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Microsoft Office 2003 - Reviews, Overviews, Issues

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the spectacular-conglomeration dept.

securitas writes "The first users of Microsoft's Office 2003 are weighing in and the response is mixed. The new Outlook has received a favorable response, but the mantra seems to be there's little reason to upgrade unless you absolutely need the new features. Meanwhile, Bill Gates dismissed the open source competition. One of the new features - self-destructing documents - seems to have caused some confusion, because 'Microsoft says the new feature is not designed to remove all traces of a file' and MS spokesman Mike Pryke-Smith says, 'The message will still be in various places', so emails will not cleanly self-destruct. A related issue is the permissions technology called Information Rights Management, which may shut out Mac users. PC World has a detailed review of Office 2003 which sums things up well."

1 of 517 comments (clear)

  1. YEA! for open source. by pointzero · · Score: 2, Troll

    Ok for the users at home. Let me see if I get this right.
    $229 for Word
    $229 for Excel
    $109 for Outlook (Checking email is expensive)
    $229 for PowerPoint(For presentations at work and stuff)
    --------------
    $796 Total

    Now if we look at say... OpenOffice.
    $0 for Word Equivalent
    $0 for Excel Equivalent
    $0 for Outlook Equivalent (ie Evolution)
    $0 for PowerPoint Equivalent
    --------------------
    TOTAL $0

    Now considering that the start up cost for a home user is $796 (not including Windows XP), and then a linux user can type "emerge openoffice" (for gentoo users) and just download it for other users (ie Redhat), I know were I stand. Benifits of open source.
    1. You don't have to call to activate your micro$hit.
    2. It won't cost you an arm and leg
    3. You don't have to walk to the store. (although you could and buy the nice prepackaged distro's with manuals and such)
    4. If you need help, customer service is in the forums or on an IRC a few clicks away, as opposed to 200+ dollars in long distance trying to explain to some micro$hit service rep that you can start your computer anymore because outlook decided to somehow fry your CMOS because of a new vulnerability.
    5. Did I mention it's FREE?

    Nuff said.