver That's only from the op of my head, but of course if you are a average slashdotter MS could add *real gold* toolbars and you won't like it, so...

Just a Few Reasons

[DavidD_CA (750156)]

I've been showing Office 2007 off for quite some time now to my clients, people I work with at the local university, and friends of mine.

Not once has their response been "where is the file menu?" or "where are my icons?" Each time they've seen the ribbon and thought "Oh, that is smart!" They see how easy it is to change margins or add a Header/Footer and immediately want to know when they can buy it.

Will businesses think it's worth $400 per desk? If it saves that employee about an hour of time every month, because they can do tasks faster now, then it pays for itself quite quickly.

That's not mentioning how much *better* things look when created in Office 2007 using their new features. Have you seen the new shape rendering tools? Professional looking slides can be created in PowerPoint without the aide of the graphic design guys. Same goes for charts.

Employees will make better use of styles in Word, conditional formatting in Excel, all because the features are easier to find now.

People who boo-hoo Microsoft really need to sit down in front of Office 2007 for ten minutes and just check out its new features. Throw out your old ideas of menus and icons and just give it a try before you bash it.

Re:Shooting themselves in the foot

[Kenshin (43036)]

Speak for yourself. I've been using Word for 15 years (on Mac and PC), and I personally think the ribbon interface is a nice change.

Yes, you initially have to take time to figure out where things are, but when you know it's quicker.

I might like to mention something else about all this bitching about "users having to learn a new interface" for Office 2007: Can I not use that same argument for not switching to Linux?

Re:Shooting themselves in the foot

[Moby Cock (771358)]

Can I not use that same argument for not switching to Linux?

You could, but dude, your karma would take a beating around here.

Re:Shooting themselves in the foot

[Silver Sloth (770927)]

GUIs are detestable for many reasons I will not elaborate here

That's a very bold statement to go unsupported. If GUIs are so detestable why have they been the primary interface for every computer outside the server room for the last twenty five years or so? Just because you prefer a command line....

Speaking of menus...

[maillemaker (924053)]

I don't know what these new "ribbon" menus are or what they look like, but this just prompted me to speak of my biggest pet peeve of Windows menus that came on the scene a few years back: Dynamic menus. What I mean by this is how the drop-down menus off of the toolbar change to reflect the most recently-selected options. Thus every time you pull down a drop-down menu it looks different, and you must seek out the option you need, ususally by clicking on "more options" to see the "full" menu.

Whatever menus look like, they need to be consistent. Menus that change every time you look at them suck.

Re:

[CastrTroy (595695)]

That's why the whole MS lock-in thing is such a problem. All their applications are so tightly integrated together that if you want to use one, you have to use them all. Want to use Sharepoint, you have to use MS Office, want to use Exchage, you have to use Outlook, Want to use any of these, you have to use Windows. It would all be much better if you could use one application without being forced to use another application to get all the functionality.

Re:Don't you mean downgrade?

[God'sDuck (837829)]

Site's down -- try mirrordot -- http://www.mirrordot.com/stories/cf8757aa5cc8bc162 ddb78c82313ed5f/index.html [mirrordot.com]

Re:I've already upgraded..

[Otter (3800)]

So my point is, you either have a already researched features you like and will run with...

The ability to open large datasets in Excel, instead of having to use vim to figure out what the structure is. I'll be pleasantly surprised if the rest of the features aren't a step backwards, but it'll still be worth it the next time I have to figure out why SAS is choking on some huge text file.

And that's one of the features.

[DingerX (847589)]

If you go two layers deep into the "Tools" menu, you'll see that "Auto-Astroturf" is by default enabled, where it automatically monitors RSS feeds for relevant discussions and posts pro-Office messages without user intervention!

Re:

[jacksonj04 (800021)]

What tools menu? No, really. It doesn't have one.

Re:And that's one of the features.

[Duhavid (677874)]

You have to enable it.

It's on the tools menu.

AutoAstroTurf is on by default, so like, no worries.

Re:

[Teckla (630646)]

And if i have to explain the reasons to you, its really not worth your time is it? The fact is my business loves it, my users love it and it ties up our services and simplifies our processes so much better than 2003 that it was worth it.

So my point is, you either have a already researched features you like and will run with or you ignore everything and pretend because you don't upgrade no one else will.

Let me see if I can translate that:

My business just loves the new features, but I'm not going to tell

Re:I've already upgraded..

[cybrthng (22291)]

I've been here long enough to know the reasons i upgrade aren't the same reasons anyone else would consider it.

My point is, i've explained myself MILLIONS of times to the slashdot crowd and they always point out how those features are useless, misleading or done in other products but they forget the simple fact that Software is a Solution and as long as it solves your needs, fits your budget and is easy to use & integrate then it doesn't matter what other people think.

Too many times i get drilled down for all the wrong reasons, so if you can't find whats right with something on your own then what *I* say won't make any difference to you.

Not my fault this place is stacked with ignorant users.

For a list of features:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2007 [wikipedia.org]

As for streamlining our business, we use Microsoft CRM and our smaller offices uses Accounting 2007 Pro and tying everything together through Office 2k7 is easy as 1-2-3. We use services in Windows 2003, Windows Longhorne Server, SharePoint, Jboss Portal, and Jahia app server to tie things together, share files and publish services/data to our clients and extranet/intranet portals.

Users love it, thats all that we needed. Upgrade was a breeze and included as part of our services.

Re:I've already upgraded..

[kevcol (3467)]

"My point is, i've explained myself MILLIONS of times to the slashdot crowd"

But.. how?! You only have 1013 posts! :-)

Re:I've already upgraded..

[roger6106 (847020)]

But.. how?! You only have 1013 posts! :-)

It is possible to explain something more than once per post.

It is possible to explain something more than once per post.

It is possible to explain something more than once per post.

Re:I've already upgraded..

[hurting now (967633)]

Well, we researched the product, and while Office 2007 isn't a bad thing, its way too damn expensive. When we are looking to upgrade 125+ licenses, its going to cost us way more than any of us can justify, no matter how cool the options are. We are currently running Office 2000 and our next "upgrade" is, Open Office.

The reason to upgrade is simple and unavoidable

[goombah99 (560566)]

Eventually more and more customers and clients will send you documents encoded in MS format. You will need to not only read them but edit them and send them back. So far no one has ever been able to create a document in MS WOrd that is 100% platform interchangable. Even MS word on mac is in 100% compatible with ms word on PC, though it's pretty close, the page layouts shift subtly with tables and figures changing positions and dimensions.

Thus the only way you can work with other people's word documents is to own word. anything else as the parent points out is a waste of valuable time. the cost of word is negligible compared to your time

Re:The reason to upgrade is simple and unavoidable

[retrosteve (77918)]

Hypothetically, then what if Microsoft made a new version of Word or Excel that was so awful nobody wanted to pay for it, and didn't work as well as their previous version that all business people already had.

What would you say if you were one of those who didn't upgrade, for those reasons, and someone sent you an indecipherable document?

If this started happening often, and you felt pressured to buy the overpriced but useless software, would you blame the other users? Or Microsoft? Or "business"?

Actually that happened

[goombah99 (560566)]

In the mac world, word 6 actually had fewer features and was harder to use than mac word 5. the difference was that it was identical to the PC product. that is, they advanced the PC product to have features that were already in the mac product, and then regressesed and reskinned the mac product ot make it identical. I remember my extreme rage, shared by many, at this and vowen not to upgrade. Then after a month or so I got a critical contract application form in word 6. I could not read it in word 5 and had to buy word 6. so yes to your question.

Re:It's really no different than the previous upgr

[minus_273 (174041)]

oh come on, either talk about something you have a clue about or stop lying. you can download a little tool free from MS
here that lets you read new office 2007 files in older versions.

Re:It's really no different than the previous upgr

[peipas (809350)]

Compatibility Pack for 2007 File Formats [microsoft.com].

Also see Word Viewer 2003 [microsoft.com], Excel Viewer 2003 [microsoft.com], Visio 2002 Viewer [microsoft.com], Word 97/2000 Converter for Word 6 [microsoft.com], etc [microsoft.com].

Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement of closed formats; rather, an alternative for staying software version/vendor-independent.