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The Microsoft Office Rental Program
LWATCDR writes "Yes, it looks like Microsoft is going to a rental program for Office.
From the article,
'The software bundle, which also includes Microsoft's Live OneCare computer security software, will be sold at nearly 700 Circuit City stores for $70 per year.'
Well I for one will be happy to stick with OpenOffice for now. From Microsoft's point of view it means a constant flow of money. For the customer it means you only have to pay a little each year instead of a lot every few years. I don't think this will save the average user any money and I wonder about problems with 'activation.'
So will this fly, or will it give a big push to OpenOffice?
This has been mentioned before but running on the assumption you aren't trolling I'll update you a bit. OO.o does still have some bloat issues (primarily during launch, once it's running it's very quick). However, you can turn on an option that loads a small TSR on boot-up which eliminates that lag. Admittedly, it's a bit kludgy, but to be honest, I'd wager MS only gets away with a fast start to Office because part of it's core is in the OS so it seems a fair trade.
:)
As a side note, the startup process has improved enough that I don't bother with the TSR on newer machines but for the very impatient it's a nice feature to turn on. Give the latest OO.o a spin and see what you think. It's still not fancy but it's a great workhorse, gets the job done, and is free. What more could you want?
Open Source Onenote?
Yes, one you don't have to download, and one you do.
On Linux: Basket Notepads
On windows: Zoho Notebook (no software required for that one)
There is "Basket Note Pads", which is quite good IMHO. Works fine for me, and it's currently being ported to KDE4.
Ah, you probably wanted something for Windows... tough luck. Or maybe there is something.
OK, run that last line by me one more time...
MS introduce an alternative licensing model for their customers. Presently, customers choose to buy MS Office even at its current cost. Wise customers in certain circumstances may choose to rent it instead, saving themselves money.
Thus, Office, on the whole, is cheaper than it was. And in specific cases is no more expensive.
These people have chosen MSOffice over OpenOffice, and now it costs them less. And you're suggesting that because MSOffice is cheaper, they'll stop using it?
Included in this package is not only Microsoft Office, but also Windows Live OneCare among other services. Let's see how the math breaks down over the next few years:
Traditional Purchase Model
-Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student - $150
-Windows Live OneCare (with one year subscription) - $50
-Next year's OneCare subscription - $50
-Following year's OneCare subscription - $50
-Microsoft Office 2009 Home and Student - $150
Total for three years: $450
Under the new Equipt Model
-Microsoft Equipt (first year) - $70
-Microsoft Equipt (second year) - $70
-Microsoft Equipt (third year, includes upgrade to Office 2009) - $70
Total for three years: $210
Now, this is assuming that the user continues to subscribe to OneCare and eventually would upgrade to Office 2009 - however, assuming they do, the savings are pretty clear. Since this is being offered side-by-side with the traditional purchase model, I think this is a good move by Microsoft. Also, there is no alternative anywhere in the software universe that comes close to OneNote.
"It's a reverse vampire...they....they crave the sun!"
but OpenOffice is still slow, huge, and somewhat more buggy.
Slow? Definitely slower start... much slower. Like 10x longer to start. However, once it's started, it's just as "fast" as Office. This is my biggest and only real criticism of OpenOffice.
Huge? Honestly, I've not looked at a size comparison. But I'll do one right now by opening a blank page in MSWord and OOWriter... 13,320k for Word, and 46,716k for Writer. Yup, much larger. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that every OO program is sort of bundled together as one application. Or so it feels.
Buggy? I find the opposite true. I still have endless formatting issues with Word and I still see endless formatting issues from co-workers and family. People who loose Word documents because something went screwy and the backup failed or someone who just can't get Word to format a page correctly, resorting to copy/pasting into notepad and then starting a new document to remove all formatting. I've never had that problem with OO.
A small price to pay for "free" and at least OO updates more than MSO.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Careful with those comparisons.
How much of MSWord is loaded at boot time as part of the "operating system"? That will make it seem to load faster and use less memory, because it has hidden large parts of itself in other places.
OO.org used to have a "pre-load" option that should make the two equivalent, at least in the loading time.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Huh? PDF IS an open format, the specs is available here and it's been submitted as an ISO standard, and not in the MS Office XML way, but as a fully documented standard with multiple compatible implementations in the wild.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
in comparison to Office, it's still slow to startup
OpenOffice Beta 3 launches twice as fast for me ever since I turned off it's use of Java. Uncheck "Use Java runtime environment" in the preferences. I haven't found a feature that I needed yet which requires it.
Developers: We can use your help.
Since at least 2003, none of Office is loaded with the OS. However, OOo still has a start-up app by default, and it's still slower
The best notetaking software I've ever used is called Freemind. It's a hierarchical mindmapping tool that provides good structuring and quick notetaking since everything is bound to a key without having to navigate menus (of course, you can do that too, if you want)
I'll go so far as to say that Freemind should be standard issue for every student.
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