Microsoft Office 2016 Public Preview Released 130
jones_supa writes: Back in March, Microsoft made Office 2016, the next release of the company's leading office suite, available to IT professionals to test and submit feedback on. At Microsoft's Ignite conference, CEO Satya Nadella announced that the public preview of Office 2016 has now been released as well. Office 2016 comes with a range of new features that build upon Office 2013. There is far more integration with cloud, allowing a user to access documents anywhere, and Outlook now syncs with OneDrive when sending large files. So called Smart Applications extend the functionality of Office, including Tell Me, a new search tool, and Clutter, which unclutters your inbox based on machine learning. Anyone can start testing the free Office 2016 Preview right now. Just as they have done with Windows 10, Microsoft is receiving open feedback on the product.
Moar Cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever I read "more cloud integration" or some other marketing crap like that my immediate thought is "How many people am I going to have to downgrade or switch to an Open alternative?"
Office 2003 is the last Microsoft Office suite I used and I could not be happier with my choice. The writing was on the wall when they went "ribbon" crazy.
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Re:Moar Cloud (Score:5, Interesting)
I like Office 2010. I actually like Ribbon, once getting over the learning curve. I've used some third party companies that implement Ribbon (eg: AutoCAD) that I found terrible.
In addition, I love how Excel 2007+ handles filters. Much easier to import data, and easily filter columns.
For me I haven't upgraded past Office 2010 for two reasons:
1) We use 2010 at work, so home-work consistency is a consideration
2) Microsoft is pushing subscription based 365 so hard, they limit some features in 2013, but not 365.
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Recurring Revenue Edition.
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Maybe they should roll the codebase back to the 2010 version and go on from there.
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Whenever I read "more cloud integration" or some other marketing crap like that my immediate thought is "How many people am I going to have to downgrade or switch to an Open alternative?"
Yes, this "cloud integration" thing is getting on my nerves; i understand that the "cloud" may be useful in some cases (personally i don't have any "cloud" use case), but the "integration" part is the dangerous thing because it may (as it is often the case now) mean "cloud ONLY" - unfortunately, this "switch to an Open alternative" is not an "alternative" option very often, not only because of the usual reasons that always existed, but also because the "Open alternatives" start to have... "more cloud integr
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I know of open office and libreoffice. I just found libreoffice a couple weeks ago as i needed to open an old microsoft works file and open office does not support them
This may be a very polite way for you to call me stupid (if that's the case, then thank you Sir!) for writting "the Open alternative (singular, because in reality is just only one!)", but i will insist: both are actually the same, "Libre Office" (which i use) is just few code commits ahead of "Open Office"... any civil war (yes, yes, i know, the "fork it" spirit... ok, ok...) is not something to be proud of!
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Yes, this "cloud integration" thing is getting on my nerves; i understand that the "cloud" may be useful in some cases (personally i don't have any "cloud" use case), but the "integration" part is the dangerous thing because it may (as it is often the case now) mean "cloud ONLY"
Where does it mean "cloud ONLY"? I've been using google docs for ages and the documents can always be made available offline and viewable in the app on my phone as well as on the desktop and downloaded and opened in libreoffice. The cloud part is for storage, collaboration and easier sharing, but you can do all of that in the offline (or non-cloud) way if you prefer.
not only because of the usual reasons that always existed
You mean format incompatibilities? I haven't seen any document that has any significant problems importing between MS Office, LibreOffice or Go
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Yes, this "cloud integration" thing is getting on my nerves; i understand that the "cloud" may be useful in some cases (personally i don't have any "cloud" use case), but the "integration" part is the dangerous thing because it may (as it is often the case now) mean "cloud ONLY"
Where does it mean "cloud ONLY"? I've been using google docs for ages and the documents can always be made available offline and viewable in the app on my phone as well as on the desktop and downloaded and opened in libreoffice. The cloud part is for storage, collaboration and easier sharing, but you can do all of that in the offline (or non-cloud) way if you prefer.
I was not referring specifically to (cloud) "office suites", but generally to "cloud services" (i did not made it clear, my fault!) that may (as i mentioned) become "cloud ONLY"
not only because of the usual reasons that always existed
You mean format incompatibilities? I haven't seen any document that has any significant problems importing between MS Office, LibreOffice or Google Docs, maybe years and years ago but not anymore. Have you actually got any examples (or instructions on how to create one)?
Again... i was not referring specifically to (cloud) "office suites", but generally to "cloud services" (i did not made it clear, my fault... again!).
but also because the "Open alternatives" start to have... "more cloud integration"!
What's wrong with "cloud integration"? If you don't like that feature then don't use that feature. Just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it.
Nothing wrong with the cloud, i agree with you: "If you don't like that feature then don't use that feature. Just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it.". What i meant was
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I was not referring specifically to (cloud) "office suites", but generally to "cloud services" (i did not made it clear, my fault!) that may (as i mentioned) become "cloud ONLY"
Yeah that's fine but you said "it may (as it is often the case now) mean "cloud ONLY"", that threw me. I'm not sure what products have added cloud integration and then become cloud only.
Again... i was not referring specifically to (cloud) "office suites", but generally to "cloud services" (i did not made it clear, my fault... again!).
Ok, maybe I'm on a different page on this to you but what are the usual reasons that prevent a move from cloud services to an open alternative?
What i meant was that i fear the "cloud ONLY integration" (yes, i know, i did not made it clear, my fault... again!!!)
So you mean not an addition of a cloud services feature but a removal of an existing feature then replaced with a cloud services only feature? I'm not sure I've seen such a thing happ
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I was not referring specifically to (cloud) "office suites", but generally to "cloud services" (i did not made it clear, my fault!) that may (as i mentioned) become "cloud ONLY"
Yeah that's fine but you said "it may (as it is often the case now) mean "cloud ONLY"", that threw me. I'm not sure what products have added cloud integration and then become cloud only.
Some (specialized) enterprise (software-as-a-service) applications that become "cloud ONLY" for no reason at all.
Again... i was not referring specifically to (cloud) "office suites", but generally to "cloud services" (i did not made it clear, my fault... again!).
Ok, maybe I'm on a different page on this to you but what are the usual reasons that prevent a move from cloud services to an open alternative?
Either because such (open or closed) alternatives don't exist (which is rare i admit), or more usually because changing -some major or even minor parts of- your enterprise infrastructure is not cost effective.
What i meant was that i fear the "cloud ONLY integration" (yes, i know, i did not made it clear, my fault... again!!!)
So you mean not an addition of a cloud services feature but a removal of an existing feature then replaced with a cloud services only feature?
Exactly that Sir.
I'm not sure I've seen such a thing happen but I suppose there's no reason it couldn't, though there's no reason a company couldn't just replace their program with a cloud-based one either, not really much you can do if they decide to do that.
Well, "the cloud" is good, "the cloud ONLY" (especially when becomes that way after you commit to an application) is baaad - even if alternatives to "the cloud ONLY" exist,
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Some (specialized) enterprise (software-as-a-service) applications that become "cloud ONLY" for no reason at all.
The concept of software-as-a-service is that it is cloud-based, I'm not sure what the differentiation is that you are making between SaaS and "cloud only". Perhaps if you specified the actual product(s) this would be clearer.
Either because such (open or closed) alternatives don't exist (which is rare i admit), or more usually because changing -some major or even minor parts of- your enterprise infrastructure is not cost effective.
What would you need to change in your enterprise infrastructure to accommodate a non-cloud alternative to a non-cloud product over a migration to a cloud only product that would be cost ineffective? You are obviously referring to something specific so perhaps specifying exactly what you
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Some (specialized) enterprise (software-as-a-service) applications that become "cloud ONLY" for no reason at all.
The concept of software-as-a-service is that it is cloud-based, I'm not sure what the differentiation is that you are making between SaaS and "cloud only".
No differentiation, i just misplaced the "(software-as-a-service)"... and i missed a (fucking!) coma after the "applications", and better change "become" to "became" (i am struggling with my English - see my sig!)
Perhaps if you specified the actual product(s) this would be clearer.
I am not in the field (as you are from what i understand), so i can not name products: a (custom) ERP (SAP based i think) that is used from small-medium businesses in Greece, some internal public sector's (health/tax) services that went "on the cloud", etc.
Either because such (open or closed) alternatives don't exist (which is rare i admit), or more usually because changing -some major or even minor parts of- your enterprise infrastructure is not cost effective.
What would you need to change in your enterprise infrastructure to accommodate a non-cloud alternative to a non-cloud product over a migration to a cloud only product that would be cost ineffective? You are obviously referring to something specific so perhaps specifying exactly what you mean is better than talking in generalities it isn't making much sense.
I am not making much sense because i don't
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No differentiation, i just misplaced the "(software-as-a-service)"... and i missed a (fucking!) coma after the "applications", and better change "become" to "became" (i am struggling with my English - see my sig!)
Ok.
I am not in the field (as you are from what i understand), so i can not name products: a (custom) ERP (SAP based i think) that is used from small-medium businesses in Greece, some internal public sector's (health/tax) services that went "on the cloud", etc.
If it's a custom ERP then why did the customer have the vendor move it to the cloud if they didn't want to? The whole point of custom software is that it is customized for the customer and does exactly what they want it to do.
I am not making much sense because i don't really know the subject (!)... at all (especially about the "cloud" issue)! But generally, as a former (non software) business owner, that was very dependent on IT, i can say that changing -some major or even minor parts of- your enterprise infrastructure is really problematic.
You shouldn't have to change your IT infrastructure in any significant way just to run a different (alternative) program.
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I am not in the field (as you are from what i understand), so i can not name products: a (custom) ERP (SAP based i think) that is used from small-medium businesses in Greece, some internal public sector's (health/tax) services that went "on the cloud", etc.
If it's a custom ERP then why did the customer have the vendor move it to the cloud if they didn't want to? The whole point of custom software is that it is customized for the customer and does exactly what they want it to do.
Greece is a small market, where: a) small-medium businesses are in the mercy of the few software businesses that customize the ERP of my example and provide the IT services in bulk b) the public sector (the biggest IT services consumer by far) has an (not so bad) internal office that develops services/software, but usually force it's "customers" (other public sector branches AND some private sector businesses, e.g., pharmacies, accountants, who cooperate with the public sector) to what it thinks it is right
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Hey Old Timer,
2010+ with ribbon is much better than 2003.
Sincerely,
Guy Making More Money Than You
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your making more or less money than him has no bearing on the merits of the office suite each of you use.
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2010+ with ribbon is much better than 2003.
The ribbon still sucks. Yes, it made things I use all the time slightly handier, however that came at the cost of it being much harder to find things I use less often.
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You're missing out on Excel pivot tables. That is one hell of a big selling point for versions >= 2007.
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chances are your company has SQL or Cognos or Oracle or something similar and will have that functionality
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You're missing out on Excel pivot tables. That is one hell of a big selling point for versions >= 2007.
Microsoft Excel introduced pivot tables in version 5.0 released in 1995. So yes they do keep making improvements pivot tables in each version (up to and including Power Pivots [office.com] as an add-on for 2010 and included in 2013), but no you do "miss out" on pivot tables at all.
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I retract my original statement, and revise it to "Pivot tables became a lot more user-friendly in Excel 2007." Many users simply did not know the functionality was even there prior to that version.
I think that statement is also false. By "many users", you really just mean you.
Instead of Insert Ribbon->PivotTable in Excel 2013, the 2003 version used Data Menu->Pivot Table and Pivot Chart Report. Not really different at all.
Once you are in the function, the later version has a nicer interface, but the old one is still workable. I think the difference that you have found between the old and new version was that you had a need and an understanding of pivot tables as you matured and used Excel rathe
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That Ribbon was most likely introduced simply to distinguish the look and feel from free Office apps, particularly Open/LibreOffice. That's right, I think it's more marketing gimmick than UI innovation. It's not completely hideous - the Ribbon can be hidden, after all. What sucks about 2007 onward is what they TOOK AWAY from 2003. Yes, the toolbars could get messy under 2003, but that's because they were so customizable. Office 2003 even came with a little icon editor to make your own buttons and assig
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>> Ribbon was most likely introduced simply to distinguish the look and feel from free Office apps, particularly Open/LibreOffice. That's right, I think it's more marketing gimmick than UI innovation
Not exactly, but you're close. To use the ribbon, you have to freely license it from Microsoft...and promise that you won't use it in an Office clone. So...it's an IP shield as much as it's a UI paradigm.
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Not exactly, but you're close. To use the ribbon, you have to freely license it from Microsoft...and promise that you won't use it in an Office clone. So...it's an IP shield as much as it's a UI paradigm.
Those sneaky bastards. Thanks muchly for the clarification. Henceforth I'll be thinking how we benefit Microsoft's precious IP as we re-acclimate our organization around this wonderful ribbon.
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Our workflow depends on a lot of macros
How unfortunate. I'm sorry.
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I too find horrible that they're going in the direction of less customization. It seems they want to be like Apple and are copying the worst things of them (e.g. the little customization). They also invent new horrible ideas of their own like making apps with and interface that's not touch nor desktop but in-between and claiming they're as good as specfic interfaces for each UI paradigm (which of course are not)
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Buying software is like buying a car. You buy it for your needs. Open office and equivalent are great and they offer a basic feature set that suits most users at home and many users in business like environments. Last I checked it has macro support and many other minor extensions to expand it's feature set.
Then you have those who need to extend the basic functionality or integrate it with their services. MS Office offers a huge lineup of integration with its own product as well as products developed by 3rd
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I don't mind ribbon. It's pretty good in many ways, though I think getting to any of the advanced options (options open up a separate dialog box) is inconsistent and otherwise unintuitive. This aspect is more like Windows 8 charms, where it seems the advanced options UI just didn't get done in time. But for the basic operations, "ribbon" is basically a glorified toolbar that holds more than your usual UI widgets. If anything, I'd rather they go all-in with ribbon and entirely do away with the separate dialo
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I still use 2000 SR3 at home. I also have OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
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Eh, no talk stink! I turn 65 next month. And I've gone through more adaptation than most people our age. I'm now on my fifth favorite programming language (FORTRAN, Pascal, Lisp, Prolog, now Python; that doesn't count my unfavorite programming languages, like C, or my more exotic languages, like lexc/xfst and sfst.)
That doesn't mean I have to like changes, when there's no good reason for them. Menus just work fine for me, and they are written with alphabetic words, not hieroglyphics, thank you. (If I c
I thought office 365 was going to be the last one. (Score:1)
Re: I thought office 365 was going to be the last (Score:2, Informative)
Office 365 is the name of the subscription service. The major updates/non-subscription products are still named the same as in the past (Office 365 is currently based on Office 2013).
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You know software as a service and all that?
It was only good for 365 days - right there in the name...
Windows 7 eol (Score:2, Interesting)
Since Windows 7 is not actively developed anymore and is in extended security only support does this mean office 2016 will require an OS designed for tablets?
Re:Windows 7 eol (Score:4, Informative)
No, it's apparently compatible with Windows 7 or later [computerworld.com]. Remember, Office is targeted at business, and most businesses are still using Windows 7, and will be for a considerable time to come.
Microsoft will apparently screw around with consumers by doing things like not back-porting DirectX to older operating systems, but they're not going to risk sales of their bread-and-butter products by unnecessarily tying them to only their newest operating systems.
BTW, I certainly wouldn't consider Windows 10 to be an "OS designed for tablets". I'm a big critic of Windows 8, but Windows 10 has pretty much fixed all that I hated about 8, except for how hideous it looks (IMO).
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No, it's apparently compatible with Windows 7 or later [computerworld.com]. Remember, Office is targeted at business, and most businesses are still using Windows 7, and will be for a considerable time to come.
Indeed. As a datapoint from the past, XP mainstream support ended April 14, 2009. Office 2010 was released June 15, 2010 and still supported Windows XP. XP was so wildly popular in businesses at the time, it would be stupid to not support XP on Office 2010.
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1. The dual control panels thing has just gotten worse, the new one truly sucking.
2. The lack of sizing/coloring of interface widgets like the windows classic interface allowed. (without hacks)
3. the breaking of ddraw calls for the sake of their dwm (which needn't be the case).
windows 10 has turned into windows 8.1 with a half assed start menu. They still don't get it. I still have to use a half dozen hacks (disableDWM,borderfix), along with a bunch of shims from application compatibility toolkit, to main
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No, it's apparently compatible with Windows 7 or later [computerworld.com]. Remember, Office is targeted at business, and most businesses are still using Windows 7, and will be for a considerable time to come.
I believe that's going to change, drastically. Microsoft's path with Windows 10 (free updates from Windows => 7, as long as you do it within a year of release) is going to drive the fastest corporate OS migrations ever--for better, or for worse.
I know we're planning for it. It scares the hell out of us, but the incentive to move forward is so powerful there really isn't any other viable path.
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Honestly, I don't think Windows 7 -> Windows 10 will be nearly as bad as between Windows XP -> Windows Vista. Windows has been fairly stable under the hood since Vista - the driver model has stayed the same, the internal APIs are fairly similar with only minor additions, and there hasn't been a significant uptick in hardware requirements.
What I think businesses (and many users) hated in Windows 8 was the radically re-designed UI, but as far as I know, there were very few reports of technical incompat
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Says the guy that won't even put a pseudonym behind what he has to say.
I've got some news for you, AC: just because someone expresses a viewpoint you happen to disagree with doesn't make them a shill. I've been a UNIX user since the 80s, a Linux user since 94 or so, a postfix and sendmail admin for over fifteen years, and helped run a dozen MMOs back when they had text interface and were called MUDs. GPL beats BSD, vi beats Emacs, and my windows desktop runs Xming so I can do real work from time to time.
W
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Only a frothing, maladjusted man-child would post garbage like that. Irritating, I know, but it's best to just ignore the trash.
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Really? I've still got people that won't let go of XP, and even the keenest MS users in the place are planning to wait a bit to see if it's going to be another Vista or Win8. That's only one place but it may represent a trend.
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Really? I've still got people that won't let go of XP, and even the keenest MS users in the place are planning to wait a bit to see if it's going to be another Vista or Win8. That's only one place but it may represent a trend.
You do raise an excellent point, but MS has never put "free" behind one of their upgrade efforts before, and Win 7 is already out of mainstream support. NOBODY wants to go through another migration at this point (XP-32 -> 7-64 was a massive effort, and many of us are still recovering from the hangover) but I think this is really a "get on the bus, or get left behind" moment.
People with the buying power will probably beat on Microsoft to give them more time and delay, but in the SMB space, it's going to
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Sure, it's going to get harder over time to but Win7, but unless Win10 shows some major improvements (eg. Win7 giving properly supported 64bit so access to a bit more memory encouraged people off XP) I think there a
The old DirectX redists are dead (Score:2)
The old DirectX redists are dead and has been since Vista introduced WDDM, though the Platform Updates backports some things.
Cloud integration and security (Score:2, Insightful)
"There is far more integration with cloud, allowing a user to access documents anywhere, and Outlook now syncs with OneDrive when sending large files."
Access documents how? Can they save them anywhere they want? Do I really want to open access to OneDrive for attachments?
Too many security questions when it comes to these cloud features. And too many stupid users to allow them unfettered access to company information. I wish that owner's son could grasp that concept.
I'd just be happy with... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd just be happy with an announcement that the online Office 365 apps would finally get the features they need to quit making them toys (and forcing everyone to download docs to local Office apps anyway).
Second to that would be an option in Office 365 to default to "yes, when I opened the document, put me in f***ing editing mode by default." Hell, call it the "Google Docs" mode if you want.
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+1 to this. Having to switch into edit mode to work on every single document that someone sends me is annoying.
Clutter tool (Score:5, Funny)
She continued further, "Using Microsoft product means you save so much on retraining you employees on the office products they use daily. All the years of experience will continue to pay off".
Why were IT professionals the beta? (Score:1)
Wouldn't it make more sense to have users be the testers? The ones who use the products all freakin' day long? What do IT people know about how the product is used by the masses?
Oh wait. Microsoft. They don't care what the consumers really want. They want to look cool. Double fail.
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So go get the preview and then comment back. Any feedack is better than none.
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Feedback is only good if it's listened to. As we have already seen with the demise of Visual Basic 6, the ribbon of Office 2007, the colors of Office 2013, and the not-desktop-or-start-menu of Windows 8.0, Microsoft does not listen to feedback.
Who the hell was screaming to keep VB6 around? Even the VB programmers I know almost universally hate it.
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Wouldn't it make more sense to have users be the testers? The ones who use the products all freakin' day long? What do IT people know about how the product is used by the masses?
Oh wait. Microsoft. They don't care what the consumers really want. They want to look cool. Double fail.
Because IT professionals are typically geeks that will mess with betas and put up with crashes and stuff. They would want betas to pass such higher level stability testing before giving it to users.
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Wouldn't it make more sense to have users be the testers? The ones who use the products all freakin' day long? What do IT people know about how the product is used by the masses?
Oh wait. Microsoft. They don't care what the consumers really want. They want to look cool. Double fail.
Do you point your desktop Linux users (okay, so I'm kidding) toward the bleeding edge/preview yum repos? No? Then why harp on MS for aiming their previews at IT people rather than end users?
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Hmm, I have already been using Office 2016 for a few weeks.
That's Softmaker Office 2016 (www.softmaker.com) however, which to me is like an updated Microsoft Office 2003. I don't want to start a flamewar but I hate ribbons. Softmaker gives me regular menus and toolbars and is exceedingly compatible with the Microsoft Office files.
I've found, since as far back as Softmaker 2008, that Softmaker makes a much more stable, higher performance "Office Clone" than Open/Libre Office or anyone else.
Softmaker even makes their previous version Free to use (for personal or business use): http://www.freeoffice.com/en/ [freeoffice.com]
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I've done back-end and end-user support for 15 years.
For at least five of those years, the machines I used myself only had Open/LibreOffice on them.
It wasn't a hindrance.
As I say to my users all the time: No, I only manage this stuff. I don't know how to use every obscure feature of every random bit of junk that you've made me install, nor what your working practice usually involves. I'll help and advise, sure, but that rarely consists of more than a Google for "where the hell is the X button in the new
Still the "best" office suite. (Score:2)
It may be a little tragic. Microsoft, may be hated, but it's still by far the best (or standard) office suite. We should actually be happy they're still selling the old standalone office without price hikes (Adobe don't seem to be doing that anymore with the Creative Suite). Heck, now they're freely offering almost fully functional multiplataform versions of office for phones and tablets. Nowadays, it's actually believable that some day they may actually release a working Office Suite for Linux.
Sure you ca
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You know what? You ("you" in the sense of "everyone out there") can use anything you want, anything you like, anything that works for you. It doesn't affect me all that much. I'll continue with Linux, LibreOffice, LaTeX, EMACS, Gimp, TaskJuggler, and all the other freeware that works just fine for me. There's symmetry here: That doesn't affect you all that much, either.
There's room in computerland for all of us. We don't need religious wars, we can all just worship in the manner of our choosing.
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It sounds like you work for Microsoft. I'm not accusing you of being a shill or anything, your post just sounds like it was written by a marketing department attempting to sell Office to the /. crowd.
There was a time when I had to fire up Office because of various formatting quirks or whatever, especially when it came to Excel, but it's been a long time since that's happened. If you believe that LibreOffice isn't good enough for 99% of users out there then I doubt you've used it recently. Using the Gimp/Pho
Re: LibreOffice is still free (Score:1)
LibreOffice being the only viable alternative is a good reason just to use Word right off the bat.
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LibreOffice being the only viable alternative is a good reason just to use Word right off the bat.
Softmaker office [softmaker.com]
And their previous version [freeoffice.com] (for free, even for business)
Gives Open/Libre Office a good run for their money.
Is Clippy back? (Score:1)
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Cortany?
Too bad you can't embed images in slashdot posts, otherwise this would be a great time to use the "The most evil thing I can imagine" meme. :)
Office 97 (Score:1)
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Depends what you do. Office 97 was horrible by today's standard as it didn't deal with many content types which made creating marketing documents a nightmare. Open Office is fine but it too has it's limitations. As I stated in an earlier post, you can't put all users in the same basket, if you could then MS wouldn't sell any office software.
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I find it horrible too, basically because the interface is so fucking ugly, with three pale, bland colour schemes to choose from (blinding white, light grey and a slightly darker light grey). PLUS THE MENU ITEMS SHOUT AT YOU
If they made it nicer to look at and not so flat looking, I might be tempted to use it
Clutter Works Well (so far) (Score:2)
My organization recently migrated to Office365, including Exchange / Outlook 365.
I was impressed with Outlook 365 OWA (outlook.office365.com). My initial thought was that having the entire infrastructure presented through a single portal is a recipe for disaster. Yet as soon as I type in the @company.com portion of my email address, it re-directs to our own authentication infrastructure (Ping in our case). None the less, I am sure that there are people working night and day trying to figure out how to Mi
no thanks (Score:1)
So you're saying it has absolutely no application to any business that wants any level of privacy or Microsoft account management and access control. Great marketing plan.
The important questions (Score:2)
Forget all the cloud crap. What I need to know is:
1. Is there finally a ModernUI (Metro) version of Office?
2. Does Outlook 2016 finally do Caldav?
3. Does Lync finally "not suck?"
The Astroturf singularity (Score:2)
We're approaching it.