Has Microsoft stumbled?

[warpus]

What I really want is to just never have to install software in the first place. This is why I like the idea of cloud-based software. I can just type into google "make an animated gif" and it takes me to a thing that allows me to snip video files into animated gifs. That's the dream. I just want a thing that does that, and right now, the closest thing to it is "type to search", not "hunt through folders".

The direction it's taking is certainly the right one, even though it's not 100% there yet.

There are benefits to both approaches.. The other day I was editing a document in Google Docs, and the tab just.. froze.. half a minute later it was working again, for whatever reason, and then a couple minutes later.. same thing.. and then.. again.

With software installed on your computer you have a lot more stability, at least in theory. I moved my editing job into word and finished it there. I prefer google docs because the docs "go with you", but there are cons as well

 

[Zelig]

Docs go with you with MS Office.

Default save location in Office is Skydrive which you can edit via a web browser.

 

[Mr.WorldWide]

Quite true, but MS office isn't free whereas Google Docs are.

 

[Zelig]

Yeah, but MS Office is better.

 

[Mise]

Yeah, I really like the way Office does things. Though I have struggled to save directly to SkyDrive on occasion.

Also, the online version of MS Office is waaaaay better than Google Docs. So unbelievably superior it's difficult to justify using Docs ever, othre than that I already have a bunch of stuff there and I have an Android app.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Breaking a promise not to post here just to say:

MS Office >>>>>>>> all other office products
Google Docs is a joke, difficult to use and barely integrates with Office at all (just copy/pasting from one to the other create huge errors).

The only bad part of MS Office 365 and Skydrive is it asks you to sign in the dumbest ways possible. For example, if you log into your Office 365 account online and use the browser app to create an Office or Excel file, when you go to save it in your skydrive account (the same one as your Office 365 account) it asks you to log in again with the same information - oh and it has seperate screename and password pages to load for no real reason.

 

[Mr.WorldWide]

Yes, MS office is the top production suite. But there are plenty of users how only need basic word processing or spreadsheet calculations. For those smaller businesses/individual users, G docs will save them some substantial coin.

This is explained much more eloquently on AskWoody

 

[Zelig]

I can think of almost no use case where it's worthwhile for businesses to use Google Docs instead of MS Office for any staff that have their own computers. It costs ~$60/user/year, if your staff is getting paid $20/hr, breakeven on time saved is about 90 seconds per day. (Or $150/yr, four minutes per day for breakeven for Desktop versions.)

If a someone spends more than 15 minutes per month dealing with file format incompatibilities because of Google Docs, that's the entire savings for that person blown already.

 

[Iranon]

It boils down to: "Microsoft Office is the only office solution good at being Microsoft Office".

Yes it has unique features that are very useful to some. However, many prospective users consider it just because it's the perceived standard and MS makes interoperability difficult - subverting the concept of an industry standard.
Compatibility breaks with itself keep users on the upgrade treadmill.

There is a strong case for adherence to open standards, and software that actually implements them. If there is time wasted dealing with format incompatibilities, chances are the blame lies with Microsoft.
Of course, such considerations become moot if "we need MS Office, this isn't negotiable, and we're not interested in nerdy details about good practice or integrity".

 

[Mise]

I don't think that's true at all, I've tried plenty of alternatives and none of them are as good as Office at anything. Maybe back in 1995 when Lotus were making productivity suites, but not today. Office is the "standard" because it's literally unparalleled.

 

[warpus]

Office is pretty good, I didn't know about the skydrive thing at all. One issue I have with office though is the new menu system they introduced a couple years ago. I don't mind adjusting to a new layout, but it's completely different, for no reason really.. They've made it much harder to locate some pieces of functionality.

 

[Zelig]

Six years ago?

 

[Mise]

It took a couple months to get used to it, but the ribbons are second nature to me now. The menus were very difficult to use by comparison, and all the features are much more prominently located, with nice big icons, descriptions, hover-over text, etc. Also, when you hover over a format change, it previews it on the page, so you can easily compare stuff! It's awesome. I think the ribbon in 2007 is a big improvement over the toolbar/menu from 2003.

 

[Zelig]

It boils down to: "Microsoft Office is the only office solution good at being Microsoft Office".

Yes it has unique features that are very useful to some. However, many prospective users consider it just because it's the perceived standard and MS makes interoperability difficult - subverting the concept of an industry standard.
Compatibility breaks with itself keep users on the upgrade treadmill.

There is a strong case for adherence to open standards, and software that actually implements them. If there is time wasted dealing with format incompatibilities, chances are the blame lies with Microsoft.
Of course, such considerations become moot if "we need MS Office, this isn't negotiable, and we're not interested in nerdy details about good practice or integrity".

I really like open standards and software in theory, but I've been disappointed so many times by MS Office alternatives that I'm quite skeptical of them by now.

And the biggest competitor by far is Google Docs, which isn't remotely open.

 

[dutchfire]

Also, when you hover over a format change, it previews it on the page, so you can easily compare stuff! It's awesome.

Yeah, this is awesome! It really makes seeing the impact of changes clear immediately. If there is one issue I have with LaTeX, it is that you need to recompile every time you want to change something, so "I'm just going to change the size of this picture so that everything fits nicely on one page" is really difficult. The newer Offices are very good at this.

 

[Mr.WorldWide]

So you have office 365, now adobe is doing the same with their products such as Photoshop. If that's the future of software, MS and Adobe can stuff it. I won't be using any of their products.

I'm still using office 2007, someone point out a compelling reason that an upgrade to 2013 is a must.

If it's anything like Windows 8 there won't be one. Here's guessing it loads 500 milliseconds faster or something equally unimportant.

 

[Mise]

The changes they made to pivot tables are awesome. I doubt anyone will care about that though. There's no compelling reason to upgrade from 2007 to 2010 either. 2003 to 2007 though, YES!!!! Such a massive upgrade.

 

[Zelig]

So you have office 365, now adobe is doing the same with their products such as Photoshop. If that's the future of software, MS and Adobe can stuff it. I won't be using any of their products.

I'm still using office 2007, someone point out a compelling reason that an upgrade to 2013 is a must.

If it's anything like Windows 8 there won't be one. Here's guessing it loads 500 milliseconds faster or something equally unimportant.

365 Home Premium is massively cheaper than 2007 if you make use of all the devices.

$100/year covers my desktop/laptop, and my mother's/father's/sister's computers. If you assume Outlook is worthless, covering the same PCs/Macs with Office Home and Student would cost about $700 upfront or $233 per year. ($243 per year if you count the value of the bonus Skydrive space you get.)

The real problem with 365 is that there's no good option non-student option for single-device users. I figure $50 would be fair for a two-device subscription which still gets you the extra Skype/Skydrive usage.

And MS isn't oblivious to people who still want/need non-subscription software, the option is still available, unlike Adobe: http://blogs.office.com/b/office-ne...e-subscriptions-progressive-or-premature.aspx


Edit: Also, subscription software services incentivize developers much better - development incentive is to make the software as good as possible compared to any competitors, rather than to make reasons to buy new versions of the software.

 

[Mise]

I can get Office 2013 for £8.99 via the HUP

 

[Zelig]

I always found the HUP to be dopey. YOU WORK FOR A BIG CORPORATION? HERE'S MORE FREE STUFF!