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."

Comments

Lab Rats

[MECC]

The firm also undertook hundreds of thousands of hours of lab research

I had no idea those little white rats liked using Word. . .

Re:Lab Rats

[Sqwubbsy]

They didn't.
That's why they died.

Curiously, the ones using Project determined which other mice would die.

Re:Lab Rats

[ewl1217]

They're Microsoft Mice.

They're Genuine Microsoft Mice.

convince them the old isn't good enough?

[yagu]

Therein lies Microsoft's problem -- each new iteration of their software all of a sudden must render their older generation software "not good enough", giving the lie to all earlier claims about previous generations of product. This is the classical Microsoft business model. Microsoft is about selling a product, not providing customer satisfaction.

This may be a bigger shift for Microsoft than the internet was, retooling the way they think about business as a service and value-added support company rather than a company trotting out latest and greatest generations of (already quite mature) software (sheeesh, how many more features can you conceive for today's word processors?). And, have you looked at the new interfaces for their "got to have" Office products? Maybe good, maybe not, but who in their right corporate business mind would foist yet another learning curve on their entire company for yet another interface?

Considering Microsoft has never really cared for the rest of the world (in my opinion), their entire corporate mentality must reverse field, not something I'm sure they're even capable of... consider the latest rantings by Ballmer about a peek under the Microsoft covers about why they really forged the Suse/Linux deal. More evidence Microsoft continues to be about controlling, not collaborating. Does Microsoft even have the personnel capable of shifting their mindset? Time will tell.

Microsoft's stranglehold on the economy may be loosening as technology, distribution of technology, and support for technology become more about the people. That (in my opinion) can be only a good thing for the world.

(an interesting aside... my editor spellchecker offered Blamer as an alternative spelling for Ballmer... snicker.)

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[geoff lane]

It's really no different to washing power. Every 6 months washing powder is "NEW AND IMPROVED" and can whiten your whites beyond white... just like they claimed last year.

It's the same old 10% active ingredient and 90% inert filler.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[sBox]

At the past two companies I've worked for, we've found that OfficeXP has a good enough feature set for our users. Office2K was buggy and crashed, Office2K3 was an added expense for features we didn't even need with XP. About the only reason to upgrade would be for security patches or if you are in an audited environment, which most small and medium size companies are not. Outside of an audited environment, the only way I can see an upgrade is to foist an interface change on Office and sell it via the channel. Once a home user gets used to that, they'll start clamoring for it at work. And we all know what happens when a CEO sees a nifty trinket.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[Jarlsberg]

Well, it's not quite the same, is it? You can't readily use the same old can of washing powder week after week.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[Zangief]

Whiter than white? Like #GGGGGG?

(old joke, I know).

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[fotbr]

Not entirely true.

There are those that are in windows-only shops with a very strict IT policy that would like the features, but are not ALLOWED to use OpenOffice.

And then there are those, like me, that actually prefer MS Office over OpenOffice -- especially the new interface.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[doughrama]

Washing detergent that's "new and improved" is not meant to necessarily to "sell" the consumer on the product. Though it's an added bonus.

Companies that produce the staples, soap, razors, etc... Have to play games with their products to keep their prices reasonable (profitable.) For example, Walmart expect that you will lower the price of your product by x percentage every six months to a year. And with Walmart, you will, or they will drop your product and go with a company that will reduce their prices. Which is one of the ways Walmart destroy's companies, but that's a different topic.

So to skirt the Walmart price lowing policy, you simply come out with a new product. Just look at razors and razor blades they are the great example.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[Moby Cock]

His CIO tells him to shut up and go golfing?

;)

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[A beautiful mind]

Microsoft is about selling a product, not providing customer satisfaction.

I feel I need to add, that in most businesses selling a product provides customer satisfaction. However, such is the case with monopolies, that providing customer satisfaction is no longer a requirement, or a much less fulfilled requirement.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[smilindog2000]

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.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[A beautiful mind]

And then there are those, like me, that actually prefer MS Office over OpenOffice -- especially the new interface.

Oh... I think I've seen a term for that somewhere...

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately for Microsoft, software isn't a consumable like washing powder.

Precisely, which is why the Trusted Computing Group was started with Microsoft as a founder member, along with Intel. To put hardware in every PC that allows software and data to be a) sparse (cannot be copied) b) forced to expire. Including, I might add, taking Free software and signing the binaries to prevent you from modifying the code and still running it... effectively making their version of your code proprietary.

The group now also contains all the major technology companies, including AMD, VIA and such FOSS luminaries as IBM and Sun. Lovely thought.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[smallpaul]

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.

Microsoft has gone out of its way to provide file format compatibility from Office 2000 through 2007: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924074 .

People who complain about Microsoft's constant backwards-incompatible file format changes tend to be people who haven't used office seriously in a decade. Look around this thread. You'll find many people who have been using Office 2000 for 6 years with few compatibility problems. I know that I frequently pass files between Office 2000 at home and Office XP at work with no problems.

In the last decade, Microsoft has incremented its file format at roughly the same rate as OpenOffice/StarOffice. They've provided plugins to allow older versions to work. When they've incremented, the new file formats are better than the old ones in almost every conceivable way. The 2007 file formats are more reliable, more open and more feature rich.

I'm in NO SENSE a Microsoft advocate, and in fact am switching my computers to Mac. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to let BS go unchallenged. Truth is truth.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[gEvil (beta)]

There are instances of backwards compatibility issues, even though Microsoft claims the file formats are the same. I recently received a Word document from someone that had a table that spanned 5 pages. The first page appeared fine, but the table was then truncated on pages 2 through 5. Essentially, it ran off the bottom of the page and started on the next page further down the table than it should have (ex, page 1:a,b,c,d; page 2:e,f,g,h [table cells running off the bottom of the page]; page 3:k,l,m,n [runs off bottom]; page 4:r,s,t,u etc). Both Office 2000 and OpenOffice exhibited this behavior. The only thing that would open it properly was the Word 2003 60-day demo from Microsoft's site. Thankfully, I was able to use that in a VM to do what I needed to do to the file.

So while you may not have encountered issues, they do exist and there are people out there who have had to deal with them.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[Andrewkov]

This is why they change protocols and binary formats. If you can't open an Excel doc from your customer since he has a newer version, you are forced to upgrade. Plus they stop giving updates for older software. These are the 2 main ways MS has historically forced people to buy new software every few years.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[aaronl]

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.

Re:convince them the old isn't good enough?

[electroniceric]

You hit the nail on the head. Not only is it a question of convincing people to want the new product, it's convincing anyone who's made Office a platform to change platforms. I wrote a system for my company in Access (see side note below), which we'll use until a year and change from now when it will re-architected in Java as we grow. All the users are running Office 2003 right now, and I grit my teeth and pay the $400 Microsoft tax on every new workstation for a bunch of features we rarely use and a few key ones we do. In an effort to push Office 2007, however, Microsoft has told all it's VARs not to sell volume licenses of Office 2003 anymore. So I'm stuck buying up old OEM licenses, which really sucks from a maintenance and license management perspective. So not only do I have no interest in a new UI for the same old word processor, but I'm being squeezed by a vendor who's attempting to bully me into buying a product that breaks my platform. Call me a Linux fanboy, but that kind of crap really makes me hate Microsoft and any other vendor trying to put the squeeze on my freedom to assemble a platform that fits my needs and budget. The lab software market is full of that approach, and many people using lab software hate those bastards, too. One of the best parts of the maturation of open source is that it has helped bring power back to the buyers, whatever combination of open source and proprietary licenses we mix.

An aside about Access. It's really a rather good RAD tool for whipping up quick, useful client-server database applications. Access' "continuous forms" view and its reporting are top notch UI building blocks, and cost quite a bit of cheddar to buy or build equivalents in .NET. If Microsoft were more comfortable with the value-add chain, they could open a pretty big migration path from Access upward. Basically, trash Access' stupid everything-in-one-file binary format in favor of creating text source code files and compile to .NET executables in your language of choice. Then you get all the utility of Access' default data bindings and event handlers but in a format that you could fairly well convert into a mid-size client-server app that you could probably build and test. Instead they have left Access stuck executing VBA that's compiled inside the big munged binary file, and totally inaccessible by any decent test tools. My interpretation is that they're trying to keep people who do use buying licenses for Office Pro. That works, but it leaves you shopping elsewhere when your app outgrows Access. If they incrementalized the value you got, people like me would be distinctly more interested in them in the long run.

Why upgrade?

[Karzz1]

"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."

So, is this an admission by MS that there really is no compelling reason for an upgrade? What I mean is, if someone has to be persuaded to buy it, what is the reason they would need/want it?

Re:Why upgrade?

[Jekler]

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:

• Equal or lesser price
• Equal or greater reliability/uptime
• More bandwidth
• Less latency

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.

Problem

[BCW2]

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.

While IT staff around the world convince otherwise

[Lumpy]

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.

Hmmm

[finkployd]

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

Re:Hmmm

[ohearn]

The spelling and grammar checks in Word have gotten much better over the years (don't think the grammar check was even added until Office 97), but other than that not much has really changed.

I swapped from WordPerfect to Office 97 when in college because that was what most of my professors demanded. I swapped from Office 97 to Office XP simply because my wife already had a copy and that was what I had at work to make taking work home easier. I have had no reason to "upgrade" again.

There have been several occasions where I personally like the older versions of MS products better than the new version. Money was one of them (my wife likes it, personally I always did budgets in a simple speadsheet). The newer versions of money want to store your information on the web instead of on the local hard drive by default, constantly wants to connect to a MS server, and had more bugs than the older version. Even the wife swapped back to the old version pretty quickly, but it messed up the data files so badly in the process that we had to just scrap everything and start over.

IE7 is almost in the same category for me. I appreciate the attempts at better security, but thought the previous layout was much better. Sorry guys at work IE is the only option I have.

Doesn't really expire...

[Anonymous Coward]

'Our business model of course allows you to keep using Office 2003 - the software doesn't really expire,'

...Yet.

Re:Doesn't really expire...

[H8X55]

Actually, I was thinking the same thing. How much longer before their license subscription service offered to big businesses is their business model for home users as well. Pay $399 USD for 36 months of Office, and get upgrades from free. Month 37? Oh, that's another $399 licensing fee.

I've been using Office since '95, was very pleased with Office 2K, Office XP (2001? 2002?) wasn't bad. Office 2K3 is a little bloated for my taste, but the point is, I'd rather keep using 2K for FREE than pay the MicrosoftMonster a couple hundred bucks. When I can't use 2K anymore, I'll switch to Open Office.

A problem for hardware companies too

[cucucu]

Hardware companies compete with their own products too.
I once worked with a company that was getting increasing competition from their own hardware being sold on eBay.
They started offering discounts for returning the old hardware when upgrading. And then they destroyed the returned items.

At least the EULA does not allow you to pass the license to another licensee once you upgrade - that would be a Microsoft nightmare. Each new version would overflow the market with very cheap licenses for the previous one.

Office 97 - The last M$ Office you needed to buy

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

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.

Microsoft is smart/sneaky with Office

[Josh Lindenmuth]

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.

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 ... 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.

Re:Microsoft is smart/sneaky with Office

[fruey]

I'm not a fanboy, and I think the right business decision in your case is to stick with Office.

However, creating the template from scratch in a given piece of software (MS Office) and then hoping it will work elsewhere... is always fraught with problems.

If your template is in an open format (this is the most important part) like RTF or ODF, then you're much more likely to be able to change software when required. MS .DOC format is what is locking you to Office, and that's the way they want it.

Future transition to subscription model?

[thesuperbigfrog]

"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.

I imagine that they would like it if Office did expire--they could really suck money out of their customers if the software expired through DRM-style technology.

Business Model

[Kiaser Zohsay]

Our business model of course allows you to keep using Office 2003 - the software doesn't really expire

Well, that's awfully damned gracious of your business model, to grant us permission to continue using software that we paid for. Does your business model allow me wipe your bloatware off of my hard drive and install the OS of my choice? No? Oh, that's too bad. Well, try again next decade. Thanks for stopping by.

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.

Not good enough?

[chthon]

"'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

This from the company which probably wrote the book on deploying software when it's 'good enough'.

old software not good enough? horrible argument!

[192939495969798999]

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.

Old versions of software not good enough?

[OnTheWay]

Well, since I'm a forward-looking person, I think that Office 2007 is already not good enough for me, so I'm going to wait until Office 2011 comes out.

A subscription model would improve things

[MarkWatson]

I have blogged about this: I would be a much happier (occasional) customer of Microsoft's if they would support one version of Windows and Office at a reasonable yearly subscription price.

This would remove the drive for forced upgrades through new features that I don't care about. I would consider $40/year for Windows and $100/year for office to be reasonable. Buying a new computer would get you a 1 year subscription.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's business model requires constant growth (I was once a house guest for a weekend in a friend's home when another house guest was a Microsoft exec and his family. He said that Microsoft had to "grow a new Disney" in size every year for their business model to work). I don't think that $40/year from every legal Windows user would satisfy Microsoft's appetite.

On the other hand, look at Apple: I occasionally use OS X (Linux is my main development and writing platform) and I don't mind paying for a $130 OS X upgrade every 18 months or so - one reason is that OS X upgrades actually run faster -- great for older Macs.

Microsoft needs to get off of the forced upgrade path.

OOo needs a marketing push

[BortQ]

Today I happened to overhear a salesman going through his bit to a customer "and you'll want to include Office, which you can et a version of for $250." It too bad that customers are still under that impression. Open Office needs to get the kind of marketing push that Firefox has had. It's good enough for most people. If the people actually knew they could get a free office package they way more would opt for it. Instead, you have the salespeople padding their margins selling overpriced office software year-after-year.

Good enough?:

[popeyethesailor]

I see that lots of people comment the current office versions are good enough - indeed they are to the casual user who sparingly uses them. However to the power users and developer community, they've been pretty lousy till now. Server-side document generation has been pathetic; weird and expensive COM-based controls, archaic limitations, and lousy templating support.

The ribbon UI may have its uses; but I guess its just a gimmick. The real value for this release is in the server-side development, XML stuff that's gone in. And this is pretty tough to market. Still, people will buy it, since the default format's changed; and the upgrade treadmill cant be avoided.

OpenOffice and its cousins missed the bus; the minimum they needed to do was atleast match MS Office's UI performance. Sadly, even MSO2K3 spanks OO. When the competition figures out how to make a snappy, feature-rich, stable product, they'll trouble MS.

Re:Good enough?:

[lifebouy]

OpenOffice and its cousins missed the bus; the minimum they needed to do was atleast match MS Office's UI performance. Sadly, even MSO2K3 spanks OO. When the competition figures out how to make a snappy, feature-rich, stable product, they'll trouble MS.

Obviously, you don't live on the same planet as the rest of us. OpenOffice surpassed MSOffice with OpenOffice 1.0 as far as UI, and keeps on widening the gap with each release. For the most part, functions work as advertised, which is something MS Office has never done. No, the problem is that you're so used to compensating for MSOffice's brokenness, you don't even realize that it's broken anymore.

As far as stability goes, I've never lost an Openoffice file. Well, not since well before version 1.0, anyway. MS Office seems to destroy my work on a regular basis. There's really no greater meter for stability, is there?

However, OO still lacks as far as grammar checking goes. That's one area MS still leads. You can keep that small victory.

Sigh, I know how it works

[Per Abrahamsen]

Some of our external partners will get the new MS Office as part of their service contracts, and our administrative office will buy it because it makes the PHB's feel at the technological frontier. Both of these will start sending us documents that cannot be read with our old MS Office, and we will be forced to upgrade.

Same procedure as last upgrade. Same procedure as every upgrade.

We end up paying Microsoft not for new features we don't need, but for being allowed to cooperate with our partners.

This is why I believe the government needs to standardize on an open format for exchanging documents internally between branches and externally with private citizens and organizations. This is not a problem that can be solved by local decision makers. The locally optimal solution is always to go for a format that can read what the external partners, and this vicious cycle can only be broken by finding a different global optimal point.

(My math/cs background tells me that a local optimum is not necessary a global optimum, which is the provable wrong leap-of-faith that the dogmatic anti-regulation people have made).

Win95 + Office95

[wandazulu]

I do some consulting/pc maintenance for a small company that still runs their machines on Win95 and uses Office95 for their work, and the combo still runs fine. The majority of their "business" apps are web based, and Firefox runs fine on it, and as far as anyone is concerned, as long as the document comes off the printer correctly, no one cares what program created it.

It's interesting to go there; it's like time has stood still since 1995 and you realize that "good enough" can go back pretty darn far.

Poles apart.

[ColaMan]

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."

Re:Office 97 - The last M$ Office you needed to bu

[stubear]

That's not possible. It's been well documented by slashbots that you are forced to upgrade Office and Windows with each version that is released. You are clearly a liar because slashbots are well known for their journalistic integrity and would never make up stories about Microsoft on the spot or talk about things they know nothing about.

Re:While IT staff around the world convince otherw

[erpbridge]

Also, if you're dealing with a lot of users across a slow connection (ie 200 users who access their e-mail on the Exchange server across a T1), you get some bandwidth savings using cached mode.

With Outlook 2000/XP and Exchange 2000, you keep a constant RPC connection open (for mail notification and transfer) and you transfer mail at full size.

With Outlook 2003 (using cached mode) and Exchange 2000, you contact the server once every 45-90 seconds (rand) and check for new messages. Messages transfer in a burst, but at full size.

With Outlook 2003 and Exchange 2003, you get same as above, but the messages are actually compressed before the burst.

Yes, you get a 30-60 second delay that you didn't have with Outlook 2000/XP, but the bandwidth savings help quite a bit. Especially when the people in that building are using other applications across that link too (Web, constant telnet, Terminal Services).

Problem with the software industry.

[radarsat1]

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.

Re:While IT staff around the world convince otherw

[bmajik]

1. Cached Exchange Mode. All versions of outlook without this are absolute unusable garbage. This feature was what allowed me to stop using PINE+IMAP at work.

2. RPC over HTTPS. This is _huge_ for mobile workers.

I happen to really like Outlook 2007. I've not noticed any speed problems with it. They've done a good job since OL2k of removing possible high-latency calls on UI threads, making the client much more interactive in a variety of situations. In 2000 Outloook+Exchange were unusable. I remember the exchange team having an "SP1 ship party" and thinking I'd run over there and choke all of them, perhaps screaming "get back in your f@#$king offices and fix this bullshit until i can read email as quickly and easily as me and _50000_ other students could using pine+sendmail on a 2 proc dec alpha"

Outlook and Exchange have gotten _much_ better since then. I can use them without wanting to kill people, which has left me free to be angry about other Microsoft intolerables, like DRM, windows stealing focus, and long path name support :)

Re:The Classic Battle...

[SABME]

I used to believe this too.

I believed that all you had to do was give people the chance to learn the basics of what they were doing with a PC, the basics of what is actually happening when they open a file or copy a file, or start a program, and some magic light would go on in their heads and they'd "get it."

Then I started working in desktop support.

This was back in 1990. There was no web and no email at work (except for a few executives who used Procomm to connect at 33.6 kbps to the corporate mail server). Most companies had adopted PCs for use, but many, like mine, were still integrating them into their daily business tasks. We were experimenting with this newfangled thing called "desktop publishing," and the accounting department was debating the relative merits of Excel for Windows 3.1 vs. Lotus 123 for DOS. Some holdouts insisted on using Quattro Pro.

I was young and idealistic. I thought that the only problem most people had was lack of familiarity with these new, powerful tools. I thought a little education would fix it.

Boy was I wrong.

I gave seminars, I took time to explain what was happening every time I fixed a problem for someone. I wrote simple memos with pictures -- "How to Format A Floppy Disk" was one of my masterworks, as was "There are two kinds of hard disks -- those that have failed and those that will fail. So make backups!". For five years, I tried, and I believed I could make a difference.

I gave up and switched jobs. But I learned something from the experience.

I learned that the problem is twofold: 1.) the vast majority of the population doesn't care how a computer works and 2.) the vast majority also lacks the mentality required to understand what's happening inside a computer. I'm not saying these are unintelligent people; I'm saying there's a certain mindset that you need to understand what's happening in your computer, and you either have it or you don't. Just like some people really get off on balancing a ledger, or closing a sale. I've worked with janitors who went from not knowing how to turn the machine on to writing Macromedia Director presentations in less than a year, and I've worked with lawyers who were baffled at the complexities of saving a file to a floppy (and who never seemed to quite get the hang of it).

Call me cynical, but my conclusion is that's the way it is, and that's the way it always will be, regardless of how much education people receive.

Re:Office 97 - The last M$ Office you needed to bu

[Phu5ion]

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.

Except interoperate with Office <insert newer version here>.

Re:Why upgrade? Know Your TRUE COSTS

[Nom du Keyboard]

Many consumers will choose what is familiar over what is better, even given a clear-cut advantage.

While I find your article very insightful, and well worth the +5 it has earned (and I've saved it because I like your arguments), you miss a point. You don't discuss an analysis of needs verses true cost of the upgrade.

The only reason I moved from MSO97 to MSO2000 is that I needed to make that move to do VB6 software development for customers. I've stayed with MSO2000 since because it offers everything I need.

Why pay for features I don't need; need to learn the ins and outs of the new system; my time to upgrade; plus dealing with a whole new round of bugs and issues. That's a high price to me, and only benefits MS.

You discuss not upgrading when there is no apparent cost and compelling advantages. For many of us, neither of those conditions are true if we already own MSO97 or later.

.docx and security...

[PinkPanther]

From TFA:

XML is a lot more robust and secure. It's much harder to break into those file formats and do bad things.

Uh...isn't the point to moving to XML that it be interoperable...easier to get access to the data and do good things? Standard text file and all that?

Oh, wait...MS-Standard Text File...

Re: File Format Problems

[TaoPhoenix]

I wish to complain about backward incompatible format changes. I had one of our junior associates send me an .xlsx (Office 2007 Excel) file as an experiment. My machine with Office 2003 couldn't read it even after I downloaded the compatibility pack.

I think we need a little more of "Good Enough" in the world so we can "just get some work done". I'm looking forward to the non-sales atmosphere of Linux.