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]

Thank goodness that I didn't tell her that the £70 is for an OEM version you can't upgrade to (or from) and which has zero support.

It's about £150 for a 'full' version, i.e. still without an office suite.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

While they are a lot of money, I am not sure why people keep thinking they should get them for free? Sure, there are free things out there as you know, but why would Microsoft develop them for free?

[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

The cost of progress

[kingginger.livejournal.com]

You can't take LibreOffice for granted... That's why OpenOffice has died and LibreOffice has forked off it.

But indeed, for me I don't think the Office 365 per month pricing for a home user is bad at all... You can't use it on Linux, but you can use it on Android tablets (as well as Windows Mobile and iOS, but I doubt you'd use that).

It always makes me laugh though, why has no one developed a Linux / Opensource Outlook?

Re: The cost of progress

[lovingboth]

OpenOffice.org lives, as Apache OpenOffice. As you say, LibreOffice is a fork and the two codebases may reunite in future.

There is no way that I am paying to use Office 365 - renting software should have died out in the 1970s - or buying Office 2013, and she's unwilling to spend her money on them either. Her 'bought new just under a year ago' PC cost less than a full copy of Office 2013.

Evolution (the software!) has been going for fourteen years. Alas, it is in some ways too faithful a version of Outlook and there are better email clients and better calendars.

Re: The cost of progress

[kingginger.livejournal.com]

Alas you are a bit out of the times when it comes to software renting... Everything is going SaaS these days...
I don't blame them, but it is irksome when you pay per month for software that doesn't progress significantly.
Fortunately Microsoft have stopped resting on their laurels on this one and Office 365 is pretty cool.
(Full Office on 5 devices and a 50Gb Microsoft Exchange Mailbox for £7.80 / month for a business? You'd be insane not to go for that).

As to the "Bought new laptop" - Well - I can only imagine it's a Chromebook as Microsoft Office for Business is only £155+VAT ish...

As to Evolution - Alas the Windows port was crap and died years ago.
I haven't ever seen a PIM that beats Outlook.
And the only things that now come close are all web based from ends to something wishing it was Exchange :-)

Re: The cost of progress

[lovingboth]

You have caught me in slightly the wrong mood for a polite reply :) but I don't give a shit whether there are people who are prepared to pay (and pay and pay and pay and pay and pay and..) to rent software today. I am not.

What that price shows is that Microsoft can't deliver a reason to pay more and I suggest that that's down to things like LibreOffice and Google Documents.

You'd be insane to rely on Exchange :)

It's a PC not a laptop and it's beefy enough to do 3D games that I'd never imagined something at that price could do - the previous PC couldn't. The graphics performance of the AMD APUs is quite amazing given what they cost.

Re: The cost of progress

[kingginger.livejournal.com]

LOL - Sorry for the delay - I swear I had replied to this previously, but seems it's gone MIA...

The AMD APUs are pretty awesome for what they are - Just recommended a few people a £229 PC from Box for kids and Minecraft...

I've never found AMD's have a good longevity, but for £229, who's going to complain - it's exceedingly good value.

As to SaaS - Well - It's pretty much the future for proper services whether we like it or not (fwiw, I don't really like it, but the options for business are being removed that aren't SaaS, so I and businesses don't have a choice...) ((And no, LibreOffice just isn't good enough yet)) ((And Google Docs businesses have to pay for on a SaaS basis as well)).