Monopoly Microsoft was more customer friendly than today's "friendly" Microsoft

@wastingtimewithforums:

edit: ps. evild, how u delete ure post?

@GoddersUK:

Now I am curious.

11 minutes ago, wastingtime​withforums wrote

Anyway, I sure as hell won't ever rent Office. Libre Office is, unfortunately, still a pile of freetard dung, but I would rather use that than signing up for Microsoft's extortion scheme. They are not luring by increasing value, but by making the traditional Office licensing a hassle - non transferable licensing (with the retail version! If your motherboard gets damaged, you need to pay the full price for Office again), one PC only licensing (Office 2010 and prior allowed one install on the desktop PC, and one install on your laptop. That's gone with Office 2013), massive price hike (Home and Student 2010 was installable on 3 PCs for 125$, you need to pay three times as much with 2013).

• It works well
• It does what I need - I used Office 2010 briefly and it provided me with no additional benefit.
• When I scrap my old computer and buy a new one I can easily install it on the new computer with no hassles
• Saves me money -- If the Windows 365 pricing scheme had been in place back then I would have paid $1000 so far
• Support?  What support?  I've been using Microsoft products since DOS 3.0 and have never a need for "support".
• And best of all, it doesn't have the ridiculous UI that was introduced with Office 2007 and as far as I am concerned, rendered it unusable.

A bit OTT perhaps, but nevertheless, with its latest revisions, MS has pushed out Windows and Office products that the company I work for, has certainly decided that they don't want, and will be staying with W7 & Office2010 until MS can come up with a more compelling argument.

I recommend Google Docs. Maybe it doesn't have the same features as LibreOffice, but it's just so much lighter. And the collaborative features are really handy for group projects at school. If you have a moderate understanding of LaTeX, it even works in heavy math/CS courses too.

At work I don't use word processors or Office software like.. ever? So I can't comment.

Yeah, I have a hard time believing the 365 subscription will really take off for home users.

IME, home users buy Office to have be able to work with documents from the office or school - there's little "passion" for Office amongst consumers, it's just something you'll likely need -  eventually.

That doesn't translate into "Ooo!  The new version's out!" excitement, so for many people, $99 a year isa massive price increase, as most people I know - consumers and corporate users - are perpetually 1-2 (most likely 2) versions behind.  They find the improvements made in the current 2-3 year upgrade cycle are dubious enough to hold out for an upgrade, so I don't see how promising a continual cycle of yearly improvements will really be viable.  Hell, most might see automatic upgrade as a negative, if they don't like the changes...well, tough.

Sure, in some scenario's it is a decent deal - you have 5 PC's and need cloud storage, in such a situation it makes sense, and that scenario will become far more prevalent if they release an Android/iOS version which will count as one of those 5 devices.  But compared to previous deals (which they of course nix when 365 comes out) - especially if you just needed Word/Excel and were fine with the starter editions (which is also axed - jesus!) - you're definitely paying more.

I agree with the OP, it's weird - MS has more competition than ever before in an environment where software and hardware prices are cheaper than they're even been, and it seems their response is to double-down and act as if their position is more unassailable than ever. 

I mean cripes, the biggest problem with Ultrabooks is their price - so just as they're starting to get into ~$700 territory, Win8 comes out and now MS is complaining that its supposedly lackluster launch is their fault, as they didn't build enough compelling new devices for it.  The OEM's shoot back that by following MS's design recommendations, they would price themselves out of the market, and I believe they're right. 

Really doesn't look good when the brand your own company creates to push the idealized version of what a Windows8 tabtop should be receives such strong criticism.  My feeling is that it's inevitable - you build your hardware foundation on an OS that tries to straddle two worlds, and you get exactly what you'd expect - a device that tries to straddle two worlds and isn't particularly best of class in either of them. 

If MS thinks Surface is going to spur OEM's to create $1,000 hybrid laptops in their image...uh, yeah - good luck with that.

2 hours ago, Charles wrote

li[data-author='wastingtimewithforums']
{
        display: none;
}

If you have that then why are you in this thread?

@Charles: Can you add the data-author attribute to tr elements on the thread page? Then you'd be able to hide the threads.

I don't have to worry about ignoring threads by certain trolls...they tend to write so much, so...tl;dr basically.

1 day ago, elmer wrote

A bit OTT perhaps, but nevertheless, with its latest revisions, MS has pushed out Windows and Office products that the company I work for, has certainly decided that they don't want, and will be staying with W7 & Office2010 until MS can come up with a more compelling argument.

Yeah a bit OTT but he has some valid points. I suspect your company isn't alone on this round of upgrades. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when this pricing scheme was discussed internally.

It also seems, as some have suggested previously, that Microsoft loves to plug its ears when it hears bad news; much like a few here are wanting to do with the OP. That's really a tragedy for Microsoft because like anyone unless you can admit your mistakes you won't be correcting them any time soon. I'm sure with the politics and bureaucracy of a big company like Microsoft it only makes matters worse.

17 minutes ago, DeathBy​VisualStudio wrote

*snip*

Yeah a bit OTT but he has some valid points. I suspect your company isn't alone on this round of upgrades.

I haven't been in this industry for centuries, like some, but I've at least been around since Windows 3.x. Since then, with every release there's been a pretty big chunk of businesses who say that they're going to sit out this release. They all have reasons, sometimes they just don't want or need to, sometimes they blame Microsoft, sometimes they blame the software that they need to run. The story is always the same. What's also the same is this need to justify the decision. What's new in the last few years is the increasing tendency towards histrionic displays.

Maybe it's just that the internet is allowing people to scream their opinions that much louder in the hope that they can make themselves feel better by knowing others have the same views.

12 hours ago, kettch wrote

*snip*

I haven't been in this industry for centuries, like some, but I've at least been around since Windows 3.x. Since then, with every release there's been a pretty big chunk of businesses who say that they're going to sit out this release. They all have reasons, sometimes they just don't want or need to, sometimes they blame Microsoft, sometimes they blame the software that they need to run. The story is always the same. What's also the same is this need to justify the decision. What's new in the last few years is the increasing tendency towards histrionic displays.

Maybe it's just that the internet is allowing people to scream their opinions that much louder in the hope that they can make themselves feel better by knowing others have the same views.

Is there something invalid about a business staying on a particular version of an operating system or office suite because the software they already spent millions of dollars for or the business processes they've already spent millions of dollars implementing is only supported/only works with that version?

Hell, for that matter -- do you see something wrong with businesses not spending money to replace something that already works?

@kettch:I don't know that we feel the need to 'justify' it, but yes, clearly we have our reasons, and have made what we believe to be a commercial decision. I would hope that the majority of business does the same thing - compares the cost of upgrading with any commercial benefits it offers them - and then makes a choice on that basis. We ran trials using a cross-section of our usage, task workers, admin, tech and management staff, and failed to find any compelling business case to at least offset the costs of upgrading. I'm in no way suggesting that our case is emblematic of all business, but I am comfortable that we made our decision for the right reasons.

2 days ago, wastingtime​withforums wrote

It's funny. Now that MS got some serious competition, what do they do? Raise prices! Across the board: Servers, Office, consumer hardware - Windows Notebooks are now more expensive than they were a year ago (mostly due the mandatory touch hardware because of W8).

 

@wkempf:

It's also pretty disingenuous since Windows8 - Microsoft biggest launch in 2012 - is a tiny fraction of the price of similar operating systems in previous releases of Windows, hence entirely demolishing the argument that "Microsoft is raising prices across the board".