July 2013 Windows 8 market share

Microsoft Office definitely isn't the only solution for your average consumer user (students, etc). I actually think the iWork suite (Pages, etc) are both cheaper and better for your average home user or student...unfortunately, they're not offered for Windows. But my mother has iWork on her MBP and it's far easier to use and better for your average consumer.

In industry, though, there's a reason that MS Office dominates.

As for LibreOffice and OpenOffice, they're brilliant for free software. But I still feel that they're an example of "you get what you pay for" when compared to a paid office suite.

 

This cloud sharing thing is fairly new. The world managed to get by without it in the past. If it becomes too high maintenance and with security and privacy concerns then it will retreat.
There are enough people who are skeptical of widespread adoption. People like to keep their data close.

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I should also say there is a difference between a large business and a small one and single user.

 

It's quite handy to have for sharing documents across multiple computers.Don't recommend storing your financial data or something else very important there though.

 

No, you said there are alternatives depending on your definition of alternative, which means that in many cases there are no alternatives.

Unfortunately yes. 99% of the Windows users I speak to have no idea. I've installed Open Office on a lot of people's computers, and after telling them how to save their documents automatically in Microsoft Office formats, they've all been grateful for saving them some coin. Granted, these are all individual users.

 

I don't even mind paying. As long as I'm getting something useful for my money on upgrade.

Like you said earlier, Office 97, I say 2003, both were great products but needed some stuff fixed. The Access devs were asked what do you want and M$ ignored them and put stuff in that quickly became problematic and unused. How many people actually use Access full features besides devs anyway. Word and Excel from then are still quite the same now. Oh a new ribbon, look we gave you a new ribbon, to hate.
And all those fancy layouts and form themes for Access. How many people sit around at work and try to build a decent RDMS when instead they can just use Excel as a FFDB. It takes way too long to try and learn new features that will either be discontinued or rejected.

I shouldn't mock.

 

That is true but for certain formulas and equations that must be written as is and no change or calculated that someone type as is for others to be able to read and interpret from. That is were the detail comes helpful so others can see what your trying to convey to them.

They don't need substantial evidence but just take a look around and ask the of all the software whom are they trying to emulate or make look alike and function alike. Microsoft Office suite that is software everyone is trying to beat and emulate and use their formats. M$ is the top dog in Office suites and everyone else is either catching up and or trying to beat M$ at the Office game why else would M$ Office make two version Office suite standalone install and online Office. They are not going to lie down and stop creating and updating Office. This is one product that makes M$ stand above all other Office even if we hate their O/S the Office Suite are the king of Productivity software even if we don't like it or use it and others try to compare themselves to it is a known fact.

Most work computer were Office products only recently did some start to give the option of OO but since M$ discounts for institution and business that gives incentives to go with MSO and since before that time no one has since then come up with a really competitor that could compete on MSO playing field and that is still true today.

 

Yup, I remember at the time of Office 1997, Corel's suite which included WP8, Quattro Pro 8, etc. was superior, but that was a long time ago. Since Office 2007, MS in my opinion has made every version of Office better with 2013 being overall the best in terms of functionality. Functionalities in Excel are better and editing charts is way better than in Previous versions. 2010 was more a refinement of 2007, better, but not groundbreaking. Between 2003 and 2007, it's a toss up, some things that were in 2003 got forgotten in 2007, but are reappearing, at least in Excel and other features were added in 2007 too.

Having used both Word 2010 and 2013 rather extensively, I can say that I prefer 2013, inserting pictures, charts and lining them up with the text the way you want is more accessible in 2013 compared to 2010. There are a lot of little things that make it overall better in my opinion. That said, I would have preferred if the categories in the ribbon menu weren't all in capital letters, as the review at Ars Technica put it: Word, why are you shouting?.

One thing I'm seriously hoping for is that even with the subscription model, they continue to offer a stand alone version. I think there are some pretty good subscription prices, for a family, Office Home at ~100$ a year isn't bad if every member of the family needs the suite and each has their own computer. The subscription price for the university version isn't bad either. The only downside being that you don't keep it forever.

We've veered off topic, but honestly, as long as the discussion stays polite, I'm cool with it and we're no longer in July anyways.

 

September's almost here. Getting warmer outside.

Maybe a thread where Microsoft can come and read user complaints all in one place.

But really, yeah, have to move on. There are alternatives free, and fee with a trial first.

 

Winter is coming!!! at least it is up here in Alaska.

 

You Betcha!

 

It would be good to know but I think M$ had tester inform them about the Metro debacle but they refuse to listen to their own tester and outside tester telling them they are making a serious mistake but guess what it's I think your wrong aka Ballmar and I am right they want Metro aka Ipad touch. The answer NOT!...... Windows 8 is thinking inside of the box not listening outside of the box. Refining and improving Windows to distinguish itself from Apple was what people want and was less expensive to buy but doing Metro was turn off in so many ways....

 

so get start is back and turn it off. Then you have a great OS.

 

I'm not taking the bait. I refuse to comment. Oh my, I just did that which I said I wouldn't do.

 

You lost me there? Are you talking about 3rd party start menu? If so I already have Start menu O/S called Windows 7x64 Ult Sp1......Start menu and not worry about how and where to find my start menu....

 

Each to their own, I personally Can't live without the dual monitor features that they added in windows 8. Makes it much much easier to multitask on multiple screens as well. I maintain that I got my $40 worth easily. Is it worth what they are trying to get for it now? nope, but when it was cheap it was more than worth the upgrade.

 

Eh? Multiple monitors is nothing new. Been around since at least XP.

 

Yes, it has been around for a while, but Windows 8 brings some nice improvements (and some downsides -> hot corners), 8.1 makes things better allowing you to disable most of the hot corners, bringing back the shut down option in a more convenient place. It doesn't handle a high DPI monitor along side one with lower DPI though, but it finally handles DPI scaling properly on a single monitor.

 

Anyway, I saw this over on the tablet sister website: Schools That Use Bing Can Get Free Microsoft Surface RT Tablets

That's a hell of a discount for students. Simply use Bing and you get Surface RTs for free.

(Unfortunately, I'm not able to get in on this since my university is married to Google Apps and their other technologies).

Ballmer is also set to retire within a year. So... no more chairs?

http://slashdot.org/story/13/08/23/1329252/ballmer-to-retire

 

This might or might not be related but here some news as to why maybe W8 isn't doing so hot now.....

Ballmer to leave Microsoft within a year

There are other links one can find but this come from Forbes....

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer To Retire In Next 12 Months - Forbes

And NYtimes...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/technology/ballmer-announces-retirement-from-microsoft.html?_r=0

Seems like the fox coming back to roost in the hen house......

 

I'm not sure I see the discount: They're pretty much paying what these things are worth... But, of course, with Microsoft having almost a billion dollars worth of these things rotting in warehouses, they'll do what they can to get rid of them.

 

Discount in relation to retail pricing. Anyway, you almost never pay the price of what a product is worth (there's *always* profit charged by OEMs, and any other for-profit business), so we never get discounts on anything, in that view?

 

They aren't giving free tablets to students. They are giving free tablets to the schools, and in total only 60 per month. With stuff like selling them for $200 to academic institutions and cutting the base consumer price to $350, they are just trying to get rid of all the Surface RT stock they have before the Surface 2 is released.