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

[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

[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

[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

[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: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.

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.

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.

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: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: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:Google charges too, for corporate Docs accounts

[UnderLoK]

Exactly, the OP is a clueless kid.

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.