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Microsoft's Battle For Software Mindshare
chemicaloli writes to mention a BBC article about Microsoft's battle to convince users they need to buy new software. The article explores the changes to the UI in Microsoft Office 2007. Along with the changes prompted by the adoption of the 'Ribbon', the article also looks at some of the software's new features. From the article: "'One of the biggest challenges... is to fight that perception that old versions of software are good enough,' said Microsoft's Chris Capossela. Office 2007 goes on sale to business on 30 November, the same date new operating system Vista is launched. 'Our business model of course allows you to keep using Office 2003 — the software doesn't really expire,' said Mr Capossela, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Business Division. Many large businesses will have Office 2007 delivered as part of existing IT contracts but small business and individual consumers will need persuading to make the change."
A business survey a few years ago (3?) showed that over 60% of businesses were still running Win 2K and had NO plans to switch to XP. This is an ongoing problem for M$. More and more businesses are taking the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" approach to software. Cost control is the most important thing and if what they have does what they need they will not spend a nickle for the sake of change. There is no compelling reason to go through the constant upgrade cycle just to help M$ bottom line. This seems to be true for businesses of any size.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Honestly. there is ZERO reason to upgrade from even Office 2000. Outlook 2000 is 10 times faster than outlook 2003 and god help us on the mess that is outlook 2007.
Every time there is an "upgrade" in the company all of us in IT cringe.... Office incompataibility between versions is legendary (2000-2003 was a nightmare.. some images showing up backwards in documents, scripts not working and the dreaded warning on every launch has served to only numb users to real warning dialogs.)
Honestly, I can do things on windows 2000 and Office 2000 in the corperate environment that you can do on the latest and greates... but with far less expense in both hardware and software. And yes you still can keep it secure, there are apps to do that as well.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
When you need to struggle to convince people that they NEED to buy your new product, and that the old one is not good enough, perhaps the problem is with you. Or perhaps the problem is that your customers know that in 2010 Microsoft will be trashing the software they are talking up now in a pathetic attempt to get you to upgrade again.
You know, there is only so many pointless features you can cram into programs that basically replace a typewriter and calculator (with graph paper) respectively. I know very few people who need more than Office 95 had to offer.
Finkployd
'Our business model of course allows you to keep using Office 2003 - the software doesn't really expire,'
...Yet.
Office 97 - The last M$ Office you needed to buy. I've been running my copy for 10 years and it still does everything I need.
From a sales standpoint, Microsoft is pretty smart with Office. They always make sure it's 100% backwards compitable, but add enough changes to the .doc and .xls format to ensure that a document from the new version cannot always be opened in a prior version. At the companies I've worked for, this has typically been the driving force of upgrading.
... after a while there's real benefit in upgrading vs. replying to hundreds of messages with "Can you please save this in an earlier version of Word, I haven't upgraded yet". As long as Microsoft can give away or sell enough O2007 copies to large corporate accounts, there will be a trickle down effect to the rest of corporate America.
There's nothing more annoying than receiving an e-mail with a Word 2003 document and not being able to open it in Word 2000
Huh? Don't mind me, I'm just the new guy.
Your "business model" is a hold-over from the stone age, and does not have the authority to "allow" or "disallow" me to do anything. Any company/industry that forgets that deserves the fate they get from it.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
If the old software isn't good enough now, was it good enough when I bought it? Furthermore, is the new software good enough? And by what date will it no longer be good enough? I don't think any business has needs that change so much that they need a new set of office apps after a few years. In fact, if they are doing things well, why change anything at all? The only reason you "need" to stay current is because Microsoft discontinues support on the older software. If NT support continuted, for example, I am certain that various companies would have been relieved to leave older production systems as is.
stuff |
Upgrading Office isn't about getting new features. It's about being able to read the new .doc and .ppt files that you get from other companies in your e-mail. I use Open Office for this, thus breaking the endless cycle of unneeded upgrades. However, I have to deal with font-mismatches, and occasional glitches, like embedded Visual Basic macros that don't work. I haven't seen a really innovative feature in Word/Power Point/Excel in years. There was nothing wrong with Office 97.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Microsoft: "One of the biggest challenges... is to fight that perception that old versions of software are good enough"
Behold, the difference between open and closed source software.
From http://www.linuxhq.com/kernel/
Version 2.6 * Current: 2.6.18, 20-Sep-2006
Version 2.4 * Current: 2.4.33, 11-Aug-2006
Version 2.2 * Current: 2.2.26, 25-Feb-2004
Version 2.0 * Current: 2.0.40, 08-Feb-2004
So, 2.6 and 2.4 are actively maintained, with 2.2 released in '99 with updates to '04, and 2.0 being updated for over 8 years, since 1996. And I'll wager that there's been no more updates since then for those two kernels simply because it *is* good enough.
Need I also mention the little bit of text that is present in almost *any* F/OSS software update that pretty much says "Hey, if you're current version's working fine for you, that's great. Don't think we're forcing this on you."
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
This just goes to show what I've suspected for a while... there is a problem with the software industry in general. The goals of a software company ultimately have a contradiction with the goals of software itself: The software company must fight its own products.
This is one of the reasons that, although I am a programmer by nature and by trade, I have a really hard time with the idea of starting up some kind of software company. I'd rather other people take those risks and hire me. As I see it, there are two problems with starting a software company:
1) Your product is inherently easily copied, giving it low value no matter how good it is. In fact, the more popular it is, the more likely it will be pirated, thus the better it is the LESS value it potentially has. This is definitely counter-intuitive.
2) Once you create a product that does what it needs to do and is easy to use, what then? Software eventually always reaches a plateau, and it becomes a question of "now what?" At this point software companies start to add "features" that bloat the software bundle and aren't wanted by customers, in the hopes that they've at least acquired a dedicated customer base that will buy the new version simply because it is "the newest version".
No, as I see it, it's better to do software in your spare time, and release it for free. Not because I'm some kind of altruist, but just because I see it as being a much more viable way to focus on the "product" rather than the "profits".
To clarify -- I'm certainly not any kind of anti-profit advocate. I'm a capitalist. I just don't see software and other information-based services as fitting into a capitalist model very well. As soon as you are a software company, you must focus on getting customers to upgrade, rather than on making sure they have a good experience with your product. Any industry in which it's in a company's interests to make sure its own customers are having a bad experience is in contradiction with itself, as far as I can see. I think the same thing goes for anti-virus products -- it's in their interests to make sure there are viruses around. They have built up their flagship products on the existance of something evil. There is simply something wrong with that.
This is why I tend to trust open-source products. I know that they have no reason to exist except to "get the job done", and therefore they do what they are meant to, and nothing else.
The need to compel people to adopt a solution is not, in itself, an argument that the solution is unnecessary. Applying game theory, even given a dominant strategy consumers may actually choose the weaker strategy because they lack the cognitive level required to understand which strategy is better.
Many consumers will choose what is familiar over what is better, even given a clear-cut advantage. For example, many dial-up users will refuse to switch to a broadband connection, even if the offer has all of the following properties:
This type of decision making can also be observed in solar panel sales. A consumer who can afford a $25,000 solar panel setup and has the government offer a $25,000 subsidy (effectively paying $0 for a lifetime reduction of 80% of their energy bill), will still not have it installed. This behavior is a result of 3 related fallacies. The "Burden of Proof", "Appeal to Tradition", and "Fallacy of Pride".
Burden of Proof - It is much harder for Microsoft to prove Office 97 is inferior to Office 2007 than it is for a user of Office 97 to prove Office 2007 doesn't meet their needs as effectively as Office 97 does. This is because Microsoft does not know the needs of the user in question, only the user does, and therefore the burden of proof is on the person making the assessment.
Appeal to Tradition fallacy - This is what I've always had and it has always worked for me, therefore it must be the dominant strategy.
Fallacy of Pride - People want to believe the initial choice they made was intelligent. Changing strategies would imply that their previous choice was not intelligent. Therefore, the intelligent choice is to not change strategies.
MS claims a lot of other things that aren't true, too. The truth is that Office formats are *mostly* compatible between versions. There are parser differences that cause Office products to fail to read complex documents between versions on occasion. I have trouble reading documents from Office2003 in Office2000 suite products. I have infrequent problems reading Office97 files in Office2000, and have frequent trouble reading Office98 (Mac) files on Office2000.
People that seriously use Office frequently see compatibility problems. It's the occasional users, like you, that don't see the issues.
FWIW, the filters that MS has sponsered for OpenDocument are terrible, and I can't use OfficeML because most people can't read it without downloading additional software. Besides, if I'm going to consider switching products from Office2000/DOC to Office2007/XML, I might as well save 500$/person and just switch to OpenOffice/OpenDocument.