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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."
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?
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.
"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.
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?
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.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
"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.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell