Who cares?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| nalf38 Nov 19, 2008 3:29 AM EDT |
I'm not saying that LXer shouldn't have posted the article; it's newsworthy, in a sense. But does anyone miss MS Office? Does anyone ever find themselves saying (when using OpenOffice), "gosh, I wish OOo could do foobar. Without foobar functionality, I'll have to stick with MSOffice." Granted, there are probably millions of average users who won't use FOSS software because they can't do $foobar EXACTLY like they did it in their Windows equivalent. They learn software like spell-casting: if one step is different, they're totally lost, and they have to learn a completely new 'spell.' But those are the people who would never switch to Linux in the first place. Has anyone tried using Office 2007? It's like trying to use a really pretty trainwreck. It's needlessly complex, and seems to be different from previous versions only for the sake of being different. Even my die-hard Windows wife hates it. Let Windows users have their slow, bloated office suite. It goes great with their slow, bloated OS. |
| techiem2 Nov 19, 2008 8:43 AM EDT |
How true.
I just took a class using O2k7 Excel/Access/PP.
Amazingly enough (well, maybe amazing to MS execs), I had no desire to continue using it when the class was over.
In fact, it made me want to use OOo more.
"Now what section in what ribbon was that feature on again?"
"Oh, that's kind of a cool feature, I'll have to figure out how to do that in OOcalc."
etc. Now I can (kinda) see their point about the ribbon being easier to learn for "new users", but considering that most current users have been trained to use software with the classic menu system since um...well....pretty much since the beginning of GUI applications? (I'm sure the "elders" will correct me here if I'm wrong. :P ) And then toss in that if these "new users" are using anything in addition to MSO that they will almost certainly be exposed to and familiar with the classic application menu system.... Also, if their Office Web turns out to be written anything like how Office works in the certification testing software...(i.e. Office basically written in flash or interfaced with flash or something bizzare like that - don't remember exactly how my boss said that works), I shudder to think of how painful it would be to use. |
| devnet Nov 19, 2008 9:56 AM EDT |
Office 2007 is a huge leap ahead of Office 2003. If you place file formats to the wayside (because we're talking about features here...and you can still save in open formats in 2007 AND in 2003 format) and look at the main features of 2007...it's an improvement over 2003 by far. I know that I can get things done faster and more quickly with 2007 than with openoffice...I don't want to be able to...but it's a fact. I don't LIKE office 2007 more than openoffice because I know it's not free and that it's proprietary...but that doesn't mean I'm going to try and sell myself OOo when I know that office 2007 is more advanced and can do more than it. I guess, what I'm trying to say is that I don't try to snow myself over. |
| herzeleid Nov 19, 2008 1:42 PM EDT |
> Office 2007 is a huge leap ahead of Office 2003. Since ms office does not come in a native linux version, I have no opinion one way or the other, as it's completely irrelevant to me. |
| gus3 Nov 19, 2008 3:49 PM EDT |
And even if it did have a native Linux version... |
| jdixon Nov 19, 2008 4:42 PM EDT |
Hmm... I just found that my company cut a deal with Microsoft to let us get Office 2007 for $19.99. Interesting. |
| bigg Nov 19, 2008 5:20 PM EDT |
> Hmm... I just found that my company cut a deal with Microsoft to let us get Office 2007 for $19.99. Interesting. In the past (2002 or 2003) I came across several universities where faculty were allowed to purchase MS Office for $19.95. That way the faculty could work at home locking-in their students on MS formats. What an honor, you can pay an additional $20 out of your own pocket to work from home, using the same software your employer already paid for. One thing that pushed me to FOSS was the restrictive licenses. I used maybe six different computers and most of my proprietary software, costing thousands of dollars, was licensed for only one machine. One program in particular required paying $125 a year for use on a laptop. Now I do everything using FOSS, can use as many computers as I want, and I never have those ####s getting in the way of getting my work done. |
| gus3 Nov 19, 2008 6:38 PM EDT |
@jdixon: Buy it for $19.99, re-sell it for $39.99, 100% profit, the buyer gets a break. @bigg: Quoting:In the past (2002 or 2003) I came across several universities where faculty were allowed to purchase MS Office for $19.95. That way the faculty could work at home locking-in their students on MS formats.It's time for more students to stand up and say, "I already paid my tuition. Your course fees say nothing about lining Microsoft's pockets." |
| ColonelPanik Nov 19, 2008 7:46 PM EDT |
gus3, You cannot even find out how much the universities are paying for that software,
that is in the purchase agreement. So yeah, the students should boycott the universities
making them use one system only. What would you do if the manufacturer of you car told you what brand of gas to buy? Or your auto insurance said you could only use x brand of tires? Maybe you have had trouble because you cannot log in at your bank? "Son, not using IE is no way to go through life." As Bob Marley said: "You got to stand up and fight!" And gus3, please only listen to Elvis music! Anyone remember payola? How do you spell kickbacks? R. E. D. M. O. N. D. |
| TxtEdMacs Nov 19, 2008 8:15 PM EDT |
Hey folks gus3 is a crook! Get it from me for $39.98, a really only 100% mark up - absolutely no cheating*. My motto; Honest as the Day Is Long! Morning is sometime in March, beat that fellow braggarts! * Best experience if you a fluent Chinese reader, sorry need to keep costs down. Have to pay the fuel surcharges, bribes, etc. for genuine, pirated Microsoft. Your buddy giving you the business. |
| jdixon Nov 19, 2008 8:33 PM EDT |
> Buy it for $19.99, re-sell it for $39.99, 100% profit, the buyer gets a break. I thought about that, but I'm pretty sure my company would consider it unethical conduct. :( |
| ColonelPanik Nov 20, 2008 12:41 AM EDT |
When we lived in China (1999) I bought office 2000 from a lady on the street. $1.00 USD, and that was before it was released anywhere. And it was infected, killed my computer! Any software, music, movies VCD was $1.00 |
| rijelkentaurus Nov 20, 2008 5:50 PM EDT |
@devnet, advantages of one program over another depend on the user, not the program. Apparently, you're better of with 2007 (if we ignore the licensing, etc), but the majority of people won't feel any difference in feature set between Office 2007 and Office 97, they simply don't dig deeply into what it can do. Me, I normally use a text editor for darn near everything, and OOo for when I need a "big" suite. Most of my clients curse Office 2007 because it's so different...and those in the accounting and law fields generally crave the days of WordPerfect. |
| devnet Dec 04, 2008 12:25 PM EDT |
Quoting:@devnet, advantages of one program over another depend on the user, not the program. That's a crock. After working in a software development company for a year and a half, I can honestly say that advantages of one program or another depend on both USER and PROGRAM. But it's the programs responsibility to show the user the advantages...to enable them. Quoting:the majority of people won't feel any difference in feature set between Office 2007 and Office 97 The feature set is HUGELY different. This sounds like an uninformed assumption. Is it? Have you used Office 2007? Quoting:Me, I normally use a text editor for darn near everything, and OOo for when I need a "big" suite. Most of my clients curse Office 2007 because it's so different...and those in the accounting and law fields generally crave the days of WordPerfect. I use Office 2007 daily at work because that's the tool provided for me. At home, Abiword on my Linux box gets the job done. I also vim things quite a bit for quick work. |
| jdixon Dec 04, 2008 3:01 PM EDT |
> The feature set is HUGELY different. I'm sure it is. However, how many people use the added features? The feature set 80% of people needed was reached with Office 95. |
| tracyanne Dec 04, 2008 4:24 PM EDT |
I'm going to have to start using MS Office 2007, so I've been told. I get by quite well without it, Open Office.org reads, and writes, if necessary, all the DOCX formatted documents I receive, but I'm told that I'm going to have to use MS Office because we're going to be implementing Sharepoint. |
| bigg Dec 04, 2008 4:40 PM EDT |
> The feature set is HUGELY different. This sounds like an uninformed assumption. Is it? Have you used Office 2007? Like saving files in formats that are largely useless when sharing with others, unless you happen to know that they too use Office 2007? I have heard great things about Office 2007 from the heavy users. I have yet to encounter anyone who uses Office 2007 'casually' that actually liked it. It's different but doesn't provide new functionality in their opinion. But I agree that the heavy users of Office just love it. |
| tracyanne Dec 04, 2008 6:05 PM EDT |
@bigg, the heavy users of MS Office most likely don't use the ribbin menu all that much, as they are likely power users who use fancy key combinations to get their work done, and so have not really noticed any difference in functionality. I'm a casual user of both OO.o amd even more so of MSO, so the new ribbon menu is nothing less than incredibly confusing, and will likely remain so. I notice that every other casual Word processor user I encounter finds it so, while they have much less trouble working out what the OO.o menu does. |
| jdixon Dec 04, 2008 10:16 PM EDT |
> ...but I'm told that I'm going to have to use MS Office because we're going to be implementing Sharepoint. Yeah, that's my company's excuse too. :( Well, at least we know Microsoft has all of their sales folks reading from the same book. |
| tracyanne Dec 04, 2008 10:23 PM EDT |
Hopefully I won't be in the position of having to use it all that much longer. |
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