The Hidden Costs of Microsoft's Free Office Online

Michael_Curator writes "Despite what you've heard, the online version of Office 2010 announced by Microsoft earlier this week won't be free to corporate users. Business customers will either have to pay a subscription fee or purchase corporate access licenses (CALs) for Office in order to be given access to the online application suite (Microsoft already does this with email — the infamous Outlook Web Access). But wait — there's more! A Microsoft spokesperson told me that customers will need to buy a SharePoint server, which ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000 with all CALs included, if they want to share documents created using the online version of Office 2010."

Comments

well duh

[goombah99]

you need the server to run the apps inhouse rather than out of your control. The same is true of things like google docs and other cloud apps. either you run it on their servers and gove third parties access to your data or you pay to run it on your servers. this is not a surprise or even unreasonable.

Re:well duh

[markdavis]

Yeah, it sounds like the article is confusing free, online, other-party-hosted applications with non-free, online, self-hosted applications. Both have existed for a long time.

Since Microsoft's main bread and butter is MS Office, why would they offer a "free" version- offline or online, other than trialware, crippleware, or sampleware?

Re:well duh

[Runaway1956]

Sorry, it is certainly unreasonable if 3rd parties have access to my data. Suppose that all in one afternoon, I do Grandma's tax return, do a medicare application for Aunt Helga, make a resume for my son, etc, etc, etc, you're saying that ALL of that data should be accessible by unknown 3rd parties? Every application hosted in the web should supply my data to anyone, and everyone, around the globe?

Totally unreasonable.

This is why I am not entirely thrilled about the web. Notice, I'm not just picking on Microsoft here - the same applies to Google and any other company that might supply applications in the future.

Re:well duh

[illumin8]

you need the server to run the apps inhouse rather than out of your control.

Some things should be mentioned here for those that aren't familiar with Sharepoint.

I work for a Fortune 15 company and we are required to use Sharepoint, instead of a simple file server, to store all of our Office documents already. Sharepoint is a terribly, terribly flawed "workplace collaboration" software. It's basically a glorified WebDAV server that supports versioning, and also allows people to post little "widgets" like calendars that integrate with Outlook.

Sharepoint is Microsoft's answer to Mediawiki and other real media sharing web services. In fact, for 99% of all companies, Mediawiki running on an internal server would be much better than Sharepoint, and provide much more functionality, without requiring a copy of MS Office to be installed on everyone's client PC. But, corporate america, in their infinite wisdom, only trusts Microsoft products, so we get stuck with Sharepoint.

I hate the fact that I'm required to use a Microsoft browser to check out a Microsoft proprietary document, and edit it with a Microsoft proprietary office software package, then check it back in to a Microsoft proprietary server. This solution is the most difficult to use, from a usability standpoint, workflow point of view solution I have ever used before. Mediawiki would be a better solution for 99% of these purposes. I like the ability to just click "Edit" and start editing a page. Microsoft's solution is to keep all editing inside the Office suite, which requires checkout and checkin of each individual document. It's a terrible solution, rooted in an outdated "document centric" methodology.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like a false alternative -- what corporation is going to trust their documents on Microsoft's servers? So now you have to pay extra when you 'choose' to run these apps in-house. It's kind of like Vista Home Basic.

Re:well duh

[thethibs]

Let me understand this:

• MediaWiki has a word processor that I can use to create large complex documents like Word does, send them to my clients, print them with layouts and typography that makes them a joy to read?
• MediWiki has a world-class spreadsheet?
• MediaWiki has a professional drawing package to compete with Visio?
• MediaWiki has access control so that documents can be made accessible on a "need to know" basis?

No one is forcing your "Fortune 15" company to use SharePoint and fully-loaded office applications. They could use a geek toy instead (and ride to work on bicycles instead of BMWs). Your Corporate Architecture group made that decision. If you check, you'll find that they are actually qualified to make those kinds of decisions.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect strikes again.

Re:well duh

[larry bagina]

Additionally you have government regulations (enforced with jailtime and fines) for HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, and other shit.

Re:well duh

[Achromatic1978]

Because if it just "worked" it would catch wildfire and be extremely popular and would sell tons of copies.

Which reality is it that you live in where Microsoft's Office suite is not extremely popular and does not sell tons of copies?

Re:well duh

[arose]

either you run it on their servers and gove third parties access to your data or you pay to run it on your servers.

...and pay a third party to access your own server. Welcome to the wonderful world of CAL.

Re:well duh

[mick88]

>This is why I am not entirely thrilled about the web.

Not thrilled about the web, eh? Hmm. I'm not sure this is the web's fault, to be honest.

If you pay attention to the comment you're replying to, you'll notice the post didn't suggest that all data be accessible by any and all unknown 3rd parties. But what he/she says is that when you do your tax return online with TurboTax, they have access to your data. That _is_ reasonable. Just like when you walk into a brick-and-mortar H&R block to do you tax return: H&R Block has access to your data too. There are privacy laws to prevent them from doing bad things with the data. But if you give info to any company, on the web or otherwise, they have access to your data.

Re:well duh

[YrWrstNtmr]

Microsoft's solution is to keep all editing inside the Office suite, which requires checkout and checkin of each individual document. It's a terrible solution, rooted in an outdated "document centric" methodology.

Check out the Wiki or blog functionality in SP. Literally, click Edit, and off you go.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Sharepoint doesn't have any of those either.

You're mixing Office and Sharepoint like they're one product. They're very separate, and so is the pricetag for each. There's no reason I can't use Office with MediaWiki if that's what I prefer.

Re:well duh

[jonbryce]

Other than the access control functions, Sharepoint doesn't do any of these things either.

Re:well duh

[bschorr]

There are so many questions around "Cloud Computing" and SaaS when it's hosted by a web service.

* Where is your data?
* Who has access to your data?
* What happens to your data if the SaaS vendor goes out of business?
* What happens to your data if the SaaS vendor discontinues the app?
* What happens to your data if you have a dispute with the SaaS vendor? If you're late paying your bill or there is a disagreement about the fees charged?
* What if your data is stored in a foreign country? Could you be subject to the laws of that country? What if there is political instability in that country? What if it's a country that is unfriendly to your country?
* How do you perform compliance audits on a distant, disparate, data center?
* Does your SaaS vendor respect your document retention and lifecycle policies?
* How easy is it to take your data to a different vendor if you don't like the current one any more? ...and about a hundred more.

Re:well duh

[JoshuaDFranklin]

You don't understand what Sharepoint is, do you? We rolled out MOSS Sharepoint and used it for a few months. Even Windows users preferred email because the interface made it so painful to find things. Sharepoint does not have any of the functionality you list, either. There is an add-on that includes access control, but guess what? Client machines much be logged into the same domain (or have a a trust set up). In other words, Sharepoint has no access control functionality that can be used any differently than a Windows Server fileshare! It also stores documents in a database, and as you get a lot of documents (say, 1000) performance degrades. Maybe Mediawiki is a bad comparison since it has a completely different feature set, but any business would be better served with an actual document management system like Alfresco. (People also seem obsessed with Sharepoint's "blogs" which have much less functionality than Wordpress.)

Re:well duh

[thethibs]

Sharepoint and fully-loaded office applications do.

You must have missed the "I like the ability to just click "Edit" and start editing a page. " part.

Re:well duh

[jipn4]

Since Microsoft's main bread and butter is MS Office, why would they offer a "free" version- offline or online, other than trialware, crippleware, or sampleware?

Competition perhaps?

Re:well duh

[Runaway1956]

Sorry, fingers got ahead of the brain there. I meant "cloud", not "web". ;-)

Re:well duh

[jipn4]

What makes you think your data is safe on your computer? Microsoft can access anything on your PC if they so choose. So can police and others. They don't even need to tell you about it.

Re:well duh

[popeyethesailor]

Well SharePoint doesn't do any of those things, and the Office integration part sucks. Have you seen system requirements for SharePoint for a large organization? Have you administered a non-trivial sized Sharepoint instance? Have you managed a SharePoint version to version migration? It's a PITA, and completely overkill for most applications. The OP was right, most people don't need SharePoint.

It's the new generation nightmare - almost like MS Access and Lotus Notes rolled into one - easy for some tasks, ridiculously painful for others. And don't get me started on the whole song & dance people go through to build custom applications on top of it...

Dunning-Kruger indeed.

Re:well duh

[bschorr]

I don't know what country you live in but in the USA the police DO need to tell you if they access your PC. And if you think Microsoft gives a toss about your My Documents folder I think you've overestimated the value of those documents.

My $.02. Keep the change.

Re:well duh

[Runaway1956]

ROFLMAO - Has Microsoft engineered a backdoor into all *nix machines, then? Assuming that all the stories about MS's backdoors really are true, assuming that the stories about the NSA's backdoors are true - that doesn't address breaking into a *nix machine. Yeah, I'm sure that either MS or NSA could get into my machine, if they really wanted to. *nix is secure, but I may or may not have configured the thing perfectly. Maybe they can get in. They have the resources to hire good crackers, if they want to. But, it will cost them.

It would make more sense for them to send a couple of cops out to my house with warrants to confiscate my machines. If that happened, THEN it would become a game of "who is more clever". Is my stuff really hidden, or can they get to it? You can damn sure bet that I'm not going to just GIVE it all to them. ;-)

Re:well duh

[blincoln]

I hate the fact that I'm required to use a Microsoft browser to check out a Microsoft proprietary document

SharePoint 2007 works fine with FireFox, assuming you configure FireFox to pass your Windows credentials on and maybe a few other minor configuration changes. I imagine it will work with other modern browsers (in which category I do not include e.g. lynx).

and edit it with a Microsoft proprietary office software package

You can store any type of file you like in SharePoint, as long as the administrators don't have it on the blocked extension list.

Mediawiki would be a better solution for 99% of these purposes.

Most of the corporate users I work with love Excel and PowerPoint files in addition to their Word documents. How would you replicate that in MediaWiki?

Microsoft's solution is to keep all editing inside the Office suite, which requires checkout and checkin of each individual document. It's a terrible solution, rooted in an outdated "document centric" methodology.

That's how your organization is choosing to use SharePoint. It supports that model because it's supposed to be a replacement for (among other things) file shares and Exchange public folders. It also supports different usage models, including limited wiki-style pages.

If you think your organization has progressed into the documentless future of tomorrow, maybe you should try convincing other people there to work in that way using the tools they already have, and if it provides significant benefit you can steer them towards a product geared specifically toward that model.

Re:well duh

[dkf]

It would make more sense for them to send a couple of cops out to my house with warrants to confiscate my machines. If that happened, THEN it would become a game of "who is more clever". Is my stuff really hidden, or can they get to it? You can damn sure bet that I'm not going to just GIVE it all to them. ;-)

Do you really think that's going to save you and your data? They can take images of the whole disks quite easily (there are hardware tools for doing this) and they most certainly can get someone who will tell them that if it's a truecrypt partition, they should make sure to check for multiple stacked encrypted partitions, especially if the dates of the innocuous files don't match up with recent use of the system.

The only thing that is saving you right now is the fact that you're not breaking any law they actually care about. (OK, I can't tell whether you're breaking any law at all, given the stupidity of some jurisdictions' legislatures, but I prefer to assume you're not going about committing felonies and bragging about it on slashdot. That would be jaw-droppingly dumb...)

By contrast, my defense is simple. If the cops want to know what I'm doing, they can just ask and I'll tell them in great detail. I've even got several presentations that will make my explanation easier, though the use of that much powerpoint might count as Assaulting A Police Officer...

Re:well duh

[jbeale53]

FYI, Sharepoint 2007 SP2 now supports Firefox with no config changes.

Re:well duh

[enigma48]

I'm no expert, but I have to call bullshit on this.

We've deployed an internet-facing Sharepoint (not MOSS, v3) server that can be used on any random PC. You do need domain credentials for access though, if you've restricted access. It does take more work to set it up this way.

And the search feature in v3 is currently the quickest search we have. With a few hundred documents, we get search results in around a second - it takes longer to render the page - Google / Windows Desktop Search are a bit slower on searches.

I'm not a Sharepoint pro, but I support a few v2 sites and use a couple v3 ones.

Re:well duh

[Bigjeff5]

They can take images of the whole disks quite easily (there are hardware tools for doing this)

Dude, you've either been reading way too much or not nearly enough. That's not some special, secret technology they have. Hell, it isn't even hardware based. There are probably 40 million IT professionals who could do what you think is so secret and dastardly, and do so on a regular basis. That includes me, by the way.

It also doesn't work the way you think it does. It's true that they can make an exact, sector by sector copy of your hard drive. However, it's not some outlandish expensive hardware that does this, it's actually software and there are even a number of free programs that will do it, though the gold standard of sector based drive imaging is Norton's Ghost. The newer versions are shit, but you go back to around version 9 or so and it's lightweight and very powerful. These images can also be taken over the network, they don't need direct physical access to work.

Nice as it is though, sector based imaging requires 100% unfettered access to the drive it will be imaging. This means that if they want your hard drive, and you are using it, they can't get it. Furthermore, without direct physical access, it will take DAYS to get the image of your hard drive transferred over the network - and the programs don't image first and then send so that after a half hour you wouldn't notice, no they image and send at the same time, so your computer will be unuseable for days until the upload finishes. Not exactly sneaky. Plus, if the network gets interrupted at any time, the image will be corrupt and unreadable.

Maybe you should get out a little? You know, go for a walk or something, enjoy the sunshine. Leave the tinfoil hat on for now, you don't want to rush things.

Re:well duh

[Bigjeff5]

Plus the fact that it intigrates with outlook, which has communicator (a secure internal version of Live Messenger), and Live Meeting intigrates with all three.

Done properly, the Microsoft intigrations greatly improve workflows for many many people. Done poorly, of course, they suck monkey balls, but anything can be that way.

Re:well duh

[Bigjeff5]

My company has somewhere in the neighborhood of half a million employees. Seems to work pretty well for them, they use sharepoint for all sorts of things.

Re:well duh

[arkhan_jg]

We've started using opengoo in the 3 man IT department at my school for internal documentation and project management (with calendar, task lists and milestones), assigning a separate workspace for each project. You can upload files (such as photos, office documents) then check them out with versioning, or just write and edit simple documents (in html with an editor straight in it. I've even published one specific workspace to a subcontractor, so they can see where we're at with our end of things with one particular project we have running with them over the summer. It's really pretty impressive, and entirely free if you self host on LAMP/XAMP and open source to boot.

We do still have a mediawiki which was our previous documentation store, but having to convert everything to wiki syntax for formatting was a bit of a pain (especially tables), so I'm likely going to migrate everything across to opengoo so everything is in one place and easily accessible.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me understand this:

• MediaWiki has a word processor that I can use to create large complex documents like Word does, send them to my clients, print them with layouts and typography that makes them a joy to read?

What version of Word are you using? Most of the Word output I've seen is in Comic Sans, and would make a typographer puke. At the very least, your statement should be amended to "send them to my clients that use an identical version, fonts and OS, whilst hoping that the moon is in the correct phase". That would be realistic.

Re:well duh

[vadim_t]

But what he/she says is that when you do your tax return online with TurboTax, they have access to your data. That _is_ reasonable.

No, it isn't. I don't see why something besides the IRS should have to know what's on my tax return.

That they have to see the data is simply a limitation of the web model.

The way I see it, things should work in one of two ways:

A. The IRS themselves hosts an online page for tax filings. The data is sent over SSL and goes to the IRS, and IRS only.
B. If for some reason a third party is needed (and I don't see why it is), TurboTax should sell me a desktop application which talks directly to the IRS, and nothing else, over a secure connection.

Anything else is unacceptable. I do not like random third parties having access to my data.

Re:well duh

[Dustie]

Dude, you've either been reading way too much or not nearly enough. That's not some special, secret technology they have. Hell, it isn't even hardware based. There are probably 40 million IT professionals who could do what you think is so secret and dastardly, and do so on a regular basis. That includes me, by the way.

It also doesn't work the way you think it does. It's true that they can make an exact, sector by sector copy of your hard drive. However, it's not some outlandish expensive hardware that does this, it's actually software and there are even a number of free programs that will do it, though the gold standard of sector based drive imaging is Norton's Ghost.

It sounds more like you are talking about taking a backup of a drive then collecting data in a forensically sound way. The police does use hardware to block writing to the drive holding the evidence. If they don't it doesn't hold in court as the data could have been modified. Also I have never heard of anything Norton being used for collecting evidence. It would more likely be dd, FTK or EnCase.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Which reality is it that you live in where Microsoft is capable of producing something which "just works"?

Re:well duh

[Scarletdown]

What makes you think your data is safe on your computer? Microsoft can access anything on your PC if they so choose.

If Microsoft could do that, I would be sending some emails to debian-user asking the maintainers why they are allowing such a travesty to go unchecked in their repositories.

And then I would probably post a whistle-blowing story right here on Slashdot.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft's answer to Mediawiki"? REALLY? Yeah, not so much. Mediawiki != Business Data Catalog and advanced workflow capabilities with fairly seamless integration. Sharepoint has many flaws, but lack of functionality is not one of them. It does everything fairly well, but there's always something that does each component better. Sharepoint's advantage lies in not needing to buy all of those things.

Re:well duh

[QQ2]

I agree with you that in some\many cases a fileshare or an instance of media wiki might indeed be as efficient as SharePoint. But stating that SharePoint is Microsofts answer to MediaWiki is not a fair comparison either.

The basic 'free' version of SharePoint; WSS offers a collaboration environment aimed at dynamic, limited access groups like teams or projects.
It's widget approach and semi freedom it offers potentiall makes for a good collaboration environment regardless of the alternatives.
If correctly implemented on a corporate level it's metadata model can even make it a verry potent tool for actual information retrieval but this is a verry difficult thign to achieve (blame politics not the tool)
Ofcourse it has to be said that it's occasionally haphazzerd UI and reliance on IE limit its usefullness in mixed environements.

However more important here is the fact that SharePoint as MOSS is being positioned much more widely than this.
With MOSS SharePoitn becomes a CMS, a BI platform and much more.
Now I'm not saying it's best of breed cause it isn't but you have to admire the flexibility.
And if you want to fight MOSS in your enterprise you do wise to propose counters for the whole oss range or the product will simply outflank you

As for the development hoops.
Well I guesse that is mostly a matter of taste.
Yes the API is just plain weird at times and its dependancy on COM+ makes it an easy target for memory leaks.
But it's custom code deployment model is pretty good so in my experience itÂs slightly cheaper to maintain than comparible OSS or even proprietary
counterparts

Cheers
QQ2

Re:well duh

[davester666]

> Anything else is unacceptable. I do not like random third parties having access to my data.

But TurboTax can't afford to create a product like this for a reasonable charge. They NEED the ability to sell your personal financial information far and wide to be able to give you TurboTax for the pittance they charge.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

It's basically a glorified WebDAV server that "supports versioning"

Fixed that for ya.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

This one, dumbshit.

Re:well duh

[Blakey Rat]

Don't forget you can mount Sharepoint pages/folders as network drives, and simply drag&drop files in and out of them like any other network folder. That's a *huge* feature, and there's no way you could replicate that with MediaWiki.

Re:well duh

[glitch23]

Microsoft's solution is to keep all editing inside the Office suite, which requires checkout and checkin of each individual document.

Actually, nothing requires you to checkout or checkin a document. Only your company procedures would require those actions in order to prevent someone from modifying a document out of turn. I can attempt to edit a document and if it isn't checked out but someone still edited it then I *am* notified that someone is already editing it. Obviously it would be stupid for me to continue and make changes because they will just be overwritten when the person who started editing before me saves their changes. Now, had the person actually performed the checkout action then the webpage would have shown the user's name who is currently editing the document. The name would have been displayed in the "Checked Out To" column of the webpage. I then would know to not try editing the document. What would happen if I did? My changes would be overwritten by whoever took a snapshot of the file before I did.

We use Sharepoint at work and there are still people who insist on editing docs w/o first checking them out. I then go to edit them, thinking they are not being accessed, then get annoyed when I'm told by Word "this document is currently open for editing by ". So Sharepoint won't force you to checkout/in documents. That is still a procedural thing that organizations using Sharepoint must try to enforce upon their employees. Also, you can save changes to Sharepoint using the Explorer view which accesses the documents using a Windows file share-type access. This bypasses the versioning feature I believe and allows you to interact with the document database a little differently. This feature is only supported in IE though.

Also, I agree with another person who said that Sharepoint responsive degrades the more docs you have in the database. The one we have at work can be horribly slow sometimes. You can click on a link and it just doesn't load. You can upload a 30 Megabyte file (.doc, .xls, .ppt, .vsd ....yes, some of our files are that big or bigger) and Sharepoint will basically crash (i.e. the database crashes I believe). The server basically has to be restarted when that happens. Suffice it to say that Sharepoint doesn't work well with large files or a lot of files.

However, Firefox works with Sharepoint so you aren't required to use IE unless you want certain features. But you can checkout/in documents with Firefox I believe. And Sharepoint isn't requiring you to use Microsoft file formats so your perception they are forcing customers into a silo is incorrect. They properly *attempt* to integrate their products just like Adobe tries to integrate the applications that constitute their Creative Suite. It is up to the customers to decide whether they want to use all those components or only a select few. If they choose to do so they will benefit from the integration Microsoft has done to make the workflow smoother for customers (such as being able to checkin a document from within one of the Office apps).

Re:well duh

[kcitren]

A. The IRS themselves hosts an online page for tax filings. The data is sent over SSL and goes to the IRS, and IRS only.

Like this: http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html

Re:well duh

[Runaway1956]

Bigjeff addresses part of your post.

Let me remind you that the inter-net is inter-national. I am most certainly breaking SOMEONE's laws, somewhere. The fact that I will probably never enter the jurisdiction of most of those law making and law enforcement agencies saves me from a lot of hassle. But, I wouldn't respect the laws of N. Korea any more, or any less, if I had a trip planned to N. Korea tomorrow. I would continue to post on the internet that I think Kim il Jong has a flacid Dong - and worse.

As for any agency acquiring a block-for-block copy of my hard drives - cool. That doesn't get them into the files, nor does it help them to figure out where or how my "sensitive data" might be hidden.

Any tech worth his salt, who possesses some imagination, can hide data - often times, in plain sight. The forensics expert can dig deeper and deeper, while getting further and further from what he's after, sometimes. A "hidden encrypted drive" can be used as a distraction, even if it contains nothing. ;-)

Re:well duh

[tomhudson]

Which reality is it that you live in where Microsoft is capable of producing something which "just works"?

The same one where (FTFS) Billy Mays - the "But wait -- there's more!" guy is still alive.

... or they left out a word ... "Microsoft is capable of producing something which "just barely works"

I finally had a chance to see the ribbon bar in Word/Excel/etc. last week - I didn't think it was possible to screw up a good idea that badly ...

It was easier to just download openoffice and get the user running again than it was to try to help them figure it out.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, even the paid for Office 2007 Professional is crippleware.

Click that Office logo in the upper left corner, then select New.

Look how few templates they give the user.

The rest is dependent on Microsoft Office Online. Web-based content that is subject to change or removal is *never* considered to be a value-added feature by my own definition.

Compare that vs. Office 2000 or earlier. The suite was much more fully functional out of the box. Office 2007 Professional is therefore shown to be crippleware.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

I use 3-rd party hosted Outlook Web Access / Exchange. I connect via VPN. I have about as much faith in my hosted company as I would place on an in-house team at an office.

For personal stuff, I really don't see the big deal if everything is encrypted. You presumably trust online stores to handle your billing info, some people file e-taxes, people bank online, etc. Provided the data isn't saved or retained insecurely and you can eliminate it from their system, what's the concern?

Re:well duh

[im_thatoneguy]

Yeah. I'm a huge fan of Microsoft Office and I despise sharepoint. It's terrible. There is nothing I can think of that's redeeming about it. The interface is bad. The implementation is bad. The features are lacking. It just needs to be completely scrapped.

You could start from scratch and develop an almost featureless replacement that would perform better just because no feature of sharepoint is actually worthwhile and what is worthwhile is impossible to use.

Re:well duh

[jshackney]

I've even got several presentations that will make my explanation easier, though the use of that much powerpoint might count as Assaulting A Police Officer...

Damn! Have I sat in on one of your presentations?

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

So you work for Wal*Mart or the Deutsche Post? Those are the only two companies in the world with half a million employees. I don't think either has half a million SharePoint users since the vast majority of both companies' work force does not use a computer.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually strictly speaking it's mounting it as a WEBDAV share, not a network drive. It's also painfully slow.

It would not be hard to write a Samba extension, or even just a daemon that watches a network share, which synchronizes a normal SMB/NFS/SfTP/whatever protocol you like to MediaWiki. In fact, I'm guessing I could have one written inside 20 minutes, which would be less time than it took me a few months back to fight with a WEBDAV SharePoint share that kept wanting to open as a link in my web browser instead of in Windows Explorer (looking at the properties of the shortcut to it, the shortcut is just a HTTP URL, and the only thing to distinguish it from an actual URL shortcut is the icon it uses).

Re:well duh

[haifastudent]

Yeah, it sounds like the article is confusing free, online, other-party-hosted applications with non-free, online, self-hosted applications. Both have existed for a long time.

Since Microsoft's main bread and butter is MS Office, why would they offer a "free" version- offline or online, other than trialware, crippleware, or sampleware?

I will tell you why they won't. I was looking forward to the online suite as a foolproof way of viewing MS Office documents on my home computer (Kubuntu). No, Open Office does not render the documents that people send me in an acceptable fashion (though OOo 3.x is much better than 2.x).

But in any case, I still insist that people sent PDF documents instead of Word, and just recently I had to debate whether to request that someone send to me a PDF who sent me an ODT document. I let it slide, instead I thanked him for using ODT and I wonder what the MSO users did with the file!

Re:well duh

[ajlisows]

You don't understand what Sharepoint is, do you? We rolled out MOSS Sharepoint and used it for a few months. Even Windows users preferred email because the interface made it so painful to find things. Sharepoint does not have any of the functionality you list, either. There is an add-on that includes access control, but guess what? Client machines much be logged into the same domain (or have a a trust set up). In other words, Sharepoint has no access control functionality that can be used any differently than a Windows Server fileshare! It also stores documents in a database, and as you get a lot of documents (say, 1000) performance degrades.)

What do you mean Sharepoint has no access control? It is built right into every Sharepoint Library.

And Client machines do not have to be logged into the same domain! You don't have to use the Active Directory User authentication either, you can use "Forms Based Authentication" to create non-domain login accounts, which you can access from any computer you want.

The search in Sharepoint does stink. Luckily, without too much effort, you can write you own search web parts.

When you get a lot of documents in a single library performance does degrade, but it is not absolutely horrible. Maybe an extra half second here and there.

Re:well duh

[Homburg]

That page links to a list of third-party web sites where you can file your taxes, that is, exactly the situation that the parent is complaining about. The IRS don't offer their own online filing service.

Re:well duh

[Mista2]

Oh, and you have to be actually be running Windows and IE to access Windows Live services.

Re:well duh

[JediTrainer]

Try looking into OneNote 2007 on top of SharePoint

Seriously. It takes all the headaches out. Auto-synchronizes between team members, keeping a local copy on each person's machine. Everything can be dragged/dropped into it. Images, text, files - it doesn't matter. Easy to annotate content by just typing or drawing on top of stuff. Easy to reorganize just by dragging things around.

My team was very hesitant to adopt SharePoint for exactly what you were talking about. We (being an MS-oriented company) were using TWiki before to gather our docs but we found formatting to be tedious and as a result, the documentation was frequently out of date. Our company wanted us to start using SharePoint and we basically found it to be a step backwards... until we discovered OneNote and it basically addressed all of our complaints in one neat app.

Re:well duh

[JediTrainer]

Not all of the controls work, unfortunately. Most of it does but it really depends on the content of the pages, some of which still only work in IE.

Re:well duh

[Toreo asesino]

Client machines much be logged into the same domain (or have a a trust set up)

Untrue. You're either being ignorant or utterly disingenuous. I mean, it's a pretty basic detail and you got it wrong,

Re:well duh

[jipn4]

I don't know what country you live in but in the USA the police DO need to tell you if they access your PC

That's not clear; they don't tell you about wiretaps either.

And if you think Microsoft gives a toss about your My Documents folder I think you've overestimated the value of those documents.

Yes, and neither does Google. That's the point.

Re:well duh

[jipn4]

Assuming that all the stories about MS's backdoors really are true,

What are you talking about? Microsoft sends Microsoft users regular software updates, and their software sends back information to their servers all the time. If they wanted to, they could access information on pretty much any machine running Microsoft Windows. The "backdoors" are there and in plain sight. But they probably don't because they don't want to.

And it's the same with on-line office suites. With both Microsoft and Google, you are depending on the companies to play fair and not invade your privacy. The fact that one runs on your local PC and the other in the cloud makes little difference.

And potential worries about theft from Google servers has to be balanced against the high threat of viruses, worms, and trojan horses on your local Windows installation.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Additionally you have government regulations (enforced with jailtime and fines) for HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, and other shit.

None of these are ever considered, let alone enforced : there are MS Windows servers deployed in thousands of hospitals around the U.S. I bet not even one hospital lawyer or IT-responsible administrator has even scanned the licenses, let alone gone over them with a fine-toothed comb.

Re:well duh

[AftanGustur]

True, but if you want to share your documents with the world MS has a *special* license for you.

If you connect Sharepoint to the internet and want to create a public website with your documents, the pricetag will probably knock your plan out cold.

Re:well duh

[bschorr]

I don't know what country you live in but in the USA the police DO need to tell you if they access your PC

That's not clear; they don't tell you about wiretaps either.

Oh, yes. It's quite clear. Voice wiretaps are a different story, by the way, and have nothing to do with the data that's on your computer.

And if you think Microsoft gives a toss about your My Documents folder I think you've overestimated the value of those documents.

Yes, and neither does Google. That's the point.

Google has more access than Microsoft does if you're using Google Apps to create/store your documents. I doubt they care either but I'm not entrusting confidential or mission-critical documents to any online app provider - whether it's Google, Microsoft or somebody else.

Re:well duh

[bschorr]

Mediawiki lets me create a calendar that integrates with Outlook?

By the way, you can view SharePoint sites with Firefox. For those rare features you might need IE for you can just use the IEtab Add-on for Firefox.

You can also use OpenWriter or WordPerfect to edit Office XML format documents.

If you really want to.

Re:well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but Mediawiki sucks. We had it and used it for a long time. We actually had 2-3 servers running different wikis for the sake of having some kind of access control. We considered moving our (mixed RHEL/Win environment) to Sharepoint, but noticed the aforementioned restrictions.

We've since moved to Confluence. It works well all around, and integrates with the bug tracking product we have from them. You can edit MS documents with a simple Firefox plugin.

Re:well duh

[HitoGuy]

My problem with the "cloud" is I don't see a fucking point to it.

Why would I want to pay money to do something I could already do locally on my own PC for FREE and FASTER?

Seriously, I don't get it. Can someone explain this concept to me? Why is the "cloud" so popular?

Move along...

[markdavis]

Why does the poster sound so surprised by the licensing and prerequisites? It is not like this is new behavior for Microsoft.

And you can bet it won't work with any other operating system except MS Windows, and won't work with any browser except IE.

Nothing new to see here... move along...

Re:Move along...

[sam0737]

SharePoint (not 2010, i mean the current version) actually works well with Firefox. I have yet to noticed any different when browsing it with Firefox/IE7.

Re:Move along...

[markdavis]

Although that is good news, I would comment thusly:

1) Did you try it using Firefox on a non-MS-Windows computer?

2) The article is really about some type of browser-based MS-Office, not Sharepoint. So even if Sharepoint might work, it doesn't mean MS-Office will (I should think the odds would be much lower)

3) Microsoft has a nasty habit of allowing things to work with non-MS products/browsers/OS's AT FIRST. Then later that support starts to dwindle and disappear.

Re:Move along...

[Anonymous Coward]

We run a mix of PCs and Macs, and I actually run Ubuntu with a VB version of 7RC. Our SharePoint site works well on PCs with IE7/IE8/Firefox, on the Macs with Firefox (Safari has permission issues and is generally unpleasant), and it even works decently on my Ubuntu with Firefox.

Re:Move along...

[illumin8]

SharePoint (not 2010, i mean the current version) actually works well with Firefox. I have yet to noticed any different when browsing it with Firefox/IE7.

Actually, Sharepoint works terrible with Firefox. All of the advanced directory and file browsing features are disabled, since Firefox doesn't support the "Internet Explorer is your file browser" functionality that IE does. Sharepoint is basically just a glorified WebDAV server, but trust Microsoft to use proprietary IE only protocols instead of standard WebDAV, which would have worked with any standards compliant browser.

Re:Move along...

[lenehey]

My experience with Firefox and SharePoint is different. Most features work with Firefox, including just browsing and navigating. But there are a lot of features of SharePoint that just not work with anything but IE. Especially things like page editing.. I hare are so many problems using Firefox with SharePoint, I have the IE tab extension and have it set to use the IE rendering engine whenever I access our corporate SharePoint.

Re:Move along...

[Anonymous Coward]

Editing things does not work very well unless you use IE.
But you probably use Office mostly for browsing documents, right?

Sharepoint has its own costs,
I have probably added up a weeks worth of payed hours but haven't gotten any closer to making it useful.

Re:Move along...

[YrWrstNtmr]

SP works with Firefox at a basic level. Any of the higher level functionality (editing in place, slide libraries, checkout/in, etc.) needs IE, ActiveX, and Office.

The real name for SharePoint is Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. It's an online extension of the Office suite.

Re:Move along...

[b4dc0d3r]

It crashes IE7 if you use some Microsoft add-ons - haven't taken time to figure out which one but they're all microsoft. I've not had any luck with Firefox doing anything but downloading docs - and sometimes that doesn't work either. The check out, edit, and upload certainly isn't functional in Firefox 3.07

Re:Move along...

[tonycheese]

I'm confused; when did Microsoft claim the suite was going to be free to corporate users? From the PC Pro article,

Microsoft says the online applications will be free to consumers and small businesses, via Windows Live. Larger businesses can choose to host their own versions of the web applications via their SharePoint server or buy them as a hosted service from Microsoft.

I found this article from the previous Slashdot summary about Office 2010.

Re:Move along...

[Cheezlbub]

If you're going to do anything but be an end-user, using firefox with sharepoint is not as exciting. (this is on windows, btw)

For instance
- no opening up lists in datasheet view
- can't open up lists in access or excel - have to export a spreadsheet
- can't use the directory browser thing to add people to permissions groups
- Editing content editor webparts gives you a tiny source editor form box in the toolbox rather than giving a popup window

So yeah, not quite the same

Re:Move along...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cite an instance in which point 3 is actually the case.

Re:Move along...

[markdavis]

How about Foxbase? How about IE for Mac? How about MS-Word for Unix? Are three enough?

Re:Move along...

[socsoc]

Stopping development on products that have been made obsolete by competing products is just good business.

Re:Move along...

[markdavis]

Um, no. In all those cases (and many others), their motive was to suck people in and then shut it down, in an attempt to force people to their OS. I remember it well.

Microsoft copying Apple?

[Vinegar Joe]

Maybe Microsoft has decided to become a hardware company like Apple claims it is. I wonder if the servers will be made in the same Chinese factories that make Macs.

Re:Microsoft copying Apple?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

No MS hardware involved. "A sharepoint server" is just your basic x86 server from anybody running a particular set of MS software.

Re:Microsoft copying Apple?

[Vinegar Joe]

Oh well then......Fuck Microsoft and Go Apple! :^)

Re:Microsoft copying Apple?

[macs4all]

Maybe Microsoft has decided to become a hardware company like Apple is. I wonder if the servers will be made in the same Chinese factories that make Macs and virtually every other computer.

There, fixed that for you, Troll.

A Bad Idea

[Techmeology]

Cloud computing is a bad idea. It gives software companies an unprecedented level of control over our data. If they decided to up the price of their service, or withdraw it entirely, there is little we can do. Microsoft is famous for manipulative behavior. I would not endow them with this level of trust; nor would any other sane person. If you are looking for an alternative, might I suggest http://www.openoffice.org/ (many people I know also use it for its superior equation editor, in addition to the fact that it is free and open source).

Re:A Bad Idea

[MightyYar]

Cloud computing is a bad idea.

Isn't that kind of a sweeping statement? Might it not be a good idea for some people?

It gives software companies an unprecedented level of control over our data.

It rather depends what you put on there and what kind of business you are, doesn't it? It also depends on your backup strategy. If they up the price of their service, you can migrate away. If they shut it off completely with no warning... well, you were keeping backups, right?

I would not endow them with this level of trust

Who's talking about trust? You use their service and you keep backups. You don't "trust" anyone.

If you are looking for an alternative, might I suggest http://www.openoffice.org/ [openoffice.org]

Please tell me that your whole post wasn't just a plug for a free office suite that everyone on Slashdot is already aware of?

Anyway, other than saving a few hundred bucks per seat, OpenOffice isn't a "solution". It still requires more support compared to letting Google/MS be your IT department.

Re:A Bad Idea

[Techmeology]

It still requires more support compared to letting Google/MS be your IT department.

I believe you just made my point for me. Letting Google or Microsoft be your IT department is dangerous because they have a vested interest in the decisions your IT department makes.

Re:A Bad Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Your unoriginal ideas are boring. Almost every sentence in your post is misleading or wrong. Please think about that before you put post again.

Re:A Bad Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of paranoia is that? Do you also not buy vegetables because the growers have a vested interest in the decisions you would have to make if you were growing vegetables yourself?

The bottom line is that people are selling services. They are good at X so they sell doing X, whether it's growing food, painting your house, fixing your cavities, or maintaining your IT infrastructure. Dismissing this is basically rejecting the benefits of society. If you insist on doing everything yourself you might as well go live on a deserted island.

Re:A Bad Idea

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

But at least Google/Microsoft have solutions in place for collaboration and other fun things. Some are even self-hosted if you want to fork over cash. What has OO.o got going for it? A free price tag is about it.

Re:A Bad Idea

[timeOday]

It rather depends what you put on there and what kind of business you are, doesn't it? It also depends on your backup strategy. If they up the price of their service, you can migrate away. If they shut it off completely with no warning... well, you were keeping backups, right?

Well, there goes one of the major savings from cloud computing then. If you can't rely on them to back it up, you still have to host all your data yourself (as backups). For that matter, having all your data sitting in a big tarball somewhere hardly counts as a backup unless the infrastructure is in place for all your enterprise users to switch over to it on demand.

Of course we both know hardly any cloud computing users will actually do that.

Re:A Bad Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Cloud computing for some, miniature American flags for others.

Re:A Bad Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

For that matter, having all your data sitting in a big tarball somewhere hardly counts as a backup unless the infrastructure is in place for all your enterprise users to switch over to it on demand.

I take from your context there that you take "on demand" to mean near instantaneously? How does the time delay between requesting the backup be restored and it actually being restored affect the factual statement "we have a backup"? You seem to be placing too much emphasis on speed of backup restoration rather than integrity and quality of data.

Re:A Bad Idea

[dkf]

Well, there goes one of the major savings from cloud computing then. If you can't rely on them to back it up, you still have to host all your data yourself (as backups).

You can buy backup space from another provider if you want, or do it yourself with your own equipment. If you want to do it yourself, you have to remember factoring in the costs of doing it properly, keeping the system up when you need it. If you care hugely about your data (which you might or might not do; not everyone feels the same) then you'll want to keep multiple backups in multiple locations, with at least one under your direct control. But it's up to you to work out how much you're willing to spend on caring.

For that matter, having all your data sitting in a big tarball somewhere hardly counts as a backup unless the infrastructure is in place for all your enterprise users to switch over to it on demand.

Of course we both know hardly any cloud computing users will actually do that.

Backups aren't the same as having hot replication; they have different purposes and different properties. Hot replicas tend to be far more liable to corruption by normal operations. Backups are for recovering from "oh shit" moments, and should be kept fairly long term, yet they're also slow. If you think they're the same... well, let's just say you're going to end up losing all your data and there won't be anyone around to save your sorry ass.

Re:A Bad Idea

[MightyYar]

Well, there goes one of the major savings from cloud computing then.

How so? Let's say I have 25 users in an office somewhere. Every day I run a script on a single machine which backs up all of their google accounts. This saves me a whole lot of work... no running my own mail server, no updating applications, no backing up individual computers, no license worries, etc. In the utterly ridiculously contrived event that Google shuts down its service overnight and Gears somehow becomes instantly unusable, I still have all of my users email and files. If they absolutely can't wait for me to find another service, they can fire up OpenOffice and ask me for their files. I won't instantly have a new support strategy, but neither will I be shut down. The business impact would be roughly equivalent to a snow day.

Re:A Bad Idea

[MightyYar]

they have a vested interest in the decisions your IT department makes.

Well, I'd certainly hope that any vendor would be interested in the decisions of one of their customers! If they make a bad decision with their service, you move. It's not as if anything that Google offers ties you in. Email? Redirect your domain to one of several billion other providers. Calendaring? Ditto. The office suite? Even you pointed out a free desktop solution.

I have no experience with the MS version, but if it's not similar to Google's offering it won't go anywhere. Competition is good.

Re:A Bad Idea

[Bigjeff5]

You realize that most large companies have either IBM, HP, or Fujitsu running their IT department, right? Mostly off-This is nothing more than a new kind of outsourcing, separating themselves even further from having to deal with IT decisions.

To protect themselves, they have NDA's, well written contracts, and the teams of lawyers necessary to sue the shit out of the company handling their IT if any of the "dangerous things" you imagine will happen, happen.

"Cloud Computing" is just the next wave in the movement to get things out of the responsibilities of the local business and into someone else's. It saves the business money and headache when someone else takes care of it as their specialty and simply charges a fee for the service.

I've got news for you, Microsoft and Google aren't comming up with this stuff in a vacuum and enticing customers to take the bait for their newest useless product. What they are actually doing is designing products in response to the needs and desires of their customers. It's the way service-oriented businesses grow and flourish.

Software licensing is cheap

[hattig]

It's nothing compared to the cost of hiring a team of people to get sharepoint to do what you want it to do, and plenty of companies are happy to pay for them. It's also cheap on a per-user basis - remember how many tens of thousands you are paying them each year - not that this logic extends to buying them a decent computer.

Some software just works. Other software unnecessarily requires over the top maintenance and setup costs. I've never read anything good about sharepoint apart from the people who got wooed by the salesman over golf/dinner/piss up to buy it. Sadly these people are who controls decision making.

What's a good free sharepoint alternative, in a single package?

Re:Software licensing is cheap

[gbjbaanb]

Oh god, I have to second that - Sharepoint is abysmally unproductive. From a technical point of view that you can put documents online and access them through a web browser, it works. However, for some reason, no sharepoint server has ever made it easy to find or access those documents, they always end up in a sprawl of links.

I wouldn't start top describe the 'addon' functionality as I doubt anyone really uses it.

Re:Software licensing is cheap

[YrWrstNtmr]

However, for some reason, no sharepoint server has ever made it easy to find or access those documents, they always end up in a sprawl of links.

That's called "a crappy SharePoint admin" or "bad taxonomy" or "no forethought as to organization".
If that same person was in charge of a simple file share, it would be just as bad.

Re:Software licensing is cheap

[YrWrstNtmr]

What's a good free sharepoint alternative, in a single package?

That works as 'seamlessly' with MSOffice (the default business suite) as SharePoint? There isn't one.

Re:Software licensing is cheap

[Shados]

You can access your documents via WebDav, and map the sites as Web Folders (Windows XP) or drive letters (Vista and up).

Doesn't exactly get much easier than that.

Re:Software licensing is cheap

[Shados]

SharePoint works fine. And you don't exactly need to pay a bundle for it if you just want document sharing and collabortion (since Sharepoint Services is a component of Windows Server. Only the souped up "enhanced" version costs, and has a million pieces to support).

I run Sharepoint on a one server virtual machine, and probably have an higher than average load on it, and its fine, and I definately don't need to maintain it much at all. And at work we're running one of the largest non-Microsoft sharepoint farm in the world, in a unix based environment (no active directory, lots of *nix clients, box linux box than windows box, etc) and while it sure has the hiccups than any webfarm of the size ends up having, it does work pretty good.

In any case, as of the latest version, Alfresco is a very respectable open source alternative that will run on Linux boxes and uses mainstream open source components, and is seen as "Sharepoint" from Office 2003/2007's point of view, and it integrates quite seemlessly with it. Give it a shot, its pretty damn good.

Re:Software licensing is cheap

[Shados]

just want document sharing and collabortion

Oh boy, talk about a typo I made there... the zealots will have a field day with this one. Whoops.

of course

[FudRucker]

if microsoft can turn something in to a gold mine you can bet on it, raking in as much money as possible by milking it for all its worth is a big part of their business model

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

And they probably don't want to see the headline "Microsoft ships free Office version for upcoming Google Chrome OS".

Re:of course

[Anonymous Coward]

I would seriously question your ability to run a business if making money weren't a major motive. If something is not profitable, why would you spend time or money developing it?

Storing your documents OFFLINE

[syousef]

...priceless.

For everything else, there's Microsoft.

I can't ever see myself storing my personal documents, especially financial ones, on some remote server or "cloud". Fuck that. Take your orafice online and stick it.

Re:Storing your documents OFFLINE

[Anonymous Coward]

For everything else, there's Microsoft.

Well, there's always Cthullu

He sees you.

Re:Storing your documents OFFLINE

[UnderLoK]

Like you have any financial documents... What do you keep track of your allowance?

Re:Storing your documents OFFLINE

[mick88]

I laughed so hard when I read this. Thanks man, that was awesome.

Re:Storing your documents OFFLINE

[colinrichardday]

But even if he doesn't have any financial documents, that still leaves the question: Should a company store its financial documents in a 3rd-party cloud?

Re:Storing your documents OFFLINE

[syousef]

Like you have any financial documents... What do you keep track of your allowance?

I wish the Australian tax office shared your attitude.

Re:Storing your documents OFFLINE

[Blakey Rat]

Yes, Microsoft is obviously the first company to think of this concept. Make sure you assign all blame to them and not, for example, to Google.

Re:Storing your documents OFFLINE

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, how many companies actually have better data center security than microsoft? Who would you trust more to protect YOUR data? Microsoft or a fast food/gas/coffee/clothing/whatever chain? If you worked at one of those companies and had an old centralized datacenter with poor power, etc, would you trust your servers more than a multi-location hosted environment? So in most cases, I'd think it'd make a lot of sense to let the day-to-day operations be hosted. If you've got some big IP investment in something incredible, that's probably the one case where I'd keep things a little closer to home.

Re:Storing your documents OFFLINE

[colinrichardday]

Why would Microsoft be particularly secure? I also guess that it matters whether you mean protecting the data from loss, or protecting it from unauthorized access.

Re:Storing your documents OFFLINE

[syousef]

Who would you trust more to protect YOUR data?

Myself!

Re:Storing your documents OFFLINE

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't even think about playing that card again until you've at least learnt how to spell. Christ, that's lame.

I for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome our self-foot-shooting overlords.

Microsoft Office Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Dedicated server in my house + cable internet + VNC + existing copy of microsoft office = Microsoft Office Online.

But, as any PHB will tell you...

[John Hasler]

..."You get what you pay for."

Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK THAT!

Even if i ran a multi-billion dollar company, i still wouldn't pay this.

What is it with stupidly high prices for such things? There is no fucking way in hell that any piece of software is worth that much, ever, even if it was coded by the "almighty God" himself. I'd rather print the sale page and use it as toilet paper.

Sad thing is some people will actually PAY for bullshit like this.

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[UnderLoK]

"People" don't pay it, businesses do. It just shows how clueless you are about software costs in the Enterprise. I guess you just assume that since you can download a copy of XP or Vista Enterprise off of a torrent it must be "cheap". Check into pricing for ANY of the major Enterprise apps, 41,000 for all of the CALs isn't shit.

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[Runaway1956]

Grandparent is clueless? I don't think so. PEOPLE pay for Enterprise. All those costs are passed on to consumers. ALL of them. Those corporations that don't market to consumers pass THEIR costs on to other businesses and/or governments, who in turn, pass those very same costs on to consumers/taxpayers.

So - who is clueless here? It costs ME, and it costs YOU when the idiot managers around the globe to decide that one stupid workstation is worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[UnderLoK]

If you think for one second that if a major company was to switch to OSS the savings would be passed onto you, you are wrong. Also keep in mind that the same things you cite as costing YOU money provide jobs and the money YOU spend provides yet even more jobs. That's how the world turns "my friend" (couldn't resist haha).

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[SilverHatHacker]

'Enterprise' pricing is a POS anyway. I've seen cases where they don't even give you extra support, just a triple price tag. Whoever came up with the idea of charging extra money to a business just cause they have a bigger checkbook is an idiot.
Wait. Scratch that. He's a rich idiot.
What they should do is offer the software/product to everyone for the same price and let you add support on later if you want it. If you already have a competent IT staff, why should you be forced to pay MSFT to hover over your shoulder?

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[mick88]

Hey dude - people only pay for MS licensing if it makes business sense. I can assure you that if there were some better, cheaper alternative - companies would use it. A corporation's job is to make money, period. If there's a way for a business to make more money & it involved never buying another piece of software from MS, they would.

Corporations don't love Microsoft, they don't love paying for stuff. But in a market-based economy, people and corporations are willing to pay for something that adds value.

So either everyone who buys software from Microsoft is stupid, or maybe you just are missing a few pieces to the puzzle.

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, SORRY Mr Pedant.
Also, blah blah people run businesses, costs passed on to you.

It is still a terrible price, regardless.
All this "Enterprise" tier pricing is a fucking joke, in every sense of the word.
You can bet people who create such things are sitting behind the computer tapping their fingers in sequence and laughing manically at all the people who actually pay for it.
YES, PEOPLE. Businesses, despite what you appear to think, aren't some alien thing, they aren't run by robots, they are run by humans, quite often very stupid humans.

You are seriously defending the pricing for this? Christ man, why don't you just suck on Microsofts metaphorical cock while you are at it?
I can quite easily open a web browser, point it to many of the FREE services that replicate this and get about my daily business.

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[markdavis]

> Hey dude - people only pay for MS licensing if it makes business sense.

Sorry, I disagree with that.

Many businesses just buy right into the MS product line, purchasing whatever products they sell that MIGHT be useful, without EVER looking at any competing products... and especially not FOSS.

And there are plenty of businesses that pay for MS licensing for things THEY DON'T EVEN USE!

Most corporations could save lots of money if they only purchased licenses for what they really needed and used FOSS products where appropriate.

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[Runaway1956]

"people only pay for MS licensing if it makes business sense"

*cough* And, investors only invest where their money will grow - it only makes business sense. *cough*

Perhaps you have noticed something they are calling an "economic meltdown"? All those kids we sent to college to learn how to run things aren't all that smart after all, are they?

Allow me to assert quite plainly here - IT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL. If all of my neighbors agree that the earth is flat, the earth doesn't become flat because of their belief. Paying tens of thousands of dollars for licenses to use some software in accordance with MS (or anyone else's) wishes makes no cents at all. Idiocy, no matter how many degrees on holds.

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[armanox]

I wouldn't call him an idiot, even a rich idiot. I'd say he was pretty damn smart. It is the people giving him money that are the idiots.

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[Blakey Rat]

The $41k in CALs is cheaper than the additional $60k you'd have to pay to hire an experienced Linux admin instead of an ActiveDirectory admin. That's assuming you *could* find an experienced Linux admin in less than, say, six months of looking.

Measure *all* the costs.

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[Runaway1956]

Whoa. Just whoa. Please. Allow me to figure this new math thing out here. We have an enterprise, with, oh, let's assume 1000 seats. The assertion is, each seat can cost $41k. 1000 x 41,000 = 41000000 Way back in the 1960's, when I learned math, 41,000,000 != 60,000. For 41 million dollars, I think most enterprise could hire an entire DEPARTMENT of support staff. In fact, they could hire 410 individuals @ $100,000 each, which would mean that each of the staff would only be responsible for about 2.5 machines. That's a lot of one-on-one support time, isn't it?

Hey, if some company decides that they want to switch over to open source, to save that much money, they can start ahead of time getting people certified on whichever system they have chosen. Investing only 2 million dollars a year in scholarships can get them a LOT of trained personnel in just a year of six. 2 million dollars worth of scholarships each year for twenty years is still less than one year's licensing for their current systems.

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[im_thatoneguy]

$40 per user for access to Corporate Webmail. Corporate Outlook. Sharepoint and everything else is unreasonable to you?

If you added up all our monthly costs per user for software licenses we would be spending well in excess of $150 per user. And this isn't going to be an additional CAL license. I assume this'll just be included with the current CAL you already have so for most corporations they won't be paying anything more than they already do for Outlook access and their domain controller.

Re:Ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I'm just confused about your argument. Each seat can cost $41k? TFS says "with CALs for $41K." That means they're included. Alternatively you can pay $4k and add additional CALs.

Methinks your 1960's logic is off.

go open source

[compgeek83]

sadly there are hundreds of thousands of companies in the US and abroad stuck in MSHell paying these high fees to use MS software.

Hidden?

[UnderLoK]

You need SharePoint to do that now... This guy obviously is out of the loop. Also the last time I checked while a business CAN use Google Docs, that isn't the business solution. Sounds like a troll report, nothing else.

Run away!

[dweinst]

Oh my gosh - it's made of....

PEOPLE!!!!!!!

Source?

[jamesl]

And the source of this important information on pricing of an unreleased product?
A Microsoft spokesperson told me ...

Microsoft spokespersons with the knowledge and authority to speak about such things have a name and title.

Re:Source?

[TDyl]

Yes, but this is a family forum isn't it?

Google charges too, for corporate Docs accounts

[themeparkphoto]

Google has paid services too with similar pricing models. While there is a free "Google for domains" that gives you docs, etc, on your domain, there are additional paid tiers of support.

Re:Google charges too, for corporate Docs accounts

[UnderLoK]

Exactly, the OP is a clueless kid.

Same with academia

[witch-doktor]

People still use Matlab, even though the combination on Python and matplotlib does just fine. People could use LyX, but they use MS word. It can't be usability, its not the number of bugs. I think its just inertia. Also, in academia, the lab pays for a copy and then it gets shared onto individual machines (even though the licensing may not allow that). So most academics are technically violating terms of use. But if you don't pay for it, you don't worry about it. But really, its coming out of our taxes, right?

Re:Same with academia

[maxume]

Of course much of it is inertia, but the license fees for Windows and Office in even a semi-professional setting are not 'high'. Say that the average license refresh cycle is 3 years (this is not absurd, in either direction). In that time period, the other salary and overhead for a cheap individual is going to exceed $150,000, so the (perhaps as much as but probably less than) $1,500 for software licensing is not a huge increase.

$500 a year of savings is still $500 of savings, but it sets a pretty low bar for how disruptive something can be and still be worth it.

Re:Same with academia

[witch-doktor]

That's very true about the relation between personnel and software costs. But I prefer to compare software with equipment costs and these points bug me

1. A Matlab single user license with several toolboxes came to $2000 (in 2004).
2. If several people use a single user license it technically is illegal, but this is common in labs.
3. If you have a multi user license through a department the license server can ruin your day if it goes down, or the network acts up, or too many people log on
4. A licensed copy of Office for everyone in the lab?
5. A licensed copy of Acrobat for everyone?
6. A licensed copy of Illustrator for everyone?

It all starts to add up. If you are willing to be elastic on ethics (multiple use of single user license, install dept. copies of word on personal laptop etc.) it really doesn't matter. But from a principles point of view, shouldn't academics, who strive to release information free for all (since a lot of work was done using tax payer money) be ethical and use open source software.

In a way, in the old days, academics wrote their own software, used it, shared it and it was a rising tide that lifted all boats. I think we should go back to that.

Sorry. I'll get off the soapbox and stop preaching to the choir now :)

Re:Same with academia

[maxume]

It certainly does add up (though, again, if you buy them as part of Adobe Creative Suite, Photoshop/Illustrator/Acrobat only cost about $500 a year (and that is keeping things updated)).

This line of reasoning is quite a bit less true for stuff like Matlab, but the fact that it gets used in industry (I guess Simulink is probably less replaceable than the plotting stuff) probably justifies an increase in academic spending (whether they should or not, students currently expect to learn things that are applicable to the work they will be doing; sure, experience in any system will translate, but why not use a system that is prevalent in industry?).

And I don't mean to suggest that people should not use open source software, I use it all the time, I'm just trying to get people to consider that $500 can appear very similar to $0 if the perceived value of the software is high enough.

Re:The word for Microsoft is infamous.

[UnderLoK]

The part you forgot to mention is that you saved it in .doc from OOO to begin with.

Re:The word for Microsoft is infamous.

[Techmeology]

Actually, I was sent some files a while ago which were exported from Office 2007 which refused to open in Office 2003 with Microsoft's compatibility program. The only way to open the file (I can't remember whether Office 2007 was just not available or whether the file had previously been opened and subsequently save, and then refused to open) was to use OpenOffice.org.

Holy

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. Direct from the company that brought us security holes. No thanks.

Leave it to Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave it to Microsoft to make a word processor where sharing your documents is an optional feature.

Details at Eleven

[thethibs]

Wow! Microsoft is selling its software! Be still my heart!

SharePoint as extension of Office

[Anonymous Coward]

The real name for SharePoint is Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. It's an online extension of the Office suite.

But Office is available for the Mac. So everything should work tickety-boo with Safari on OS X. Right?

Right?

Re:SharePoint as extension of Office

[armanox]

You missed the whole IE/ActiveX portion of his post, did you not?

Re:SharePoint as extension of Office

[Zontar The Mindless]

Miss the obvious sarcasm of the post to which you're responding, did you?

Well, of course its not free

[nurb432]

They have salaries to pay.

Glad to be off that treadmill

[HangingChad]

A Microsoft spokesperson told me that customers will need to buy a SharePoint server, which ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000 with all CALs included, if they want to share documents created using the online version of Office 2010."

I am so happy to be working in an office free of the MS strangle hold. CALs always struck me as the most insidious of their macabre licensing circus. First you pay for the software, then you pay again so people can use it. What a racket. For the $41,000 you're paying in CALs I can cover an employee salary for 8 months (that would be one of the lower level people).

We don't have any problems getting our work done at the office without Microsoft. We have corporate Gmail and use GoogleDocs, so far with zero problems. If we have super sekret corporate information we can't trust to Google, we can store them in the truecrypt file container. We can send out pdf's to clients and customers, everyone can read them and they format just fine.

Plus I really like that we don't have to fit either our business processes or development processes to MSFT models. It's a lot more open and a lot more productive. You don't realize how much time you spend dancing on Microsoft's string until you get away from them. And, as an extra bonus, I can blow your ROI and TCO numbers out of the water. Just about any metric you want to use. And I never have to make the painful choice between layoffs and new servers. We can upgrade on our schedule, patch on our schedule, work the way we want to. If we need more capacity, we just stand it up. If we don't need it we can turn it off and it's not wasted money sitting there doing nothing.

And it's not just a small office. If you set it up right, you could do the same thing with almost any size organization. The only consistent pain in the rear problem we have regularly are those damn webinar programs. GoToMeeting and crap like that. Many of those are Windows only. That's kind of annoying.

Re:Glad to be off that treadmill

[markdavis]

Hello, fellow non-MS-Windows site

>GoToMeeting and crap like that. Many of those are Windows only. That's kind of annoying.

Yeah, it is more than KIND OF annoying. Sometimes it is extremely annoying. Especially when 3/4 of those stupid webinars are nothing but some slide show that could have been done in plain HTML + Javascript, or Flash if they REALLY had to have something fancy.

And it is further annoying that sites like "GoToMeeting" base their whole product on things like VNC, which is FOSS and multiplatform in the first place!

You can still use OOo. And you can use MSO

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need Sharepoint, though.

That was his point...

All facts messed up here by the ignorant poster

[Anonymous Coward]

Outlook Web Access is free actually, provided you've bought Exchange.
WSS is a free when you have Windows server and this is all you need to share documents. You can buy MOSS (MS Office SharePoint Server) to get access to a lot more collaboration features, which is optional.

People stress over the dumbest things.

[Anonymous Coward]

I create and edit documents in Open Office which I have been doing for quite a long time now and I'm not the least bit worried about what Microsoft is up to. I have no problem with Microsoft making money, in fact I have not problem buying things but I'm not going to buy a 'reinvented/rehashed wheel' with a stupid price tag on it. I'm also not going to allow my documents to be locked up in someone's silly proprietary lock down simply because they are trying to corner a market.

OH NO!

[Philip K Dickhead]

A for-profit, closed-source and highly-profitable company is going to charge real dollars for corporations and businesses that use their software!

How dare they! What gives Microsoft the right to adapt their successful business model to Application as a Service?

When will this outrage stop!

Really now, people. If you want free beer, let Google steal your companies IP and private communications.

If you want a free puppy, go to town on OOo and whatnot. :-)

Personally, I LIKE the puppy option, but not everyone is Caesar, the dog-whisperer.

Re:OH NO!

[MindStalker]

I didn't say they couldn't or shouldn't charge real dollars, the online feature of office won't be nearly as popular if you have to buy an additional tool rather than just what comes with office. Even if the incorporated some DRM to make sure it was a legitimate copy. But if it just worked out of the box without requiring an additional service it would be used by more people and make office itself more popular than it already is.

The moving target

[westlake]

What's a good free sharepoint alternative, in a single package?

SharePoint is part of the MS Office system.

What you buy - or rent - from Microsoft is a sophisticated - scalable - turnkey solution for a business of any size.

If you want to be competitive, you have to see how well the parts fit together.

New Features in SharePoint 2010:

The Ribbon.

Ribbon icons will now allow users to check in and check out documents as they are viewing document libraries. Companies will be able to customize the ribbon and even remove it in favor of the older user interface found in SharePoint 2007.

Web edit.

Site owners can edit their sites almost as if they were typical Office documents. Other user-focused upgrades include the ability to use Office themes in SharePoint.

Business Connectivity

The Business Data Catalog, introduced in SharePoint 2007, gets a makeover and a new name in SharePoint 2010. Business Connectivity Services now gives users the ability to read and write to business databases. Users can create, read, update, delete, and query that data, even publishing it to Office, so that data published to SharePoint via Business Connectivity Services can do things like show up as a selectable list of data in a form document in Word.

Other user-focused features include the addition of the ability to read Visio documents in SharePoint, and an upgraded version of Microsoft Groove, now renamed SharePoint Workspace and given improved data synchronization capabilities.

IT

Managers get improved administrative capabilities with a dashboard that uses the ribbon interface; a set of tools to monitor server farm health and data performance and fix common problems; and usage reporting and logging. Developers get a new set of tools and capabilities like a developer dashboard for easier debugging and a new programming interface, as well as built-in support for Silverlight.

Platforms

SharePoint 2010 will support Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. However, it will not come in a 32-bit version, and will require Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005 or 2008 (64-bit only). It will also no longer support Internet Explorer 6.0.

Microsoft Begins Detailing SharePoint 2010 July 15

I know, I know, the prevailing opinion is that SharePoint sucks, but in my experience, companies that grab hold of SharePoint integration with Exchange and MS Office, would rather give up their children than that combo.
Where is the competition for that ENTIRE feature set, for a comparative amount of money? Exchange-Outlook-SharePoint, baby! {July 12]

The true cost is worse: you have to use Sharepoint

[argent]

I use Sharepoint at work, and... well, it's like what you'd expect if someone had a third-hand conversation about what a Wiki was like, wrote up a Powerpoint about it, translated into Portuguese using a dictionary written by someone who knew neither Portuguese or English, translated back using Babelfish, and given to a bunch of ex-mainframe programmers to implement.

It's ugly, cumbersome, even if you use IE (god help you if you're using Firefox or Safari). Using a Sharepoint server is going to knock 30% off your productivity right off the top. You're better off paying for Office licenses for everyone.

Re:The true cost is worse: you have to use Sharepo

[Bigjeff5]

That's cause it's not a Wiki.

It's only bad if your admin is shit. I'm assuming you set it up? ;)

Re:The true cost is worse: you have to use Sharepo

[argent]

That's cause it's not a Wiki.

Yeh, and Lotus Notes isn't a web page, but I can describe Lotus Notes as a web application if the web was based on database replication instead of HTTP and you understand the point of the analogy (well, I hope you do). Sharepoint is attempting to address the same problem space that a wiki does, and it's doing it from a completely wrong direction, and it's doing it with the wrong tools, with the goal of micromanaging things that shouldn't be micromanaged, and with a user interface whose main goal seems to have been rehabilitating IE6.

It's only bad if your admin is shit. I'm assuming you set it up? ;)

Hell no I didn't, I'm not crazy or sadistic.

I've seen Sharepoints set up by dozens of people, at multiple companies, and they always suck dirty swamp water through used oil filters. There are no words for just how bad Sharepoint is.

Is Microsoft *trying* to go out of business....

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Or just stupid? YOU Decide!

Re:Is Microsoft *trying* to go out of business....

[Zontar The Mindless]

No, it's banking on the stupidity of "decision makers", a strategy which appears to have worked quite successfully thus far.

$41,000 Unlimited ...

[hackus]

LOL

In a word, retarded.

Only a retard would spend that kind of dough on a Microsoft solution in this day and age of open source software.

Especially for Office Software.

Save your money and take the $41K and give it to your employees to augment Open Office to suit your business or reinvest it in your company.

-Hack

Re: Google charges too, for corporate Docs account

[Anonymous Coward]

ZOHO is a great alternative to GDocs and it integrates with KnowledgeTree, an open source document management system.
http://www.zoho.com and http://www.knowledgetree.com

A fool to think otherwise...

[FragInc]

Micro$oft + FREE = HAHA!