The Microsoft Office Rental Program 432
LWATCDR writes "Yes, it looks like Microsoft is going to a rental program for Office.
From the article,
'The software bundle, which also includes Microsoft's Live OneCare computer security software, will be sold at nearly 700 Circuit City stores for $70 per year.'
Well I for one will be happy to stick with OpenOffice for now. From Microsoft's point of view it means a constant flow of money. For the customer it means you only have to pay a little each year instead of a lot every few years. I don't think this will save the average user any money and I wonder about problems with 'activation.'
So will this fly, or will it give a big push to OpenOffice?
A "lot" every few years (Score:5, Insightful)
The version of Office that is more than enough for most people (Excel/Word/Powerpoint and OneNote... is there an open source equivalent of OneNote that is roughly as good, btw?) is far from a "lot". Its 140-150$ for 3 licenses. (it does have limitations though, so often you'll want open office, but its still not "a lot").
Keep in mind this subscription thing is also that: 70$/year for 3 licenses + support.
Re:A "lot" every few years (Score:5, Interesting)
The support thing is key. Like it or not, MS is going to be in the support business big time and needs to find ways to profit from support that are simple, easy and cheap for the end user. Hell, 90% of the time all they need to do is put someone on the phone that understands how to use the software and that's all. Software can be free but on-demand support will always cost you.
Re:A "lot" every few years (Score:5, Informative)
Open Source Onenote?
Yes, one you don't have to download, and one you do.
On Linux: Basket Notepads
On windows: Zoho Notebook (no software required for that one)
Re:A "lot" every few years (Score:4, Insightful)
Open Source Onenote?
Yes, one you don't have to download, and one you do.
On Linux: Basket Notepads
I was thinking cat on Linux. You know, like:
Some may accuse me of being overly simplistic, but I'm not convinced that one would actually need much more than that to take notes. And, if one needs a more structure, it can be done with such mad features as a hierarchical filesystem. One even gets such features as full searchability (grep -ri ~/notes contract).
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Well,
it makes perfect sense for just text
but OneNote allows clipboard copying and stuff like that. Just writing text we have notepad and equivalent in linux.
Basket really does keep up with everything OneNote can do and zoho does too.
Sometimes people need visual notes, etc etc. To me some of the features are just "unnecessary" as well.
Re:A "lot" every few years (Score:5, Informative)
I'll go so far as to say that Freemind should be standard issue for every student.
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The fact that its made to take notes... its organized in a folder hierarchy, you can put anything anywhere, and it is made to clip and paste stuff (for example, if I copy paste a random HTML table from a web site into a word processor, it will be ugly as hell, while in OneNote it will be nicely formatted and can be put anywhere).
It is used to make arrangements of clips and clippings, scribble with a tablet PC or a wacom or something, hand writing recognition (and its -really- good...). You can even record v
Re:A "lot" every few years (Score:4, Informative)
Ah, you probably wanted something for Windows... tough luck. Or maybe there is something.
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I've been using NeoOffice for about a year now since I went Mac for personal computing, and am, overall, quite content. Compatibility with Office documents created on my PC is quite good and I don't see me buying another copy of Office ever. Or renting it, for that matter.
My only problem is finding a database that does what I want it to do. Creating the structures in MySQL or anything else isn't a problem, I can't find something that will give me card layout power like I had in Access. You see, I design
Re:A "lot" every few years (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that for some people 150 dollars isn't a lot. Certainly not the 70 dollar rental scheme.
I happen to live in Arkansas, an "economically depressed" area. Wages aren't even a fraction of what you see in New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles.
People raising families think that 150 bucks IS a lot of money.
If that doesn't convince you, consider all the people outside the United States. There are people in this world who don't see 150 dollars in hard cold cash in a MONTH.
That is one of the driving forces behind open source (and piracy too,for that matter), after all. A hundred dollars IS a lot of money to a large majority of the people on this earth.
If I had 150 dollars or more to spend on an OS even before I could consider spending another 150 bucks on an office suite, I would send that money to an open source developer rather than a greedy corporation like Microsoft.
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I know I may well get modded down for this, I just wan
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Except that Microsoft's mission statment is something like "help people and businesses achieve their full potential." Ignoring people in economically depressed areas because they don't have enough money would seem to be in direct conflict with that mission statement.
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"You got some nice documents there. It would be a shame if you cannot access them anymore."
I think this will be good for OpenOffice.org!
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You should look at getting eOpen volume licenses - only one key to have to track.
https://eopen.microsoft.com/EN/default.asp [microsoft.com]
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Never even heard of that program... thanks!
But... are you aware that you made a helpful relevant post on slashdot? You were supposed to tell me to convert all the computers to BSD and make them use Open Office.
It's just a matter of time (Score:5, Funny)
Of course so does a pirated copy of MS Office.
Re:It's just a matter of time (Score:5, Insightful)
Essentially then, the decision making surface area is increased, giving more chance for OpenOffice to gain traction, and more incentive for potential licensee's to pursue other options.
I think they shot themselves in the foot with this one, but then I'm not the marketing genius that came up with it.
Educational version for home use = $150... (Score:2)
3 years subscribing: $210.00
Any questions?
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3 years subscribing: $210.00 Any questions?
Yes - what is your point?
apples & oranges (Score:2)
now factor in anti-virus over three years..
210-150= 60$
$60/3=20
so 20$ a year gets antivirus.. (not my choice of antivirus, but still)
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Well now it'll be every year that people consider whether to 'invest' in Microsoft Office, rather than every few years and generally with a new computer purchase.
Essentially then, the decision making surface area is increased, giving more chance for OpenOffice to gain traction, and more incentive for potential licensee's to pursue other options.
I think they shot themselves in the foot with this one, but then I'm not the marketing genius that came up with it.
The problem is retail distribution - CC et. al. get paid to push MS; and getting nothing for OO or NeoOffice. Guess what they will do?
While we here are familiar with OSS alternatives (and I use NeoOffice as well as GIMP); most people have no idea what OSS is, let alone how to get it and set it up.
Take NeoOffice on the Mac - when I set it up it defaulted to saving file sin its format; which Office couldn't open. I *knew* what the problem was and fixed it; but the average user will only see that Aunt Sally
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I would assume that "home use" is a fraction of the business market--I don't have hard figures, but I'd be surprised if home installs of MS Office equals 10% of the market.
Sorry, I should have specified--legitimate home installs, not counting pirated copies. But of course, no one here knows about pirated software. :D
Thank goodness for WGA (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's still not hard to pirate MSO.
Geek - Pirate Bay > Search:"MS Office Cracked" > Download > Install
Non-Geek - Find Geek > Have Him/Her install it
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OpenOffice works, yes, but if you need to create MSOffice documents would you trust OO? I've tried saving my resume in MSWord 97 format but when I bring it up in the real MSWord it doesn't look as it did in OO. If I didn't have a copy of Word as well I wouldn't have known the difference and would have been sending out crappy looking resumes. For me, this is where the rubber meets the road; until OO's compatibility (of Word's main features) is perfect, or many more people start accepting OO documents, OO
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Export as PDF. View in Adobe to verify correctness.
Surely employers don't need the ability to edit your resume?!?
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If only it were that easy. Every time I've sent my resume to a recruiter in PDF format they've asked me to send it again as a Word doc.
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That's why openoffice comes with that handy "Export to PDF" option.
Exactly. I needed pdf export in my organization, and the only way our IT dept were able to support my request was through a ~$150 install of an adobe suite - which was charged to my cost center.
I'd like to see my organization switch to OO.o, but with 10,000 users and centralized IT management ivory tower - it's like pushing excrement up an incline with a pointed bar.
Re:It's just a matter of time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's just a matter of time (Score:4, Informative)
but OpenOffice is still slow, huge, and somewhat more buggy.
Slow? Definitely slower start... much slower. Like 10x longer to start. However, once it's started, it's just as "fast" as Office. This is my biggest and only real criticism of OpenOffice.
Huge? Honestly, I've not looked at a size comparison. But I'll do one right now by opening a blank page in MSWord and OOWriter... 13,320k for Word, and 46,716k for Writer. Yup, much larger. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that every OO program is sort of bundled together as one application. Or so it feels.
Buggy? I find the opposite true. I still have endless formatting issues with Word and I still see endless formatting issues from co-workers and family. People who loose Word documents because something went screwy and the backup failed or someone who just can't get Word to format a page correctly, resorting to copy/pasting into notepad and then starting a new document to remove all formatting. I've never had that problem with OO.
A small price to pay for "free" and at least OO updates more than MSO.
Re:It's just a matter of time (Score:5, Informative)
Careful with those comparisons.
How much of MSWord is loaded at boot time as part of the "operating system"? That will make it seem to load faster and use less memory, because it has hidden large parts of itself in other places.
OO.org used to have a "pre-load" option that should make the two equivalent, at least in the loading time.
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Re:It's just a matter of time (Score:4, Informative)
in comparison to Office, it's still slow to startup
OpenOffice Beta 3 launches twice as fast for me ever since I turned off it's use of Java. Uncheck "Use Java runtime environment" in the preferences. I haven't found a feature that I needed yet which requires it.
Bloat issue (Score:5, Informative)
As a side note, the startup process has improved enough that I don't bother with the TSR on newer machines but for the very impatient it's a nice feature to turn on. Give the latest OO.o a spin and see what you think. It's still not fancy but it's a great workhorse, gets the job done, and is free. What more could you want?
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I'd say that recent versions are bloated, but they are bloated in the same way MSOffice is (that is, removing that bloat would make it less equivalent).
The big difference is that OOffice offers to not bloat your whole system when it's not in use unless you choose that bloat in exchange for a faster startup.
Re:Bloat issue (Score:5, Insightful)
It's astonishing how tripe like this continues to get modded up on Slashdot. First, modern 32-bit preemptive OSs don't do "TSRs". Secondly, Office hasn't had a startup helper [microsoft.com] since Office 2003. (OSA.EXE is still there but individual Office apps run it when they need to).
Also, it's pretty pathetic to see the TSR excuse trotted out to defend OO.o's slowness -- it's pretty much the same excuses we heard when Seamonkey came out, i.e., ooh, Microsoft uses "s3kr3t" tricks to make IE faster. Today, Firefox starts pretty fast, thanks to extensive tuning and optimisation and no-one needs that excuse any more. What the OO.o guys should do is take a page from Mozilla.com's book and improve their own engineering.
> It's still not fancy but it's a great workhorse, gets the
> job done, and is free.
When I need something that's not fancy and is free, I'll use Google Docs, thank you very much. Or (for offline) Abiword. Simply saying "try OO.o because it's not MSO" isn't helpful. Note that this is exactly like Seamonkey/Firefox: Seamonkey didn't get wide adoption because it was slow and unwieldly. Firefox gave users the same engine in a slimmer browser, and surprise surprise, it became very popular.
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Unfortunately, the version of Office (Home and Student) that is included with Equipt does not include Outlook either.
Which is a damn shame, because Outlook is a nicer client than Thunderbird.
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Unfortunately, the version of Office (Home and Student) that is included with Equipt does not include Outlook either.
Which is a damn shame, because Outlook is a nicer client than Thunderbird.
I used Outlook as my primary client for about five years - and hated it most of the time. The interface is very heavy and noisy: too many buttons, menu options, and visual controls that I don't want to use. The contact list didn't work well or reliably, nor did the filtering. Even checking email was a pain in the ass: o
Paying for unnecessary upgrades... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Either that or Office '97/2K. I'm really not sure why most individuals upgrade from Office 2K, anyway.
Re:Paying for unnecessary upgrades... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, Office 97 is adequate IMO, but when you buy in new machines they often come with newer versions of office, so those with 97 start whining because their interface isn't as shiny, or features like shared email folders are harder to access. Or, worse, they actually need a newer version to cope with the files that those with newer versions are churning out. Yes you can save to older formats, but most people will just regard that as a PITA, especially when it comes to things like PST files..
If someone came up with a good free shared email/calendar alternative to Outlook then that would be awesome. I meant to try out the latest version of thunderbird, still haven't got around to it.. basically Exchange and Outlook are quite a good solution. I definitely don't want to get rid of Exchange right now as it means road warriors can easily access their email through their phones without having to deal with Crapberry network issues all the time etc, but if Outlook was dethroned then OpenOffice would be a very viable solution for a lot of our desktops. And that also means that Linux would be quite viable in some cases too :) I can dream at least..
Thankfully only 2 of our machines have been ordered with Vista so far - one by our MD, and one by an insubordinate IT assistant who needed a multimedia spec machine for presentations, and it doesn't even work for it - why do Dell laptops always seem to have strange problems with projectors??. If MS keep forcing Vista on businesses then I'd make a concerted effort to replace as many of our machines as possible with FOSS alternatives though, rather than having to get Volume licensing stuff for all new machines just so that we can downgrade. And that's only if drivers are even available for the newer stuff - for some new Dells like the one I mentioned, you can't! Perhaps there are some hacked drivers out there that will allow me to 'downgrade' it though..
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Actually, with the new Office apps it's not. We're almost entirely WinXP but a few Vista machines have crept in lately - mine is one of them. By default of course Office saves to the new format - but I've only had to tell Excel once, and now every new workbook is created in 'Compatibility Mode', and saved as
Re:Paying for unnecessary upgrades... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with this model is that not everyone needs constant upgrades. At our office, we still you Office '97 because it does everything we need. If we are forced to pay every year for unnecessary upgrades, I believe that Open Office will be in our future.
The question is whether you're paying rent or for upgrades. I know most companies lease assets, rent services and so on instead of buying. Even things that they need all the time, because they got a professional supplier that is good at what they do and charge a reasonable price, it's got nothing to do with upgrades as such. It's the difference between say a company with a leasing agreement for company cars, and you buying a car and saying "Well we still use our '97 model car because it does everything we need." The model has already been used to deliver software as a service and works in some areas.
The reason I think this is a rotten idea is that Microsoft is very dominant in office software. Rental agreements are a very simple way of making sure you get money each and every year as long as people use it, even if there's little to no innovation. The whole advantage to the consumer, and the reason there's usually some premium, is that you're not that committed. End the rental agreement, sign on someone else. In a market completely dominated by Microsoft, where's the advantage?
The advantage is... (Score:2)
I think you answered your
Re:Paying for unnecessary upgrades... (Score:5, Funny)
At our office, we still you Office '97 because it does everything we need.
Did you use Word 97's grammar check whilst writing this post? :-)
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Did you use Word 97's grammar check whilst writing this post? :-)
LOL, very clever! If I could, I'd mod you up! I tend to type too fast and sometimes my mind and fingers aren't in synch...
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Or in sync. /ducks
Bad description... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is more along the lines of, "this means MSFT can tax the consumer every year instead of the consumer using the same copy of Office they've been using since 97 or 2000 which still works just fine."
Mod parent +5 insightful (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're absolutely correct.
This move, IMHO, has at least three major drivers:
1. Continuous revenue stream (as noted before). They know that a certain percentage will stay with them no matter what, especially businesses. They'll most likely offer reduced-per-copy licenses for corporations to keep Office as the standard.
2. "Forced" upgrades. Remember, every person who is using an older version of Office is keeping an older file format alive. That older file format being out there gives Open Source applications more time to be compatible, thus deluting MS's hold on the "Office" market.
3. "Bragging rights" What? Yes. Just like Vista's supposed sales popularity (because MS forced OEMs to install only Vista after a certain date) has been used to tout Vista as being wildly successful (even though every person I know who has ever used Vista _hates_ it), I strongly suspect that this will also be used to brag about how the new version of "Office" is so "popular" and so much "better", in an attempt to FUD about Open Office and other free applications that can do the essentials.
Because so many companies are convinced that "Office" is the only way to go, I am afraid that this will work.
As a university professor, I've already started insisting that students not use Office 2007's docx format. It's easy enough for me, because I tell them if I can't read it, I can't grade it. Once newer versions of office can't produce backward-compatible formats, I'll insist on PDFs or other open formats. I'm only one professor, but I suspect that I will not be alone in this. Beside, our university actively encourages the use of Open Office. Once I find a version that actually works on OS X (instead of crashes all of the time) I'll encourage the use of Open Office with my students, too.
Re:Mod parent +5 insightful (Score:5, Informative)
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PDF is ISO 32000 [theinquirer.net]. It's not just an open format, it's an open standard.
More affordable up front ... (Score:2)
This will make Office more affordable for the average person, even if it is more expensive in the long term. Not so hard to plonk down $70 for a 3-computer license the first year. Cheaper than a mobile phone contract as well.
Shame that OneCare is supposed to be rather awful.
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Only in that way people have that gets them in to huge debt where they think "I can't afford $Y now, so instead I'll pay three, four, five or more times $Y over a period of time, making it far more in reality but less in my mind because each individual number is smaller".
I'm just glad I'm on OpenOffice already, even at work. Not that MS Office tends to be part of a Linux install anyway!
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One thing that I think is overlooked is that this is not Office at $70/year, it is Office + AV for $70/year.
Last I looked (which admittedly was 3 or 4 years ago), Norton wanted annual renewals of $40 for their AV suite, and Windows users have it hammered into them that they MUST keep their AV software up to date.
Looked at that way, the incremental cost of having Office is $30/year on top of what they would spend on Anti-virus.
Why its just pennies a day...
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Why (Score:3, Funny)
The "thrifty" market (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure that's me, and I use Google docs. It's a natural since I have never bought my own printer in twenty years. When I need to print something, I do it at work, or the public library or Kinko's. So tell me why I'd pay $70 per year for Word?
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Well, I used to run into huge arguments with my old boss over this kind of reasoning. When you are doing product positioning, you can't use your own experience and preference as a guide, unless you plan to sell to exclusively to people who have exactly your own background and personality.
You don't print very much -- nor do I. But if you were a sales guy, you'd be doing lots of quotes; granted many come by email but you often need it "in writing". If you were a lawyer, you'd need to print contracts. Wh
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Which again makes me feel that it's utterly hilarious that Microsoft wants you to pay for something that corrects defects in their other software that you already bought.
They used to charge you for reporting bugs to them as well.
Mind you, so did almost every other software company.
OpenOffice.org, does renting work?, and old news (Score:5, Interesting)
http://openoffice.org/ [openoffice.org] has already been mentioned heaps of times. I won't bother saying anything more about it.
This is old news, Microsoft has been wanting to rent software for ages.
Two types of customer. The home user is used to renting software such as Virus Checkers and the like. Yes, it isn't really renting as such, but whatever. Microsoft really just needs to convince them that it's a good deal, and they are done. However, considering that many people don't have access to broadband (yes, not everyone lives in a city, and some people are still too poor to pay even if they can access it), I wonder how they will distribute the updates. Actually, do you get to keep the software when you stop paying? Previously it stopped working (you could only view the documents). Is that such a great thing for home customers?
Business customers would probably love this though. At least some of them. Pay less, always get the latest version. Except they got screwed over with something like this before already, they didn't actually get a new version for ages (I can't remember the details).
Oh yeah, one final thought, what about setting up your own server to pretend to be the MS server and say, "yes, you're a legit copy" to any software that queries it? And/or introduce a crack into the system so that it doesn't shut down?
still using office 2003 and happy (Score:3, Insightful)
I see absolutely no reason to update from office 2003.
If Microsoft start down the 'future versions won't open your files' crap then I'll jump ship to OpenOffice. For now though I see no compelling reason to switch. I would imagine this is aimed firmly at corporate customers.
Yeah, I know, its not fashionable to actually like office 2003, but its a good product, I've always liked it. Besides, ever tried writing a doctoral thesis in OpenOffice? I have, it's not easy.
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thermian wrote:
I agree with the above tha
Won't work for home users... (Score:2)
...and for business there is lot of enterprise licenses from Microsoft. Would work if they would start to offer it as part of their OEM programms.
The year of open office -- sorry, no. (Score:2, Insightful)
If OpenOffice is so good, why do it's advocates always have to say "oh it's just as good" etc? Yet they continue to either ignore or deride the frequent comments made here that it is slow and missing a great deal of the power functionality that a lot of users need. I myself have tried it several times over the years, and compared to my old copy of Office XP and later Office 2003, it just wasn't as functional for my usage.
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While I find that hard to believe, it could be possible.
The real question was it missing functionality or was the functions in a different spot than your used to. I find Open office to have every feature i need and a ton of stuff that just isn't useful to me.
I tried to get an Office 97 user to use Open Office. they couldn't be bothered to learn were things had moved to. Like wise office 2003 or 2007 will also piss them off as things move around in Office pretty good.
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If OpenOffice is so good, why do it's advocates always have to say "oh it's just as good" etc?
If you came to my house trying to sell me an expensive lawn mower, I would send you away with the response that my cheap mower was "just as good". What do I mean by that? I mean that my mower spins a blade that cuts my grass to a certain height. That is all I need a mower to do. No amount of money above what I spent for my cheap mower would improve upon "blades of grass cut to X height". I'm not saying my mowe
Put the price into perspective (Score:2, Interesting)
The cost of office for a home user is relatively cheap (about $120 to buy) or $7/month to rent, and the best that can be said for OO is that it's "
Re:Put the price into perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Your 'Netflix' or whatever is one regular payment for one service. You may have 20 or 30 significant pieces of software installed on your PC. Maybe if this kind of payment covered all that software, people would find it more reasonable. They're talking about this JUST for MS Office. What if you had to pay $5 for each piece of software on your machine, per month? Starts to seem a little ridiculous now, doesn't it?
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That's because Netflix and cable TV are services. MS is trying to tell us that they want to turn MS Office into a service akin to a virus scan subscription...an idea which many people are going to disagree with.
I for one don't care about getting updates for MS Office...the copy I got in 2002 still works just fine today. If I had been paying a subscription on it I'd be out $70x6=$420 as opposed to $120-150 to just buy the thing.
This is a blatant money-grab on MS' part and I hope the world (or at least the IT
I think it's got a chance (Score:2)
I thought it was real estate! (Score:2)
What a pity!
Screw you Microsoft and Office (Score:4, Funny)
I've had it with your closed, proprietary OS and file formats!
I'm getting an iMac with iWork.
Something they should've done a few years ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally try to avoid using Windows, Office, et al, as often as possible, but I recognize that this is a good business plan.
Microsoft Office still has the (somewhat justifiable) reputation of being the best office productivity suite available, and lowering the barrier to entry (even if the consumer pays more in the long-term) will make it easier for consumers to justify purchasing the software.
OpenOffice has no monetary barrier, but it does have three other barriers that for most people make it worse of an offer than MS Office:
1) Brand Recognition - Sun Microsystems has always focused on the enterprise, not consumers, and so few would even know they are a large multinational corp. and then those few (the geeks) would be split on whether they like or dislike them.
2) Initial Experience - The earlier releases of OpenOffice were painfully slow and did a poor job with MS Office files' formatting. Both of these are improving, but many may have already written the suite off. The formatting issue is even worse than the speed, as many people have to collaborate on documents with others who use MS Office, leading to the third barrier...
3) The Lemming Effect - Some people just want to use whatever is popular, even if they don't really know why they would want to. This psychological barrier is probably the most difficult to remedy, with disillusionment in the big player being the quickest course of action. Office 2007 has disillusioned some of its users -- unfortunately that disillusionment is based on an unwillingness to change.
Office 2007's interface is a creative new way to work on documents, (whether you think its better or worse than before) and trying to attract those who don't want change will only stagnate the OpenOffice suite into an Office 2003 clone with new ideas from other office suites (Office 2007 and KOffice, for instance) either being ignored or shoehorned in poorly when the file format has changed to reflect these new features.
So, by making it easier for end-users to use arguably the one really good piece of software they develop, which only runs on their crappy (to develop on and to use) operating system, they have at least slowed the tide in the transition of the operating system to a commodity product.
(Disclaimer: I don't really like using either Office suite whenever I can get away with it, and prefer to do everything in PDFLaTeX. I mostly just use OpenOffice Impress, which hasn't had much difficulty in reading PowerPoint files correctly.)
Short-term shops will benefit (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the rental program will be a big hit with groups that need to open an office and operate for a relatively short period of time. Perfect example: Campaign Offices. The offices are only needed until November, then they will shut down for 3 years and kick it back up in 2012. They can save 50-60% by renting office for one year instead of purchasing it.
Nice Try! (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's the perfect scam [wikipedia.org], mafia style. First, you send some thugs around to smash up a business storefront. Then, you send a guy by to collect some money for "protection" from said thugs. The poor business owner either pays up, or he gets his store smashed up again. Often, the cops are receiving a cut and look the other way, or don't respond if the business owner decides to call law enforcem
Consider who this is aimed at (Score:2)
...being: home users primarily. It's kinda true that most modern MS Office functionality is aimed at business users (MOSS/Exchange integration), so it's fair to say most home users at least could do just fine with OpenOffice, and thus, seeing as there's only one price-tag, they are getting the lesser value.
Even with that in mind, $70 for a complete office + AV protection system, with support, isn't bad.
Illegal bundling of anti-virus? (Score:3, Interesting)
IANAL but isn't bundling their anti-virus with Office a pretty blatant use of their monopoly to take over other markets?
Or has the government not officially ruled/admitted MS has an Office monopoly, only an OS monopoly?
Slightly OT (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldn't the Billborg icon be replaced now? Say with a Ballmerborg, or maybe a Ballmerchair. Or even a chairborg.
Open Office will take off regardless (Score:2)
Not only a constant stream of income... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Push to OpenOffice"? (Score:3, Informative)
OK, run that last line by me one more time...
MS introduce an alternative licensing model for their customers. Presently, customers choose to buy MS Office even at its current cost. Wise customers in certain circumstances may choose to rent it instead, saving themselves money.
Thus, Office, on the whole, is cheaper than it was. And in specific cases is no more expensive.
These people have chosen MSOffice over OpenOffice, and now it costs them less. And you're suggesting that because MSOffice is cheaper, they'll stop using it?
I think it's a pretty sweet idea. (Score:2, Interesting)
Old Dog, Old Tricks (Score:5, Interesting)
Good Idea for Certain Users (Score:5, Informative)
Traditional Purchase Model
-Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student - $150
-Windows Live OneCare (with one year subscription) - $50
-Next year's OneCare subscription - $50
-Following year's OneCare subscription - $50
-Microsoft Office 2009 Home and Student - $150
Total for three years: $450
Under the new Equipt Model
-Microsoft Equipt (first year) - $70
-Microsoft Equipt (second year) - $70
-Microsoft Equipt (third year, includes upgrade to Office 2009) - $70
Total for three years: $210
Now, this is assuming that the user continues to subscribe to OneCare and eventually would upgrade to Office 2009 - however, assuming they do, the savings are pretty clear. Since this is being offered side-by-side with the traditional purchase model, I think this is a good move by Microsoft. Also, there is no alternative anywhere in the software universe that comes close to OneNote.
Re:Good Idea for Certain Users (Score:4, Informative)
You can also see it the following way: Look at the period before 2007:
-Microsoft Office 2003 Home and Student - $150
-Microsoft subscription model (which would just have been Office 2003) - 4 x 70 = $280
OneCare shouldn't even be bundled. First, there are other solutions (especially for home, there are a few free solutions). Second, they should make their OS more secure so that you wouldn't even need OneCare. I don't see no SimpleCare bundled with any Mac or Linux package nor is there a demand in those markets, not because they're a smaller market so people don't write virusses for it but because the freaking os doesn't do anything behind the scenes without the user knowing about it.
Why the outrage? (Score:2)
There are loads of SaaS offerings that we gladly pay for regularly. I use goosync, Basecamp, and I am currently researching an online invoicing system for my consulting business. What makes this any different?
Saying that Microsoft is doing it, and they are teh Ev1l!!! isn't a good enough reason to be up in arms.
This is a smart move to entice the SMB market, which doesn't always have the free capital to spend on this kind of software up front. If it doesn't work well, or seems too expensive for the marketpla
Rental isn't a bad idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
...as long as they figure out reasonable, flexible and innovative rental terms that don't end up being way more than buying outright.
I'd love to be able to install $Expensive_Application and then buy blocks of hours that I could use the program. There's no way I can ever pay off the cost of, say, Adobe Design Suite CS3 bought outright, but if $100 would buy me 10 hours of use of the most current version, it'd totally be worth it versus spending $89 on some crippled version or a knockoff that bombs out or doesn't work right.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Renting under Shady Terms (Score:2)
I could imagine Microsoft, or any company for that matter, charging more for the privilege to rent software in what may seem, to the renter, like an arbitrary fashion. They could terminate your contract if you let your brother remote in to use Word or if you let your wife/husband/partner/children/stepchildren/etc. use Excel. Why should I, a single guy, pay the same for a license to use software I occasionally use as a family of holy-rolling breeders pays for software used by their biblically-named childre
$70 THIS year. $100 Next (Score:3, Informative)
Subscription services don't tend to get cheaper over time. In fact if lots of people take this up, demand increases and within a handful of years people will be paying the same amount to rent office for a year that they pay now to buy a non-terminating license.
I hate anything as a service. Another regular bill, and another dependency on another company I probably don't like, because my alternative is to go without. Fuck that for a bag of chips.
Recurring headaches of the financial kind (Score:5, Insightful)
It won't make any difference though.
You frosty piss or the new MSO pricing scheme?
People who go for this will view MSO as a bill, not as an investment or as part of the 'computer' (that includes all hardware and software purchased at the same time, believe it or not many people don't understand the difference). When MSO is a bill, switching to Open Office will be a financial incentive: stop paying those bills! Switching someone who's already paid for MSO to OOo and claiming that OOo is free sure is a funny argument. It also makes MSO look like it has more value, as the user already paid for it. So the user already paid for the valuable item, why would he use the free one?
Interesting point (Score:3, Interesting)
So the user already paid for the valuable item, why would he use the free one?
This may seem like a silly argument (the money's already lost so you should just stop suffering with MSO and switch to OOo) but when I was doing PC repair in university, many people didn't want their Norton/McAffee/MSO/Other crapware swapped for better free alternatives because they "already paid for it." I know that doesn't make one lick of sense but that's the Average Joe's thinking. Nowadays Ubuntu is dead reliable and easier to use than Windows (especially Vista), and even though the "AAAAHH scary Linux
Not everyone likes ribbon (Score:2)
I think you'll find ribbon (it's actually called Fluent User Interface) is liked and disliked in fairly equal amounts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_(user_interface)#Criticism [wikipedia.org]
Microsoft knows that less confident computers users will find it confusing and the staff retraining courses can be quite lucrative.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your universal rules of "knowledge about computers for use at home": need a little bit added to them.
- Buy the cheapest machine that has all the bits you know you need.
Some of very low cost system and or parts are POS with carp parts in them and some of them have little to no room for upgrades.
Also low cost scenes / displays are poor some have VGA only and you don't want that.
- Never pay for any "extras" that you don't see yourself using at least once a week (scanners, faxes, webcams, skype phones, etc.).
Now days most scanners are part of a AIO printer.
- Never pay anything more than the base hardware / OS / software price (no warranties, insurance, support, installation etc. except possibly if it's a very expensive laptop).
- Don't sign up with the bundled ISP's, or the first one you see on television. Ask a friendly local expert what they would recommend. They WILL be able to save you time and money with their recommendation in the long run. (PLEASE: No more AOL!)
Some of the bundled ISP are cable and DSL ISP now days and you see them on television as well And with cable you may only have 1 ISP to pick from.
- In use, never, ever click on any dialog that you don't understand. If it's in your way, learn how to move windows offscreen. Maybe even make a printout and ask your friendly computer expert about it later.
- Never pay for updates, upgrades or "new versions" of anything (you can invariably just carry on with the old versions, updates for free, or replace with a free equivalent), no matter what the software tells you. Let the automated things on it keep it updated for you.
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