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Microsoft Office Genuine Advantage (OGA)
Ant writes "PC World is reporting that Microsoft's Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) program will require mandatory validation of Office software starting October 27 (2006)." From the article: "Similarly, starting in January, users of Office Update will have to validate the legitimacy of their Office software before they can use the service, Microsoft added. Users absolutely hated the first iteration of the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program, and their protests pressured the company into revising it about a year after it launched in July 2005."
Microsoft is just one of the highest-profile examples of a company viewing their customers as criminals (Sony Music also comes to mind). Most of the piracy comes from people who would never buy the products in the first place. Punishing legitimate users won't end piracy and it won't boost sales. What is wrong with these companies? The more Microsoft blocks the use of Office the more likely alternatives will gain stronger position in the market. Which is fine by me, I'm tired of getting simple text documents in doc format.
An anecdote sure, but the old slightly technical guy in my office (fits the stereotype to a T) downloaded OpenOffice after MS Office was disabled on his computer. He had already activated it and registered it, but still had to activate it again to use any of the programs. Not even just update it, to use it at all according to him.
Last week he was a big Microsoft fan, this week he's researching his options.
There are countless reason to upgrade from office 97
"XML support" - noncompliant XML support, you mean.
[anything]"powerpoint"[anything] - I do work on my PC, not create cute slideshows for management meetings.
"more rows in excel" - Because 65k per worksheet has held me back so often?
"outlook spam filtering" - N/A, I use a real email program - Elm.
"sharepoint integration" - Give me a Wiki any day.
"team editing" - The word "team" has no "I" in it. I like it that way.
"task panes" - I know the shortcut keys. Give me my screen back!
"ink support" - My pen has that too, and doesn't suck 150 watts.
"infopath" - I just googled four entirely incompatible description of what that does, and still have no clue.
"onenote" - See "ink".
All these people that say "no reasons to upgrade from office 97" are the same who see no reason to upgrade from Win98 - either they've never tried anything better i.e. the new versions, or have such simple needs that basically anything would satisfy them (like MS works), that's why.
Agreed completely. I use Office XP at work, and have yet to do anything in it that I can't do in Office 97. 10-year old versions of Word and Excel quite simply do what they should, they do it well, and MS hadn't gone too far down the path of bloatware at that point.
As for XP vs 98, I personally came from the NT side of the family, so consider XP quite a lot better than 98 (even better than NT4, though I can't really say it has a whole lot more than Win2k).
Have you even seen or tried Office 2007? Beta 2 is truly amazing.
I don't want my productivity suite to amaze me. I just want it to sit there obediently doing nothing until I want it to work; Then I want it to do its thing and go away, offering me as little "help" as possible. I don't want it to offer to integrate my music collection with my writing style of the moment. I don't want it to take me to a new paradigm of productive collaboration. I don't want my core processes reengineered, I don't want animated help systems, and I don't want my computer to phone any home but my own!