Microsoft, losing market share one at a time

[lovingboth]

JA was asking to use 'Microsoft' this afternoon, and it turned out she wanted to use Powerpoint for something school-related.

Obviously, we have LibreOffice and she knows how to use its presentation program on Ubuntu, but not everyone is so lucky.

She was amazed - and more than a bit outraged - that paying £70 for Windows 7* doesn't even get you an office suite. Instead you need to pay £89.99 (student price for Office Home 2013 - 2010 is £10 less, but support for that will end before too long) or £199.99 (full price). Or, if you don't care about being able to edit your documents if you don't pay an unknown amount every year, £79.99 for a one year subscription.

She doesn't understand why anyone pays that.

Thank you to the people behind LibreOffice, Ubuntu, and Debian GNU/Linux, who mean we don't have to.

* _{The only non-trial version of Windows on anything here is Vista, which will no longer run the latest Office. I forget the last time it was started.}

Comments

[lovingboth]

She's not asking for Powerpoint for free.

But unless you are one of the very, very few who actually need something that's in MS Office and not in LibreOffice, the question 'why do people pay for MS Office?' is a good one.

And I got the price of the Office-less Windows wrong: it's really £150 for one that will upgrade / has 'support'.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

I use it because I find other versions lose formatting if I use them and then transfer to another. So I use Word, for example, because that way I can use my home computer for work stuff or send it to other people with Word

[lovingboth]

I realise others do, and it's ok for tracking changes for people who can't do version control, but personally, I wouldn't use Word for any sort of layout work. Or as a text editor.

I've also seen lots of small issues when people try to edit one version's documents in another version of Word. One might almost think it was deliberate on the part of Microsoft, given how few actually needed new features there have been over recent versions.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

Like many others, I use it at work, therefore have training and even qualifications in much of Office. for example, I use MSProject and MS Excel every day and import one into the other etc. That is why I pay for it, because I know it, it works, does precisely what I need it to and is compatible with other things.
Not saying people shouldn't use other programmes, just saying why i use it